Taliban abduct three health workers

A Taliban religious council will decide on the fate of the three who were kidnapped in Nuristan province Saturday because they worked for the government, a Taliban spokesman said.

There have been a host of similar abductions of people allied with the government and many of them have been killed.

Provincial health director Hazrat Khan and the two others were snatched after returning from the inauguration of a clinic in Kamdish district bordering Pakistan, district police chief Taj Gull said.

He said one of the health workers was employed by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, a non-governmental organisation working mainly in the fields of education, health and disability.

The group could not immediately be reached for confirmation.

A purported spokesman for the extremist Taliban movement, Mohammad Hanif, said the group was responsible.

"We abducted them since they were working for the government and were loyal to government," he said by satellite phone from an undisclosed place.

"They have been taken to secret location. The Taliban religious council will decide on their fate," Hanif said.

Nuristan province has seen relatively few of the Taliban attacks that occur almost daily in southern and southeastern Afghanistan as the hardline movement tries to claw its way back into government, from which it was removed in 2001.

But four US soldiers were killed and one was wounded in clashes with militants in Kamdish on June 21.