AFP, Kabul :
Masked gunmen have abducted 30 Shiite Muslim men who were travelling by bus through southern Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday.
The men, members of the minority Hazara ethnic group, were seized on Monday evening in Zabul province, on the road between the western city of Herat and the capital Kabul.
Hazara Shiite Muslims are often the target of sectarian violence at the hands of Sunni Muslim extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“Our driver saw a group of masked men in Afghan army uniform signalling him and he thought they were soldiers so he stopped,” Nasir Ahmad, an official with the Ghazni Paima bus company, told AFP.
“The gunmen took 30 Hazaras away with them.”
Ahmad said the kidnappers took only the men on the two buses and not the women and children travelling with them.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction, but kidnappings for ransom by bandits, local militias and Taliban insurgents are common in Afghanistan
Masked gunmen have abducted 30 Shiite Muslim men who were travelling by bus through southern Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday.
The men, members of the minority Hazara ethnic group, were seized on Monday evening in Zabul province, on the road between the western city of Herat and the capital Kabul.
Hazara Shiite Muslims are often the target of sectarian violence at the hands of Sunni Muslim extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“Our driver saw a group of masked men in Afghan army uniform signalling him and he thought they were soldiers so he stopped,” Nasir Ahmad, an official with the Ghazni Paima bus company, told AFP.
“The gunmen took 30 Hazaras away with them.”
Ahmad said the kidnappers took only the men on the two buses and not the women and children travelling with them.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction, but kidnappings for ransom by bandits, local militias and Taliban insurgents are common in Afghanistan
