Pakistani Gunmen Kidnap Polish Engineer, Kill Three Aides

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -- Gunmen kidnapped a Polish engineer in Pakistan after shooting dead his Pakistani driver, bodyguard, and translator, a senior police official said.

The engineer is an employee of the Polish oil company Geofizyka Krakow, the Polish Foreign Ministry said, and was visiting one of the company's sites near Attock city, about 65 kilometers west of the capital, Islamabad.

"The criminals came in white car at around 6:45 a.m. and first they killed his Pakistani assistants and then whisked him away to an unknown place," said police officer Kazim Ali.

Ali said it was not known if the kidnappers were criminals or Islamist militants.

Kidnap for ransom is relatively common in Pakistan though foreigners are not often targets.

Militants also occasionally take foreigners hostage.

Two Chinese telecommunications engineers were kidnapped in the northwest in late August and a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said the militants were holding the pair.

Afghanistan's top diplomat in Pakistan, Ambassador-designate Abdul Khaliq Farahi, was kidnapped this month in the northwestern city of Peshawar after gunmen ambushed his vehicle and killed his driver.

No one has claimed responsibility and Afghanistan on September 28 urged Pakistan to do more to find him.

"Afghanistan emphasizes that Pakistan's security authorities...should behave with sincerity and seriousness," Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta told a news conference in Kabul.

Spanta did not elaborate but said the Afghan government had not received a ransom demand.