Afghan election officials ordered recounts Sunday in seven provinces after last week’s parliamentary elections, while security problems continued to plague the country with the kidnapping of four aid workers, including one British woman.
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The British aid worker and three Afghan colleagues were ambushed as they traveled in two vehicles in northeastern Kunar province. Police fought a gunbattle with the kidnappers near the ambush site before the assailants fled, Kunar police chief Khalilullah Zaiyi said.
Steven O’Connor, communications director for Development Alternatives Inc., a global consulting company based in the Washington, D.C., area, said late Sunday night that its employees, including a British national, were involved.
The company works on projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Afghanistan.
Britain’s Foreign Office in London said it could “confirm that a British national has been abducted in Afghanistan. We are working closely with all the relevant local authorities.”
The ministry said it had contacted the abducted person’s family, and was offering help. It also said that publication of the woman’s identity could put her at further risk.
Meanwhile, two NATO troops, whose nationalities were not announced, were killed in a bomb attack in the volatile south. NATO also said Sunday its forces had killed five insurgents in a multi-day clearing operation near the main southern city of Kandahar. Afghan and mostly U.S. forces have been readying a push to drive out militants from the Taliban stronghold.
According to a NATO statement Sunday, the militants fought back with rocket-propelled grenades, machine-gun and small-arms fire. It said no Afghan or coalition troops were killed in the operation.
The push in Kandahar is seen as key to the Obama administration’s strategy to turn around the nine-year war as insurgents undermine the ability of an Afghan government to rule much of the country.
President Hamid Karzai’s administration is also struggling to win public support amid widespread perceptions it is inept and corrupt.
The increasingly messy-looking election risks becoming another black mark against the government as allegations mount of misconduct and fraud. The charges — submitted by election observers and many of the 2,500 candidates vying for 249 seats in the national parliament — range from ballot-box stuffing, to people voting multiple times or using obviously fake cards, to children voting.
A government anti-fraud elections watchdog said Sunday that is has received more than 3,500 complaints of cheating or misconduct — about 57 percent of them serious enough that they could affect the outcome of a vote.
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