An Afghan airliner that went missing on a domestic flight has now landed in north Kazakhstan in the city of Aktyubinsk.

Earlier, the plane which was carrying more than one hundred and seventy people, made a brief stopover in Tashkent the capital of Uzbekistan where reports said ten of the passengers, including women and children, got off.

The Taleban authorities in Afghanistan say the Boeing 7-2-7 -- belonging to Ariana airlines -- has been hijacked and is heading for Moscow.

They first lost contact with the plane while it was on an internal flight from the Afghan capital, Kabul, to the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. United Nations sanctions against the Taleban authorities in Afghanistan forbid Ariana from flying outside its home country.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service