Kidnapped Japanese aid worker killed in Afghanistan
Japanese aid workers body returning home
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) — Police found the bullet-ridden body of a Japanese aid worker in Afghanistan on Wednesday, a day after he was kidnapped, as scores of rebels died in bloody clashes across the nation.
Kazuya Ito, 31, who had spent the past five years working in the war-torn country, was seized en route to his daily inspection of an irriga
More..tion project being built by his employer in eastern Afghanistan.
"We found the abducted Japanese man... He had been shot several times," Kuz Kunar district governor Malim Mashouq told AFP.
Ito's Afghan driver and translator recognized the body, Mashouq said. The driver had been abducted together with Ito and freed after several hours.
The governor for eastern Nangarhar province, Gul Agha Shairzai, said after the body's recovery that five terrorists had kidnapped Ito and that a 25-year-old suspect had been arrested.
"We started a massive search operation to rescue (him) but unfortunately the abductors killed him," Shairzai said.
Ito's corpse is to undergo an autopsy and the Japanese ambassador is heading to Jalalabad to receive the body, the governor said.
An official of the Peshawar-kai non-governmental group, which employed Ito, confirmed the killing, while another official who declined to be named said the Japanese man was shot twice in the leg and bled to death.
The Afghan interior ministry said police and hundreds of villagers had joined forces to look for Ito.
"Police closed the circle on abductors, that is why they left him there bleeding," the source who declined to be named said.
Ito, an agricultural specialist, was captured as he was beginning a daily visit to inspect an irrigation project in Kuz Kunar, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Jalalabad city.
The hardline Taliban militia, behind a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, said its men had taken Ito and that he was killed in clashes with security forces following them.
The Afghan interior ministry had said late Tuesday that Ito was freed. But Japan, which has been a leading donor to Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted, later said that statement was erroneous.
Japan pledged Wednesday to continue with its assistance despite the killing.
Ito's aid group was founded by Tetsu Nakamura, a Japanese doctor who has set up projects across Afghanistan and Pakistan for more than two decades and was an outspoken opponent of the 2001 US-led war that ended Taliban rule.
It was the latest in a string of deadly attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan, raising alarm about worsening instability.
Kidnappings have spiked, some carried out by the Taliban and others by criminal groups seeking ransom.
Ito's death was among dozens of casualties announced Wednesday following a series of clashes across Afghanistan.
A German soldier was killed and two of his colleagues injured in an attack on the outskirts of Kunduz in the north, NATO troops here and the German foreign minister in Berlin said.
Meanwhile, four Afghan police and about 90 Taliban-linked rebels died in other incidents in recent days, officials said.
The policemen died Tuesday when their vehicle was blown up while on patrol in central Ghazni province.
Officials also announced that coalition and Afghan troops had killed 30 rebels in southern Helmand province earlier this week.
There are about 70,000 international forces deployed under NATO and a separate US-led coalition in Afghanistan in an effort to help local forces repel the Islamic rebels.
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Added: Aug 30 2008 In: middle_east
By: bellava Premium 
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