Word: kabul
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...German woman was kidnapped in broad daylight today in Kabul, a month after two German engineers and their five Afghan colleagues were abducted in nearby Wardak province, and 23 South Korean Christian volunteers were seized from a bus by the Taliban in Ghazni, just 3 hours from the Afghan capital. This spate of kidnappings in and around the capital heralds an alarming trend for foreign nationals working in Afghanistan...
Christina Meier, who is said to be five months pregnant, was abducted in front of a bakery popular with foreigners; witnesses say they heard gunshots and saw the woman bundled into a blue Toyota Corolla by unidentified armed men. She is the first foreigner to be abducted in Kabul since Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni was seized in front of her compound in May of 2005. Cantoni was eventually released unharmed 24 days later; it is still unknown if a ransom was paid. Meier may not be so lucky. One of the German engineers was shot within a few days...
...dramatic rise in such abductions, few of which are ever reported in the media. "This is going to make news because it's a foreign woman who was kidnapped, but the reality is that it's a daily occurrence - not weekly, not monthly - for local nationals," says a Kabul-based businesswoman who asks to remain anonymous due to security fears. "Everyone who works in this town will have it happen one way or another, be it a kidnapping, a threat of kidnapping or a holdup," she adds, saying that in the past month there have been two kidnappings...
...target Afghan forces rather than NATO, knowing that the poorly prepared troops rarely drive armored vehicles and that they lack sufficient retaliatory firepower to mount a counteroffensive. The rising military death toll has made recruiting new soldiers even more difficult, says Colonel Karimullah, head of army recruiting in Kabul. "The boys themselves are not afraid," he says. "But it is their parents who make the decisions to let them join, and when they see all this on TV, they don't think it's worth...
...rate, the equivalent of going AWOL in the U.S., is an ongoing headache for both the American and Afghan commanders. After a grueling tour in eastern Afghanistan, Waris sent his men home for a month's holiday. Six weeks later, they were still trickling back to their base near Kabul. One soldier, already late by a week, had told friends he was afraid to return, for fear of the commander's anger. Waris had to promise he wouldn't punish the man before he would agree to come back. "What can I do?'' he asks. "We need these guys...