Japanese kidnapped in Afghanistan: reports

Assailants in Afghanistan abducted a Japanese man who was working for a non-governmental organisation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Assailants in Afghanistan on Tuesday abducted a Japanese man who was working for a non-governmental organisation, news reports said.

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He was snatched near the eastern city of Jalalabad where he worked for Peshawar-kai, a group that runs medical clinics in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Kyodo News said.

No one immediately answered the telephone at the head office of Peshawar-kai in the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka.

The Japanese government said it was looking into the reports.

"We have heard information about a kidnapping. There is a possibility but we are still checking," a foreign ministry official told AFP.

Japan has been a leading donor to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.