Gunmen kidnap aid workers at airstrip

Gunmen stormed an airstrip near Dusamareb town in central Somalia yesterday and kidnapped foreign and local aid workers. They include two Kenyans, two French, a Bulgarian and a Belgian, a spokesman for the European Commission said in Brussels.

A resident said: "Heavily armed men with three battle-wagons and three small cars kidnapped the foreigners who landed a plane, and also some people waiting for them at the airstrip." Aid workers have been increasingly targeted this year for assassination and kidnap in Somalia, where Islamist insurgents are fighting the government and its Ethiopian military allies. Suspicion generally falls on clan militia and the insurgents. But the Islamists accuse President Abdullahi Yusuf's government of staging such attacks to blacken their name.

The French-based Action Contre La Faim charity, under contract to the EU Commission, said four of its people were taken. The pilots were believed to be from Kenya, and the French and Bulgarian hostages were said to be women.