Americans not among aid workers kidnapped in Afghanistan, official says

Published November 20, 2014

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said Wednesday that U.S. citizens are not among the five foreign aid workers kidnapped by gunmen in the remote province of Badakhshan in northeast Afghanistan.

"To the best of our information at this point, no American citizens were involved in Badakhshan," Mark Thornburg, a U.S. Embassy official, told FoxNews.com.

The five aid workers included two foreign doctors and their three Afghan colleagues.

Abdul Maroof Rasikh, the spokesman for the governor of Badakhshan province, said it was unclear who kidnapped the five.

He said the kidnapping occurred on Tuesday as the group was traveling on horseback between Yaftal and Ragh districts about 56 miles from the provincial capital of Faizabad.

He says the five were employed by a nonprofit humanitarian organization. Neither the name of the organization nor the identities of the five abducted were released. Deputy Gov. Shams Ul Rahman Shams also confirmed the kidnapping.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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