Visiting Afghan official abducted

Nabi Ahmadi arrived in Peshawar on Friday for an appointment with a doctor

The deputy governor of Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Kunar has been kidnapped in neighbouring Pakistan, officials said yesterday, in an incident that could further strain relations between Islamabad and Kabul.

Mohammad Nabi Ahmadi arrived in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday for an appointment with a doctor, senior police official Muhamad Sajjad Khan said. “He was in the Dabgari neighbourhood of the city when gunmen forced him into a vehicle and drove away,” he said.

An official from the Afghan consulate in Peshawar confirmed the incident on condition of anonymity. No group has claimed responsibility.

The incident comes more than a year after a former governor of Afghanistan’s Herat province was kidnapped in a tightly guarded market in Islamabad. He was freed in the northwestern city of Mardan two weeks later.

Relations between the two countries have soured because of Pakistan’s perceived support for Taliban insurgents trying to topple the Kabul government.

Hub for smuggling

Peshawar, near the frontier with Afghanistan, has long been a centre for militant activity in both countries. Smugglers and drug traffickers use the city as a transport hub.

Peshawar has borne the brunt of militant violence for years and was the scene of the country’s deadliest-ever terror attack, a Taliban assault on an army-run school in 2014 that left more than 150 people dead — most of them children.

Earlier this month, the Pakistani military rescued a USCanadian family in nearby Kurram tribal district. They had been abducted by militants in Afghanistan in 2012.