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 café 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.

In the first half of 2004, 966 people were kidnapped in Colombia, less than half of the 1,906 people kidnapped in the same period of 2003. An average of 3,000 people were kidnapped in the country each year from 1996 to 2003.

Ransom payments over the eight-year period were estimated at $57 million, with an average ransom of $20,000. The estimated cost to the economy was $150 million, including loss of income, and the government also spent $110 million to crack down on abductions.

Most kidnappings were carried out by the FARC and the ELN, left-wing rebel groups that have waged a 40-year conflict against the state.