Pray for Cyd she is a friend
The abduction on Saturday of a female US aid worker in one of Afghanistan's most
dangerous cities may signal increased risk for foreign aid workers.
Kidnappings of Americans have been rare, and some Kandahar residents say the
abduction of Cyd Mizell and her Afghan driver at gunpoint is a worrying development.
Sarah Chayes, a former journalist who now runs an Afghan cooperative that exports
soap, says the incident "sends a signal. It's like a new chapter in a book."
"They haven't taken an American or a Canadian on the streets like this before. I don't
think this was just bandits because the operation looks like it was too sophisticated for
that."
Ms. Chayes suggests that the abduction could have been payback for US policy on
President Pervez Musharraf.
Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban movement, has been rocked by the
neo-Taliban insurgency that has gained strength in the past three years. The
deterioration of law and order has also made the city considerably more dangerous
for foreign visitors and Afghans alike.
The most recent abduction case involved four members of the International Committee
of the Red Cross in the eastern province of Wardak in September. The two Afghans, a Macedonian, and a Burmese citizen were freed three days later. Perhaps the most
notorious case of 2007 was the abduction of 23 Christian aid workers from South Korea
who attempted to travel from Kabul to Kandahar by bus. Two hostages were shot to
death before the rest were released. An American civilian was briefly abducted in Kabul
in April 2005 but escaped by throwing himself from a moving car.
Analysts fear that terrorists and criminal gangs have been encouraged by the policy of
some foreign governments to pay ransoms.
The few foreigners who still live in the city of Kandahar often use heavy security,
including armed guards and armor-plated vehicles, whenever they ventured out of
their offices. Afghan officials say that Mizell had been wearing a burqa, an
all-encompassing body veil favoured by most Afghan women when they have to go out
of their homes.
Ms. Mizell worked for Asian Life Development Foundation, a little-known
nongovernmental organization . The group said she had been working in Kandahar for
nearly three years with women and on income generation projects.
A speaker of Pashtu, the main language of Afghanistan's south, she taught English at
Kandahar University and gave embroidery lessons at a girls' school.
In response to the abduction, local police increased their presence on the streets of
Kandahar over the weekend and the Ministry of the Interior said it was doing all it
could to find Ms. Mizell. Local police said that they had not been contacted by anyone
claiming responsibility for the kidnapping.
The Taliban have employed kidnapping as a tactic in their battle to erode popular
support for the government of President Hamid Karzai several times before.
Zabihullah Mujahed, the Taliban's main spokesman, said they did not know if anyone
affiliated with the extremist Sunni group had been responsible for the abduction.
