Italian aid worker abducted in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Four armed men dragged an Italian woman working for CARE International from her car in the center of Afghanistan's capital yesterday in a bold kidnapping that reinforced fears that militants or criminals are copying tactics used in Iraq.

The kidnapping followed warnings from security agencies that foreigners might be targeted in response to the arrest of a suspect in the kidnappings of three UN election workers last year.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction of aid worker Clementina Cantoni, 32, or demands for her release, said police and the agency's director, Paul Barker.

''Four men carrying Kalashnikovs bashed in the window of her car and took her away. They told the driver not to move or he would be shot," Barker said. The driver had just dropped a Canadian former CARE employee at a house in Kabul's downtown Shahr-e-Naw district when the kidnappers driving a sedan cut off the vehicle and abducted Cantoni at about 8:30 p.m., Barker said. The kidnappers then drove toward a nearby Christian cemetery, he said.

Afghan authorities, including President Hamid Karzai, were quickly alerted to the kidnapping after the Canadian woman made a panicked call to Barker, the director said. She made it safely into the house but heard the attackers banging on the car, he said.

The family of Cantoni, who worked on a project helping thousands of Afghan widows, has been notified, Barker said.

It was the second kidnapping of a CARE worker by suspected militants in recent months. Margaret Hassan, the British director of CARE International in Iraq, was kidnapped in Baghdad in October and believed killed, although no body was recovered. In Kabul, security forces sealed off main roads leading out of Kabul, said Jamil Khan, head of the criminal investigation department for the police.