Gunmen seized two Italian aid workers and a colleague from a village in Somalia last night.
Village elder Ahmed Yunis said two men and and a woman were blindfolded before the fighters took them away from Awdhigle village in central Somalia.
He said the three worked for Italian aid organization Cooperazione Italiana Nord Sud, whose Web site says it engages mainly in development work and emergency relief. CINS is supported by the European Union, United Nations and USAID. Aid officials were not immediately available for comment.
The woman and one of the men are Italian and the second man is understood to be Somali.
Somali insurgents vowed to target foreign aid workers after a US missile strike killed a the head of the Islamist al-Shabab militia, Aden Hashi Ayro, and 24 other people earlier this month. Ayro was reputed to be the top al-Qaida commander in Somalia and was linked to a string of attacks on foreign aid workers and journalists.
Earlier this year, Doctors Without Borders withdrew its foreign staff from Somalia after two of them were kidnapped and three foreigners and a Somali were killed when their car hit a land mine. A German aid worker was also seized in February but released unharmed. A Briton and a Kenyan worker contracted to an aid agency remain missing.
Islamic insurgents have been battling the shaky transitional government since Ethiopian troops allied to a UN-backed Somali administration seized control of the capital of Mogadishu at the end of 2006. The Islamists had ruled the capital and much of the south for the previous six months.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and turned on each other. The conflict between the government and the Islamists is complicated by a web of clan loyalties and the involvement of archenemies Eritrea and Ethiopia, which use Somalia as a proxy battleground.