An Emirati security officer guarding a humanitarian operation in Afghanistan went missing on Tuesday and is believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban.
"Taliban kidnapped a NATO soldier, with uniform and weapon," a purported Taliban representative told an Afghani news agency Tuesday evening.
The United Arab Emirates has launched an investigation into the incident, a spokesperson for the UAE Foreign Ministry announced.
The missing guard was with an organization from the UAE, which provides humanitarian aid in Afghanistan. The UAE is also part of the international military coalition in the country.
Meanwhile, the United States announced it had "irrefutable" evidence that Iran has supplied weapons to the Taliban. NATO forces have intercepted some of the shipments, U.S. Underseretacy of State Nicholas Burns said on CNN.
"It’s coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corp command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian governemnt," Burns said.
Iranian officials denied the accusation, saying it made no sense that a Shi’ite-led governemnt would help the Taliban’s fundamentalist Sunni movement.