Afghans captured kidnappers of German aid worker

KABUL, Aug 20 (Reuters) Afghan security forces captured four men today who kidnapped a female German aid worker at the weekend, a government spokesman said.

The men belonged to a criminal gang and authorities are investigating whether the group has more members, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told reporters.

No shots were fired during the pre-dawn raid on a house in the rundown area of Kabul where Christina Barbara Meier was held, he said.

Meier, who works for a Western aid agency, was seized by armed men from a restaurant in Kabul on Saturday. Her abduction was the first of a Westerner in the city in more than two years.

Hours before the raid to free her, she appeared in a video aired by a private television station to plead with Berlin to use all efforts to free her.

A bespectacled man who had his face covered said on the video the abductors belonged to a special network and demanded the release of the group's members held by the Afghan government in return for freeing the German woman.

Bashary said Afghan police last week also arrested the mastermind behind the killing of two German journalists last year in central Afghanistan. He declined to identify the man.

The abduction of Meier came nearly a month after Taliban guerrillas kidnapped more nearly 30 people, most of them foreigners from separate locations outside the capital.

The Taliban have killed two of the 23 South Korean hostages the militants seized southwest of Kabul and released two of the Koreans.

The group has also killed one of the two male German engineers it had seized.

The Taliban are still holding the other German and four of his Afghan colleagues and have demanded the withdrawal of Germany's troops from Afghanistan in return for the German's freedom. Berlin has refused to do so.

The rebels want the Afghan government to free their jailed comrades, but Kabul has rejected the demand.

A number of foreigners have been abducted by criminal gangs in Kabul in the past, but have been freed after an apparent ransom payment.

REUTERS NY KN1425