Kabul, Sep 27 (DPA) Two NATO soldiers were killed and two were wounded in an attack on their patrol base in southern Afghanistan while two foreign and two Afghan workers with the International Committee of the Red Cross were abducted in central Afghanistan, NATO forces and Afghan officials said Thursday.
A brief statement from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the four casualties occurred Wednesday but did not give details on where the attack took place or the nationality of those killed.
However, the Royal Danish Army said Thursday from Copenhagen that two of its soldiers, ages 22 and 24, were killed and one injured in confrontations with Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan.
The Taliban attacked the Danish soldiers and a firefight ensued, lasting several hours in Helmand province, the Danish Army said.
The head of its operational command said that Danish forces would remain in Afghanistan despite the casualties.
“The mission is very important,” Major General Poul Kiaerschou told Danish radio. “Unless it is carried out, we will get an Afghanistan without any control.”
Local governmental officials said two foreign and two Afghan workers of the ICRC were kidnapped Wednesday evening in Saidabad district of Maidan Wardak province, just west of Kabul.
The chief of Saidabad district, Enayatullah Mangal, said the four were kidnapped late Wednesday from the Sandor area close to the Kabul-Kandahar main highway by unidentified gunmen. He said they were searching now to find the kidnapped people.
Mangal said the ICRC staff were on the way from Jaghato district to Kabul without any security escort when they were snatched.
The chief of Jaghato district, Naeem Khan, said the ICRC team was in his area for talks with kidnappers of a German hostage who has been in Taliban captivity since July. He said the Red Cross negotiators were returning to Kabul after failed talks when gunmen took them from the road.
“It was too late when they left for Kabul. We told them to have a security escort with them because it was a very dangerous way,” Naeem Khan said.
The Red Cross did not have an immediate comment.
Kidnappings of foreign nationals have increased in recent months in Afghanistan. A German engineer, 62, was kidnapped with five Afghans in mid-July, also in Wardak. He and four of the Afghans are still in captivity.
A day later, 23 Christian aid workers from South Korea were abducted in neighbouring Ghazni province. Two were killed while the remaining 21 were freed last month.
In other developments, a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car in Thursday in eastern Afghanistan before reaching a police convoy.
The botched attack occurred in Nangarhar province in Batikot district on the Jalalabad-Torkham highway, provincial police spokesman Abdul Ghafoor said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and said it targeted the police but did not give details.
On Wednesday, more than 170 Taliban insurgents were killed in Helmand and the south-central province of Uruzgan, military officials said.
Clashes between Taliban-led rebels and Afghan government and international forces have intensified in the past several weeks. More than 4,400 people – most of them insurgents – have been killed in the violence so far this year.