Official: 3 aide workers kidnapped in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya: Gunmen have seized three foreign aid workers in northern Kenya and taken them across the border into Somalia, a security official said Saturday.

Roughly 10 gunmen arrived late on Friday night at a house in the border town of Mandera where the workers were staying, shot the watchman in the head and kidnapped the three, the official said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

He would not say who the victims worked for or what their nationalities are.

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The watchman was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, the official said.

The workers' kidnapping follows the seizure earlier this week of two French security advisers in the Somali capital.

The French advisers were on a mission to train Somali government forces, which are fighting Islamist militiamen. They were abducted Tuesday from a hotel in Mogadishu, one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Somalia has not had a functioning government for 18 years since clan warlords overthrew a brutal socialist dictator then unleashed their militias on each other.