German Hostage Video

One day after the kidnapping of the 31-year-old German woman, the private Afghan news channel Tolo TV broadcast footage of what it said was the woman and one of the kidnappers.

"I am fine," the woman said in broken Dari -- the main language in Afghanistan -- while reading from a piece of paper. "I want for my country to try immediately to win my release."

Security personnel familiar with the case said they believed the woman was the kidnapping victim. The staffer for a Christian aid organization called Ora International was snatched by four gunmen in a car on Saturday as she left a restaurant in western Kabul.

"We have Madam Christina, we are trying hard to keep her safe," said the man in the video, who hid his head and face with a turban.

"We want the government of (Afghan President) Hamid Karzai to release our innocent prisoners, we will give the names of those who are in government jails through a secret network," he said.

"We don't have any other demand, we are not bad people, we are not Taliban either, we are from a special group," he added.

Still in Kabul?

Meanwhile, house searches were underway in the capital's seventh district where the 31-year-old was abducted as she left a restaurant and where her kidnapper's car was last spotted before the area was sealed off, Kabul police chief Alishah Paktiawal told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
dpa.

Roadblocks were also set up on key exit routes to prevent her abductors from moving her out of the city.

"We are searching every single car," police major Shah Agha Noori said while manning a checkpoint on the main highway leading south to the Ghazni province, where Taliban kidnappers last month took 23 South Korean Christian aid workers hostages.

Officers were also questioning women clothed in burqa head-to-toe veils and in some cases were requiring individuals to show their faces.

A series of kidnappings

A Taliban spokesman earlier told dpa by telephone that the Islamic militia was not responsible for the kidnapping of the woman, who is believed to be pregnant.

There has been a rash of kidnappings in Afghanistan in recent months, especially since the abduction of an Italian journalist in March secured the release of five Taliban prisoners

Another German national, along with four Afghans, was also kidnapped on July 18 in the central province of Maidan Wardak. Negotiations are ongoing for his release and for the release of 19 Koreans still being held.

Two sick male Korean hostages were killed by the Taliban and two women released last week as a gesture of "goodwill."