FACTBOX-Foreign hostages in Afghanistan
Source: Reuters
Nov 3 (Reuters) - Gabriele Torsello, an Italian photojournalist kidnapped in Afghanistan last month, was released on Friday, government officials and aid workers said. Following is a short chronology of some reported foreign kidnappings in Afghanistan. November 2003 - Turkish engineer Hassan Onal is released by Taliban kidnappers after a month in captivity. Onal was seized from a U.S.-funded highway project on Oct. 30. December 2003 - Two Indians, kidnapped while working on a U.S.-funded road project, are released unharmed. March 2004 - One Turk is shot and a second kidnapped in an attack in southern Afghanistan. They had been working on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. The kidnapped Turk was later released. November 2004 - United Nations workers Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo and Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan are freed almost four weeks after they were abducted at gunpoint in Kabul. A Taliban splinter faction, Jaish-e Muslimeen (Army of Muslims), claimed to have held them. December 2004 - A Turkish engineer working on a road-building project between Jalalabad and Kunar is kidnapped. The Interior Ministry later said the body of a kidnapped Turkish construction engineer had been found in eastern Afghanistan. May 2005 - Clementina Cantoni, an Italian working for the CARE International aid agency, seized by gunmen in Kabul. She was released unharmed after more than three weeks. August 2005 - David Addison, a British engineer, was kidnapped when gunmen attacked a convoy in the western province of Farah and killed three police escorts. Addison's body was found on Sept. 3. Taliban rebels said they killed him. November 2005 - Taliban guerrillas kidnap P.M. Kutty, an engineer with India's state-run Border Road Organisation, in the Khash Rod district of Nimroz province. He was killed on Nov. 22. March 2006 - Taliban insurgents say they had killed four hostages and dumped their bodies in the Kandahar-Helmand area in southern Afghanistan. The four were abducted on March 11. An official at the Ecolog services company in Kabul said four of its workers, ethnic Albanians from Macedonia had gone missing. April 2006 - An Indian engineer, identified as K. Suryanarayan, was found beheaded on April 30 not far from where he was kidnapped two days earlier near the main road between Qalat, the Zabul provincial capital, and Ghazni to the north, The Taliban claimed responsibility. October 2006 - Gabriele Torsello, a London-based photojournalist who is a Muslim, was kidnapped on Oct. 12 by five gunmen after he left by bus from Lashkar-Gah, capital of troubled Helmand province in the south. He is released unharmed on Nov. 3.
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