Abducted Japanese aid worker’s body found

KABUL, Afghanistan – The bullet-riddled body of an abducted Japanese aid worker was recovered Wednesday, the latest grim symbol of insurgents’ apparent determination to drive outside humanitarian groups from Afghanistan.

Afghan and Japanese authorities identified the slain man as Kazuya Ito, an engineer who was kidnapped by gunmen a day earlier in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul. He was the fourth foreign aid worker killed in the country in two weeks.

A Western soldier was killed Wednesday as well, the NATO-led coalition announced. The soldier, a German, was killed by a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan, the coalition said.

Ito, 31, worked for a Japanese aid organization called Peshawar-kai, meaning the Peshawar group. Based in Fukuoka, Japan, it is named for a city just across the border in Pakistan that is home to hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees.

Ito was working on agricultural development projects in a remote eastern area of Afghanistan, Japanese diplomats and colleagues said. According to authorities, gunmen stopped his car Tuesday near the eastern city of Jalalabad, which lies on the main road connecting the Afghan capital and the Pakistani frontier.

Eastern Afghanistan has become increasingly dangerous in recent months. NATO says that is due in part to the regrouping of insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal areas, which are used as a springboard for attacks inside Afghanistan. Ten French soldiers were killed earlier this month in an ambush east of Kabul that was blamed on an insurgent commander believed to be based across the border.