Princess Diana charity’s workers seized by Taliban

Ricardo Mazalan / AP file

A HALO Trust worker searches for land mines in Bagram, Afghanistan, in 2009.

By Jamieson Lesko and Alexander Smith, NBC News

KABUL, Afghanistan -- More than 50 employees of a land mine-clearing charity in Afghanistan were kidnapped by armed Taliban fighters before being freed in a "police operation" on Tuesday, officials said.

The workers were seized at dawn while in trucks on their way to clear a minefield inHerat province.

Tim Graham / Getty Images file

Princess Diana visited an area cleared of land mines by the HALO Trust in Huambo, Angola, on Jan. 17, 1997.

They are employees of the British-based HALO Trust, which has decades of experience clearing land mines around the world. The charity's work in Angola was famously visited by the U.K.'s Princess Diana in 1997, a trip which sparked the anti-land mine campaigning for which she was later renowned.

The workers were taken to a remote, mountainous area, according to authorities.

Gen. Hamid Hamidi, thedeputy police chief for Herat province, told NBC News that all of the abductees were released following a "police operation."

Link:
Princess Diana charity's workers seized by Taliban