Islamabad's envoy in Tehran summoned to protest abduction

Peshawar: Gunmen abducted an Iranian diplomat in Peshawar, a day after a US aid worker was shot dead in the city on the front line of an Islamist insurgency sweeping northwest Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.

Iran's state radio quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi condemning the kidnapping as "a terrorist act", while Iran's Student News Agency (ISNA) reported the ministry had summoned Pakistan's envoy in Tehran to protest the inadequate protection provided for its diplomat.

Suspicion for the kidnapping will inevitably fall on the Taliban and affiliated militant groups such as Al Qaida, who hate Shiite Muslims and predominantly Shiite Iran almost as much as they hate the West.

Criminal gangs using religion as a cover are also active in the area.

Spiralling violence has raised fears that nuclear-armed Pakistan could slide into chaos unless the 7-month-old civilian government, also faced with a potentially crippling economic crisis, and the army can throttle the militant threat.

Pakistan's support is seen as vital to the West's efforts to defeat Al Qaida globally and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry confirmed that its Peshawar consulate's commercial attache Heshmatollah Attarzadeh Niyaki had been kidnapped. A policeman assigned to guard him was shot and killed trying to resist the assailants, police said.

"On hearing gun shots, I rushed out of my home and saw the body of the guard lying there," said Abid Hussain, a neighbour of the diplomat. "By that time Attarzadeh had been taken away." The Iranian diplomat was on his way to the consulate from his home when his car was ambushed in Hayatabad, a neighbourhood bordering the Khyber tribal region.

US aid worker Steve Vance and his driver were killed outside the home where Vance lived with his wife and five children in Peshawar on Wednesday.

In late August, three members of the US consulate in Peshawar escaped unhurt after gunmen ambushed their vehicle.

Peshawar is the last city on the road to the Khyber Pass, the main land route to Afghanistan. Militants seized 13 trucks laden with supplies for Western forces on the road on Monday.

US State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in Washington late on Wednesday that the consulate in Peshawar had put out a notification urging employees and other Americans in the area to stay at home or in their offices until further notice.

Afghanistan's ambassador-designate was kidnapped in Hayatabad on September 22, and there has been a rash of other kidnappings in recent weeks, including a Polish engineer snatched in the nearby city of Attock last month.