Militants Abduct 30 Afghanis

Local Editor

Masked gunmen abducted 30 Shiite Muslim men who were travelling by bus through southern Afghanistan.

The men who were members of the minority Hazara group were seized in Zabul province on the road between the western city of Herat and the capital Kabul.

Hazara Shiite Muslims were often the target of sectarian violence at the hands of extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

An official with the Ghazni Paima bus company, Nasir Ahmad stated, "Our driver saw a group of masked men in Afghan army uniform signaling him and he thought they were soldiers so he stopped".
"The gunmen took 30 Hazaras away with them," he added.

Ahmad mentioned that the kidnappers took only the men on the two buses and not the women and children travelling with them.
However, no one immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction, but kidnappings for ransom by bandits, local militias and Taliban insurgents were common in Afghanistan.

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said police were "doing everything to ensure their safe release".
Nearly 200 Hazara Shiites were martyred in early 2013 in two major attacks in the Pakistani city of Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province which borders southern Afghanistan.

US-led NATO forces ended their combat mission in Afghanistan in late December after more than a decade fighting the Taliban, having failed fully to quell their insurgency.
Nonetheless, civilian casualties rose sharply last year as local forces took on the task of battling the militants, with 22 percent more killed or wounded in conflict than in 2013.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team