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![Al-Shebab has said it will 'run after' the armed men who kidnapped the aid workers [AFP]](http://mwcnews.net/images/stories/Africa/A/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/Al-Shebab.jpg "Al-Shebab has said it will 'run after' the armed men who kidnapped the aid workers [AFP]") | | Al-Shebab has said it will 'run after' the armed men who kidnapped the aid workers [AFP] |
Three foreign aid workers have been kidnapped by armed Somali men in a raid on a Kenyan border town, according to an official and local Somali residents.
An unknown number of assailants entered the town early on Saturday and seized the three, residents in Mandera said. Resident Abdi Mohamed said: "I got up to gun shots, and it was over in a very short time. "There had been no resistance at all except from a guard whom they shot in the head. He is at the hospital now." "The authorities in Mandera [in Kenya] told us that those aid workers had been kidnapped. We're now going to run after them," Sheikh Osman, an al-Shabab official in the neighbouring district in Somalia, said. Al Shabab officials said the kidnappers were moving deeper inside the country and had been sighted in the Berdale district of the Bay region in south-central Somalia. Frequent kidnappings "We have confirmed from a driver on the road that the kidnappers' land cruiser is on the road nearby, and we are going to find it," said Ali Abdikadir, an al Shabab official. No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings. The aid organisation employing the workers has asked that its name and the nationalities of the hostages not be released. Kidnappings in the Horn of Africa nation are fairly common - usually of Somalis, sometimes of foreigners and increasingly of ship crews off the coast. They are a symptom of an 18-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.
Most foreigners kidnapped in Somalia have been released unharmed in the past after ransom payments have been made. French hostages Al-Shabab took possession on Friday of two French hostages seized at a Mogadishu hotel three days earlier. The men were working as security advisers to the government of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the Somali president. Al-Shabab was the armed wing of the Islamic Courts' Union, a group that controlled Mogadishu and much of the south in 2006 before being ousted by an Ethiopian offensive. Somalia's government and a 4,300-strong African Union force have been unable to take control of rebel strongholds in Mogadishu and other parts of the country despite international support and training.
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Tags: Somali attackers Al-Shebab
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