Afghans Find Body of Turk

KABUL, Afghanistan —  The body of a Turkish engineer was found Wednesday in eastern Afghanistan, a day after he was abducted with his driver and interpreter while working on a road construction project in the war-torn country.

Afghan government officials said a group of militants released the Afghan driver and interpreter shortly after midnight but killed their boss. Turkey’s semiofficial Anatolian news agency identified the victim as Eyup Orel, but Afghan authorities gave his name as Mohammed Eyub.

Police say Eyub’s body was found early in the morning in a mountainous region of Kunar province.

“Eyub’s captors hastily killed him after realizing that security officials had mobilized tribal elders and local police units to seal off roads and close in on them,” said Najibullah Najib, an Interior Ministry spokesman in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The killers escaped.

During the last two years, more than 30 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan. Militants have kidnapped at least four other Turkish engineers during that period, killing one and releasing the others.

Eyub, a contractor for the U.S. construction firm Louis Berger Group Inc., was working on a road linking the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar.

“We don’t know who did this, but we are considering it a terrorist act until we are certain that it isn’t,” said Fred Chace, head of operations for Louis Berger in Afghanistan.

Local officials believe that the slaying was the work of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

“These incidents are sheer terror, they are for the shock value, because if it was about money they would have kept Mr. Eyub alive and asked for ransom,” said Qari Amir Khan Liwal, Nangarhar’s deputy director of security.

Interior Ministry officials said no arrests had been made, and would not comment on the alleged involvement of the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

“All we know is that the group is heavily armed and against any kind of peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Najib said.

Kunar’s mountainous jungle terrain is a stronghold of the Hezb-i-Islami group led by former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is wanted by U.S. and Afghan authorities for allegedly plotting attacks on their forces.

The province, which has been hit by many roadside bomb attacks and explosions, has seen little of the country’s reconstruction efforts and aid. Six Afghan civilians were injured Saturday in a bomb blast in the province and five people were killed Oct. 15 by a bomb detonated by remote control.

The latest abduction came on the heels of the release of three United Nations election workers who were held captive for nearly a month. Their release on Nov. 22 calmed fears that Afghanistan’s rebuilding was starting to mirror Iraq’s violent insurgency.

Chace said rebuilding efforts would continue. “We will not let incidents like this stop our work in Afghanistan,” he said.