Search for kidnapped UK aid worker

Tim Waite, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Kabul, said officials were working closely with all relevant local authorities and said the unnamed worker's family had been contacted.

The British aid worker and three Afghan colleagues were ambushed as they travelled in two vehicles in north-eastern Kunar province. Police fought a gun battle with the kidnappers near the attack site before the assailants fled, Kunar police chief Khalilullah Zaiyi said.

The international development professional for Development Alternatives Inc (DAI) was travelling in a convoy of two vehicles when insurgents attacked their party.

Kunar police chief Khalilullah Zaiyi said officers chased after the kidnappers and were engaged in a brief firefight before the men escaped.

American aid contractor DAI also has a London office.

Local tribal elders are believed to be assisting in the search for the missing people.

An attack was launched on DAI offices in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan, in July, in which a British private security guard was killed.

Shaun Sexton, a 29-year-old former member of the Parachute Regiment, worked for DAI's security sub-contractor, Edinburgh International. Three other security guards employed by the firm, two Afghans and one German, were also killed.

Last month, British aid worker Dr Karen Woo was shot dead with nine colleagues in Afghanistan. They were returning from delivering medical supplies to poor Afghans in remote mountain communities, in an expedition organised by Kabul-based Christian charity the International Assistance Mission.