KABUL, Aug 18: Afghan authorities were grappling with a third hostage crisis involving foreigners on Saturday after a German woman was abducted by armed men in Kabul, officials and witnesses said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the woman’s abduction, which one local police source said was the work of a criminal gang—not the Taliban militants holding 19 South Korean aid workers and a German engineer elsewhere. Members of the hardline militia have also kidnapped four Afghan engineers working on a bridge project in the south of the central Asian country.

Afghan officials confirmed the abduction of the German woman, but gave little details.

“Today at 1:30 in the afternoon, a German woman was abducted by unknown armed men in an alley,” interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.

Police had cordoned off the area and were searching for the gunmen and their captive, said Bashary and police. A police official said the woman was having lunch with a male companion at a pizza parlour in western Kabul when four men with pistols entered and forced her into their vehicle.—AFP