by From the Houston Chronicle:
Gunmen kidnapped a burqa-clad American aid worker and her driver while they were traveling through southern Afghanistan early today, a provincial governor said.
The two were stopped by gunmen outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, said Gov. Asadullah Khalid. He blamed the kidnappings on the "enemy of Islam and the enemy of Afghanistan."
More proof that Afghanistan has not yet been stabilized, as if we needed any.
Earlier this week Hamid Karzai said that American and British forces were making Afghanistan less secure. While this is a dubious assertion – I don’t think that anyone has particular faith in Afghan police or troops – it certainly goes to the point that the U.S. took it’s eye off the ball in that country to focus on Iraq, a well-documented mistake.
Khalid said the 49-year-old American was wearing a burqa when she was taken. She worked for the aid agency Asian Rural Life Development Foundation, he said.
…
Projects run by the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation are located around the city of Kandahar and include food for work, irrigation rehabilitation, health care and restoration projects, according to the group’s Web site.
These projects are the last thing the Taliban, al Qaeda, and their ilk – as well as the drug growers known to be in the area – want to see come to fruition. People who can provide for themselves have no need of authoritarian or criminal masters such as these.
Let’s pray that this brave woman is not harmed by her kidnappers.
