PARIS, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Two French nationals working with the humanitarian agency Action against Hunger (ACF) have been reported kidnapped in central Afghanistan and are alive, the ACF has announced, describing the act as "criminal."

    "The abduction took place in the house where ACF teams were sleeping. Some armed persons entered the house after having tied up the guards stationed outside. They then kidnapped the two expatriates before fleeing aboard several vehicles," said the NGO in a statement issued Friday.

    The French citizens, whose identities have not been revealed for security reasons, were abducted Friday in the morning at Nili, Day Kundi province, central Afghanistan, said the ACF, adding that the two workers were "alive."

    Following the abduction, two crisis cells have been put in place in both Paris and Kabul, according to reliable sources. The French foreign ministry has also said that it had "mobilized efforts in Paris and Kabul in order to secure their release."

    "Targeting humanitarian workers is totally unacceptable," said the ministry in a statement, adding that "in such a matter, discretion is essential to the effectiveness of its action."

    Addressing reporters Friday, Sultan Ali Uruzgani, governor of the Day Kundi province, about 300 km west of the capital Kabul, said that "two aid workers were kidnapped by enemies of the Afghan government."

    The expression is generally used to refer to insurgents, mainly the Taliban, who led the country from 1996 to 2001, when they were dethroned in the wake of U.S.-led invasion seeking to arrest al Qaida chief Osama Bin-Laden and his followers.

    In recent months, the Taliban have stepped up their condemnation of the decision by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to send reinforcements to Afghanistan this summer to battle a resurgent violence that is threatening to roll back security gains in the country. France already has some 1,600 men, mostly deployed around Kabul.

    Although the Taliban are widely believed to be behind the kidnapping, they have not come forward to claim it. Their most extremist supporters have already been implicated in several kidnappings as well as criminal groups seeking ransom.

    The ACP, which has been operational in Afghanistan since 1995, has "suspended all its operations" in the country and denounced the abduction as a criminal act that affects the integrity of humanitarian actors and imperils assistance to civilian populations," said the statement.

    Others French nationals, humanitarian or otherwise, have undergone kidnap ordeals in the volatile Afghanistan. In late June, after the release of a French businessman kidnapped in May, the French foreign ministry had warned against what it said were "very significant risks" faced by French nationals in the country.