Police in western Afghanistan on Sunday were searching for two Italian soldiers missing for more than 24 hours, as gunmen ambushed a convoy in the country’s north, killing eight policemen and four civilians.Another Taliban attack in the south left 13 dead, three of them guards, officials added. Officials in Rome said they feared the two missing soldiers had been kidnapped. The Italian Defence Ministry said the missing soldiers had been out of contact with their command for several hours. “We think that they were kidnapped with two Afghans,” it said in a statement, quoted by Italy’s ANSA news agency.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, which includes a contingent of about 2,000 Italian soldiers, said it had no information about the incident. The two Italians had been travelling in a volatile part of western Herat province with an Afghan interpreter and an Afghan driver when they went missing on Saturday, police said.
But the Afghans returned to Herat city late Sunday and will be questioned on Monday, said the police chief in charge of criminal investigations for the region, Ali Khan Husseinzada. “We have not questioned them yet but we will summon them tomorrow to question them about the Italians,” he said, adding it was still unclear what had happened to the foreigners.
Intelligence reports said the four had left Herat city in two vehicles on Saturday and then abandoned one of the cars in the Azizabad area of Shindand district, Husseinzada said. “Then they drove in an unknown direction. Since then we’ve not heard of them,” he said. “Right now we’re searching for them. We’re looking into where they might have gone or if they’ve been kidnapped.”
Ten Taliban dead: Separately, Taliban militants active in the south of the country ambushed a fuel convoy on a key road in Farah province, police said. The attack sparked an hour of heavy fighting between the Afghan security guards escorting the convoy and the rebels, the head of the provincial intelligence gathering department, Juma Khan, told AFP.
Ten Taliban and three of the guards, from the US-based USPI Company, were killed, he said. The rebels captured three USPI guards and five others were wounded, he added. Around seven of the vehicles in the convoy were torched and an Afghan policeman was also hurt.
The attack took place near the area where the two Italian soldiers have been missing since Saturday.
12 Afghans dead: Meanwhile, eight policemen in the northeastern province of Badakshan were ambushed while they were travelling with four civilians in a minibus, provincial police chief General Aqa Noor Kendoz said, adding that all 12 were killed. “We don’t know who did this. We are investigating,” he said. Kendoz said personal enmity seemed unlikely and insurgents could have carried out the attack.