The deputy governor of Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Kunar has been kidnapped in neighboring Pakistan, officials said Sunday, an incident which could further strain relations between Islamabad and Kabul.
Muhammad Nabi Ahmadi arrived in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday for an appointment with a doctor, senior police official Muhamad Sajjad Khan.
“He was in the Dabgari neighborhood of the city when gunmen forced him into a vehicle and drove away,” he said.
An official from the Afghan consulate in Peshawar confirmed the incident on condition of anonymity.
No group has claimed responsibility.
The incident comes a more than a year after a former governor of Afghanistan’s Herat province was kidnapped at a tightly guarded market in Islamabad. He was freed in the northwestern city of Mardan two weeks later.
Relations between the two countries have soured because of Pakistan’s perceived support for Taliban insurgents trying to topple the Kabul government.
Peshawar, near the frontier with Afghanistan, has long been a center for militant activity in both countries. Smugglers and drug traffickers use the city as a transport hub.
Peshawar has borne the brunt of militant violence for years and was the scene of the country’s deadliest-ever terror attack, a Taliban assault on an army-run school in 2014 that left more than 150 people dead — most of them children.
Earlier this month the Pakistani military rescued a US-Canadian family in nearby Kurram tribal district. They had been abducted by militants in Afghanistan in 2012.

Source:AFP