Kidnapped reporter in Afghanistan says he is ok

KABUL, Oct 17 (Reuters) Kidnapped Italian journalist Gabriele Torsello says he is fine and being moved around by his abductors, a web site reported today.

PeaceReporter (www.peacereporter.net), which specialises in reports from conflicts, said Torsello had contacted a hospital run by Italian aid agency Emergency in Lashkar-Gah, capital of strife-racked Helmand province in the south.

Torsello spoke to the hospital's security adviser late yesterday night to say that he was alright and that his kidnappers had just moved him from one place to another.

One of the kidnappers also told the adviser they would make contact again soon, PeaceReporter said.

Torsello, a London-based photojournalist who is a Muslim, had met staff at the hospital before leaving for Kandahar city, capital of neighbouring Kandahar province, by bus last week.

He was kidnapped by five gunmen on Thursday after he left by bus from Lashkar-Gah.

Torsello was in the area -- a Taliban stronghold and the centre of opium trade in the world's main supplier of that commodity -- to report on the deaths of civilians and destruction of hospitals and homes by NATO forces in operations against the Taliban.

Soon before he left for Kandahar, he had been arrested by police near the governor's office on suspicion of being a Taliban guerrilla, PeaceReporter quoted a hospital worker as saying.

Police say his kidnappers are Taliban, but the Islamist group has denied any involvement, blaming criminals instead.

Southern Afghanistan, birthplace of the Taliban, is the most dangerous part of the country. This year is the bloodiest since a U S-led invasion toppled the Taliban government in 2001 and most of the violence has been in the south.

More than 3,000 people have died in fighting this year, including at least 500 Taliban fighters NATO says it killed in a two-week offensive called Operation Medusa last month in Kandahar.

REUTERS BDP HT1450