KABUL, Dec 14 (AFP) - Militants kidnapped a Turkish engineer in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday after killing an Afghan security guard who was travelling with him, a government official and Western security sources said.
The engineer's Afghan driver and interpreter were missing after the attack, they said.
"I confirm that one Turkish engineer has been kidnapped in Kunar province today," said General Abdul Jalil Junbish, director of the government's counter-terrorism office.
"Our police have already been searching for him. We are trying to locate him by any means," he said.
A foreign security source told AFP that the engineer's driver and interpreter were missing and a security guard travelling with them had been killed.
The abduction occurred in Chawki village some 180 kilometres (70 miles) northeast of the capital Kabul, a separate Western source said.
Afghan officials could not be reached to confirm that the guard had been killed and two other Afghans were missing.
Authorities did not give details about the identity and age of the engineer or which project he had been working on. They said they did not know which militant group was behind the kidnapping.
"We are trying to confirm this information with the Afghan government," Kamal Dodan, secretary for the Turkish ambassador in Afghanistan, told AFP by telephone.
Three employees of the United Nations were released last month after being held for about a month by Islamic militants.
Northern Irish Annetta Flanigan, Kosovan Shqipe Hebibi and Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan were snatched in broad daylight in Kabul in October in the first hostage-taking in the capital.
Pakistan authorities said at the weekend they had arrested the militant leader alleged to have masterminded the kidnappings, Syed Mohammad Akbar Agha.
Four Turkish and two Indian engineers were kidnapped between October 2003 and March 2004 in three separate hostage-takings by suspected militants loyal to the hardline Taliban regime ousted in late 2001 in a US-led campaign.
The six engineers were working on the reconstruction of road linking the Afghan capital with the country's biggest southern city and former Taliban stronghold, Kandahar.
One of the Turkish engineers was killed while the three others were released about a month after they were kidnapped. The two Indians were also released. The recent kidnappings have raised fears of Iraq-style abductions in Afghanistan, where scores of people, mainly truck drivers, have been kidnapped and some killed.
Eastern Kunar province, which borders Pakistan, has been hit by an insurgency in recent months but this is the first known hostage-taking in the province.
Six Afghan civilians injured at the weekend in a bomb blast in the province.
There are fears that Taliban-led militants hounded by US and Afghan security forces in their strongholds in southern and southeastern Afghanistan have begun to move into parts of Afghanistan's east and west which were previously thought to be quiet.
Militants have stepped up their attacks on aid and reconstruction workers, civilians and troops in Afghanistan in recent months. Twenty-three aid workers have been killed in the country so far this year, compared with 13 last year.
12/14/2004 18:14 GMT - AFP