海角大神

鈥� A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The Taliban reportedly claimed responsibility for Sunday's kidnapping of a British aid worker and three Afghan colleagues in Kunar Province in Afghanistan, and have proposed a prisoner exchange for the Pakistani woman sentenced to 86 years in prison in the United States last week.

The Taliban聽have made targeting aid workers part of their recent strategy. Some recent kidnappings have ended with negotiations and release, while other aid workers have been killed.

聽reports that a Taliban-connected news agency, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), said that a local Taliban commander in Kunar claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. The 聽requires a subscription, but according to the Telegraph the commander, Mohammad Osman, said he would exchange the British woman for Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist the US government says is connected to Al Qaeda.

鈥淲e are lucky that we abducted this British woman soon after the ruthless ruling by an American court on Aafia Siddiqui,鈥� he told AIP.

The Telegraph reports that the British government is in touch with the US about the report, although both governments have policies not to pay ransoms to kidnappers.

, meanwhile, reports that the Taliban have denied carrying out the kidnapping, and that a local official said local insurgents were responsible.

The kidnapping took place Sunday morning as the four were driving on a highway to visit a canal built by Development Alternatives, Inc., (DAI), a contractor for USAID in Afghanistan. 聽reports that the British aid worker, whose family has requested she remain anonymous, and one of the abducted Afghans were employees of DAI, while the other two Afghans were drivers. They were reportedly kidnapped after a gunfight, and moved into the mountains by their captors.

聽reports that local officials have created a council of elders to negotiate with the kidnappers. 聽reports that the woman is a doctor, and is said to have spent several years in Afghanistan.

Kidnappings and targeting of aid workers are not unusual in Afghanistan, and DAI workers have been targeted before. In July, four people working for DAI were killed by gunmen in Kunduz Province. According to The New York Times, there have been three kidnappings of aid workers this year in Kunar alone. All of those abducted were released after negotiations, according to the Times. Last month, the Taliban killed 10 people working for a 海角大神 medical team in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban accused the team of proselytizing, which their organization denied.

海角大神聽reported that the killings fit with a new Taliban tactic to target Western civilian workers, and particularly 海角大神s, as foreign invaders.

"There has been a rise in politically motivated attacks" against aid workers, according to a 2008 roundup of aid worker deaths by , a Web consortium of social justice groups. "Many rebel and insurgent groups no longer see humanitarian workers as neutral or independent." After killing four aid workers in 2008, the Taliban issued a statement saying their group was working for "foreign invader forces," according to Change.org.

The news of the abduction comes as the US announced it has begun an offensive to take the southern province of Kandahar from Taliban control, and as Afghanistan聽is recounting ballots from last week鈥檚 parliamentary elections amid accusations of widespread fraud.