Gunmen kidnapped an Italian aid worker from the CARE International aid agency on May 16 in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The car the woman was traveling in was intercepted and blocked by another car.

The area of Kabul where the Italian was kidnapped has several guest houses and restaurants that are popular with foreigners. On May 8, a bomb attack in an Internet cafÃ© in the same area killed three people, including a U.N. worker from Myanmar.

Aid agencies operating in Kabul have warned to staff to keep a low profile in recent weeks following two unsuccessful kidnapping attempts. In April, an American man was forced into the trunk of a car by kidnappers but managed to jump out. In another incident, gunmen intercepted a car carrying foreigners but the driver escaped. A British adviser to the government was killed in a shooting near a U.N. guest house in March.

In October of last year, three U.N. workers were kidnapped in Kabul and held for 27 days before being released. The Afghan government said the October kidnapping was committed by a gang of criminals hired by a Taliban splinter faction that threatened to kill them unless Taliban prisoners were freed.

Taliban guerrillas have attacked and killed dozens of aid and election workers since launching an insurgency after they were forced from power by U.S.-led forces in 2001 for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden. But most of their attacks have been in rural areas of the country, particularly in the south and east.