British woman kidnapped in Afghanistan

LONDON: A British woman and three of her Afghan colleagues have been kidnapped by armed men in a remote part of Afghanistan, an Afghan police chief said on Sunday.

The police chief for Kunar province, a rugged region bordering Pakistan, said they were seized while visiting an unspecified project in the area.

Khalilullah Ziayee described the abductors as armed men, saying a search was launched to find the group. The motive behind the kidnapping was not immediately clear, he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban earlier said he was unaware of the incident. In a brief statement Britain's Foreign Office confirmed it was urgently investigating reports a British citizen had gone missing in the country.

Kunar is an area held by the Taliban known for a series of foreign kidnappings in recent years.

The insurgents are holding two French journalists they seized last December to the northeast of Kabul.

In August, eight foreign medical workers and two Afghans were killed by unidentified gunmen in Badakhshan province in Afghanistan's remote northeast.