KABUL, Dec 15 (AFP) - A Turkish engineer taken hostage in Afghanistan was killed by kidnappers who had been cornered by police mounting a rescue operation, a senior official told AFP Wednesday.
The victim, who was working for US construction firm Louis Berger in eastern Kunar province, died as police closed in on the hostage-takers hours after his abduction on Tuesday, interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.
"After security forces cornered them, they released the driver and interpreter but killed ... the Turkish engineer," Mashal said.
The driver and interpreter were freed after midnight (1930 GMT) and the engineer`s body was found Wednesday morning after the kidnappers escaped. No arrests have been made, Mashal added.
The dead man was identified by Turkey`s ambassador in Afghanistan as Eyup Orel, the Anatolia news agency reported from Ankara.
The Turkish worker was the fourth foreigner to have been abducted in Afghanistan in seven weeks and the incident raises new fears of a wave of Iraq-style hostage-takings in the war-torn country.
Afghan authorities had launched a major operation to find the hostage and secure his release, with security forces and local tribal elders sealing roads in and out of the province, which borders Pakistan.
A security guard travelling with the engineer had also been killed, a foreign security source said.
An Afghan official said earlier that militants linked to the Hezb-i-Islami group led by fugitive former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were suspected of carrying out the kidnapping.
Insurgency-prone Kunar province is a notorious stronghold of Hezb-i-Islami militants.
Six Afghan civilians were injured Saturday in a bomb blast in the province while three days earlier another bomb wounded an adolescent and on October 16 five people were killed in a remote-controlled explosion.
The latest abduction follows the kidnapping in late October of three United Nations employees from a busy Kabul street, the first such incident in the capital.
Northern Irish Annetta Flanigan, Kosovan Shqipe Hebibi and Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan were held for nearly a month by suspected Islamic militants believed to be in league with a criminal gang but were freed on November 23.
The recent kidnappings have sparked worries that Afghanistan will see more by criminal gangs hoping to raise cash as well as militants aiming to halt the reconstruction of the country`s shattered infrastructure.
"Why not? It`s a money-maker and when it`s not a money-maker it stops reconstruction," said a western security source.
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.
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.
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.
12/15/2004 08:23 GMT - AFP