GROZNY -- A U.S. citizen working for an aid group was kidnapped in Chechnya and another slightly wounded after their cars were attacked by gunmen, apparently separatist rebels, Russian officials and aid workers said Wednesday.
The international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the kidnap victim was one of its employees, and that he had been traveling in a four-car convoy with other charity workers Tuesday. MSF officials named the man held as Kenny Gluck.
``MSF is extremely concerned about the fate of its colleague and is outraged at this direct attack on a clearly marked humanitarian convoy that was delivering medical assistance to the Chechen population,'' it said in a statement.
``MSF urges that whoever may be holding their colleague will respect his physical and mental integrity and will release him unharmed.''
The Russian military said a search had been launched for the missing man. The office of Russia's main spokesman on Chechnya and Russian news agencies had earlier named the man as Gluck Kenny and had said he worked for a group called Against Hunger.
MSF said the convoy had been run by MSF and another charity, Action Against Hunger, with international and national workers.
``The MSF worker was forced out of his car into the attackers' car, which then disappeared. The remaining national and international staff managed to get away safely after the attack,'' the MSF statement said.
The other U.S. citizen was identified as Jonathan Litehead, the official at the office of Chechnya spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said by telephone.
The gunmen opened fire on a column of vehicles near the town of Stary Atagi Tuesday, some 12 miles south of the regional capital Grozny.
``The first managed to escape from the shooting but Litehead was slightly wounded in the head, but only glancingly. His life is not threatened,'' the official said.
``But the second car with Gluck Kenny and three accompanying Chechens was seized and he was taken off in some unknown direction,'' the official added.
The U.S. embassy in Moscow had no immediate comment.
A spate of kidnappings, including the eventual beheading of four workers for a British telecommunications firm, was one of the reasons Russia launched a campaign against Chechen separatists in 1999, its second in three years.
Russia's senior commander in the region, Lieutenant-General Ivan Babichev, said a search for the kidnapped American had been launched.
``The republic's security forces and special services have begun an active operation to find this foreigner who has been seized,'' Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
``In the near future we will probably get a ransom demand or the criminals will demand some kind of guarantee for themselves in exchange for the life and freedom of the American citizen,'' he added.
Babichev said the Americans had been traveling in Chechnya without military permission and without an escort, and said the aid group itself bore some of the blame for the incident.
Babichev could not confirm other Russian news agency reports that the men who had seized the American belonged to a group of rebels under the command of a field commander named as Akhmadov.
Most of the region is under Russian control but fighting still takes place, even in Grozny, which Russia seized almost one year ago.
The mountainous south of the region remains particularly difficult for Russia to control as it is the rebels' main stronghold.
The kidnappings were a scourge which the leader of Chechnya before the Russian campaign, Aslan Maskhadov, failed to stop.
Foreigners as well as local residents were seized and many were freed in the wake of the Russian forces' advance through the region in late 1999 and the first half of 2000.