Kabul: Unknown assailants kidnapped a one-time Afghan presidential candidate and a relative of the late king near his home in the capital Kabul, police said today, in the latest in a spate of abductions.

Humayun Shah Asifi, who stood in the 2004 presidential elections won by Hamid Karzai, was snatched at gunpoint while returning home from a dinner late last night, deputy Kabul police chief Alishah Ahmadzai told AFP.

 There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction. "Asifi was returning from a dinner at about 11:00 pm (local time). As he was near his home, four armed men kidnapped him.

 His driver and one of his servants were with him when he was kidnapped," Ahmadzai said. It was not known who might have been behind the abduction but kidnapping of wealthy Afghans or their relatives, most often for ransom, is rife in Kabul and other cities amid weakening security since the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime.

The police chief blamed the abduction on "the cowards, the enemies of our country". Asifi, aged in his 60s, was a brother-in-law of former King Mohammed Zahir Shah who died last year.

Zahir Shah was overthrown in a 1973 coup. He studied law and political science at Dijon university in France and spent around 20 years in exile. He had retired from politics and had not intended to stand in presidential elections due next year, according to his brother Haroun Asifi.

Source : PTI