KABUL, Afghanistan — Gunmen in a small red car cut off a van carrying French aid workers Monday, kidnapping one and fatally shooting an Afghan who tried to thwart the abduction by grabbing an attacker’s machine gun.
The kidnapping adds to the increasing anxiety felt by the international community in the Afghan capital, which has seen a rise in abductions and targeted shootings of foreigners in the past month.
Three assailants, two of them armed, tried to kidnap two French citizens riding in a small van, but after a scuffle, the kidnappers grabbed one man, said Mohammad Daud Amin, a police commander.
The kidnapping took place as two French aid workers were being driven from a residence rented by the aid group ARFANE — Amiti De Franco-Afghane, or French-Afghan friendship — said Etienne Gille, AFRANE’s president.
“The car was blocked by another car that was driving the wrong way,” from which “an armed man emerged,” Gille told The Associated Press. AFRANE’s employee managed to escape, while another French aid worker was taken, he said.
The French Foreign Ministry said French officials in Paris and Kabul were working “to win the liberation of our compatriot as soon as possible.”
An Afghan man — identified by the Interior Ministry as an employee of the country’s intelligence service — saw the kidnapping and tried to intervene, witnesses said.
“He grabbed the machine gun of one of the kidnappers, who opened fire, burning his hand. After that, the kidnapper shot him three times in the chest,” said Mohammad Shafi, who owns a shop near the kidnapping site.
Gille declined to provide the name or organization for which the kidnapped man worked but said he was in his 30s. The man, a French national, had been in Afghanistan about a week, Gille said, adding he believed it was the man’s first time in the country.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said Taliban militants were not involved in the kidnapping.
Kidnappings by criminal groups in Afghanistan have spiked over the past year because of the lucrative ransoms that are paid to free hostages. Wealthy Afghans are typically targeted in the kidnappings, which are rarely reported in the media. But criminal groups have increasingly set their sights on Westerners in recent months.
Karin von Hippel, co-director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, said it may not be known for a while what the kidnappers’ motives are.
“If it’s criminal, it’s a negotiation, and you pay them off. If it’s Taliban, they kill the person,” she said.
Taliban militants also have traded Western hostages for jailed militants.
