Islamabad  - Unknown gunmen on Monday kidnapped Afghanistan's designated ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Khaleq Farahi, in the country's North West Frontier Province, police said.

The attackers ambushed the envoy's car in the up-market Hayatabad area of the provincial capital Peshawar.

"The driver was killed and the ambassador was abducted by the gunmen," said an official at Hayatabad police station.

Television footage showed the official vehicle with a diplomatic registration plate CC-01-25, bearing bullet holes and blood splatter.

Noor Mohammad, commercial attache at the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar, confirmed the kidnapping.

No one has claimed responsibility for the seizure of Farahi, who was designated as ambassador a month ago. His designation had yet to be approved by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.

The envoy was heading home from the consulate where he was still performing his duties as consul general.

Officials fear that the kidnappers might have taken him to the lawless tribal areas, known sanctuaries of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

Hayatabad district lies very close to the tribal district of Khyber agency where the Pakistan ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, his driver and bodyguard were abducted while traveling to Kabul on February 11.

Azizuddin was released by Islamic militants reportedly in exchange for several Taliban fighters.

The kidnapping of the Afghan diplomat came two days after a suicide truck bombing at a five-storey hotel in Islamabad killed 53 people, including two US soldiers and the Czech ambassador to Pakistan.

Taliban militants were suspected of the bombing that also caused a huge blaze at the hotel, the Marriott.

Some media reports suggested that US Marines who were staying at the hotel were the main target.

Rehman Malik, security advisor to the Pakistani prime minister, claimed that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari were scheduled to attend a dinner there and were the actual targets.

"Perhaps the terrorists knew that Marriott was the venue of a dinner for all the leadership including the president, prime minister and speaker," Malik told reporters.

"The president and the prime minister decided at the eleventh hour to shift the venue to the Prime Minister's House which saved the entire leadership."

But the Marriott's management and guests at the Prime Minister's House contradicted that claim.

According to a senior official at the hotel, no hall was booked for such a high-level dinner. A lawmaker for the ruling party said on condition of anonymity that the dinner invitation cards issued a week ago stated the Prime Minister's House as the venue.

"I don't think that any team of cooks could be so quick to prepare a 30-dish dinner at the prime minister's house after the dinner was cancelled at the eleventh-hour," a lawmaker from the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

A shadowy group "Fedayeen of Islam" claimed responsibility for the Marriott bombing.

"We have targeted a group of more than 250 soldiers, including American Marines and officials from the United States and NATO," it said in an SMS message sent to senior journalists of the local and foreign media organizations.

The attack on the Marriott was the latest in a series of suicide bombings in Pakistan that has killed more than 4,000 people over the last 21 months.

The increasing insecurity has forced foreign investors to flee the country, pulling out around 4 billion dollars of market capitalization and shrinking the Karachi Stock Exchange's KSE-100 index by 50 per cent.

On late Sunday, a day after Islamabad hotel bombing, British Airlines temporarily suspended six weekly flights to Pakistan.

There were media reports that foreign employees in multinational companies in Pakistan were also preparing to leave the country.

The country is facing a rising Islamic militancy in tribal areas, from where the Taliban militants launch cross-border raids on US-led international forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan, with more around 120,000 troops deployed along the frontier, has so far been unable to contain the rebellion, raising concerns in Washington.

Government forces recently launched a major offensive in Bajaur tribal district, infuriating Taliban rebels who vowed to retaliate. (dpa)