Officials: German hostage in Afghanistan freed

Brazen abduction
In Saturday’s kidnapping, four men pulled up to a restaurant in a gray Toyota Corolla, and one went inside and asked to order a pizza, intelligence officials investigating the incident said.

They said two other men waited outside, while another remained in the car.

The man in the restaurant pulled out a pistol, walked up to a table where the couple was sitting and took her from the restaurant, the officials said on condition of anonymity due to agency policy.

Police spotted the speeding car and opened fire, but hit a nearby taxi and killed its driver.

The woman and her husband, also a German, have worked for the Christian organization Ora International in Kabul since September 2006, said Ulf Baumann, a spokesman for the group.

Baumann did not disclose the woman’s name or her husband’s. He said she was fluent in Dari.

Abduction fears have risen after 23 South Koreans and two Germans were taken hostage in separate incidents last month in central Afghanistan.

One of the German men was shot to death. The other remains in captivity.

Two of the South Koreans were shot to death, and two were freed. A Taliban spokesman said Saturday that negotiations for their release had failed.

In southern Afghanistan, a NATO soldier was killed escorting a convoy in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, while four Afghan security guards died in a suicide attack.

Violence has risen sharply during the last two months in Afghanistan. This year more than 3,700 people — most of them militants — have died, according to an Associated Press tally of casualty figures provided by Western and Afghan officials.

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