Japanese aid worker found dead as Afghan casualties rise

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) — Police found the bullet-ridden body of a Japanese aid worker in Afghanistan on Wednesday, a day after he was kidnapped, as scores of rebels died in bloody clashes across the nation.

Kazuya Ito, 31, who had spent the past five years working in the war-torn country, was seized en route to his daily inspection of an irrigation project being built by his employer in eastern Afghanistan.

"We found the abducted Japanese man... He had been shot several times," Kuz Kunar district governor Malim Mashouq told AFP.

Ito's Afghan driver and translator recognized the body, Mashouq said. The driver had been abducted together with Ito and freed after several hours.

The governor for eastern Nangarhar province, Gul Agha Shairzai, said...