AhlulBayt News Agency - Afghanistan’s Taliban claimed responsibility for taking 27 passengers hostage in the south of the country Tuesday in a latest incident of mass kidnapping.
The early morning abductions happened in restive Helmand province, where Afghan security forces have been battling the insurgents to reverse recent battlefield losses.
Heavily armed men stopped some 14 vehicles, including buses near the district of Gereshk and abducted dozens of passengers, said Abdul Ghafoor Tokhi, the head of the provincial transportation department.
He said that a majority of the abductees were later freed and allowed to resume their journey on the main highway, which links southern Kandahar and western Herat provinces. Tokhi said the exact number of hostages and their ethnicity was still not known.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, saying passengers with no links to government institutions or Afghan security forces were freed after initial investigation. He added, 27 hostages suspected of links to the Kabul regime were still in Taliban custody for further investigation.
“But if it is established that these men participated in [anti-Taliban] security operations by [foreign] invading forces or their enslaved [Kabul] regime they will be held accountable for their actions,” the spokesman warned.
This is the third mass kidnapping this month by the Taliban. The insurgents had abducted some 200 passengers on a highway in the northern Kunduz province in early June. While some are still with the Taliban, more than a dozen hostages were executed, prompting widespread condemnation locally and internationally.
In another incident in early June the Taliban abducted 17 passengers in northern Afghanistan. Those passengers were later released when local tribal elders intervened.
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