(Adds details on women, kidnap, paragraphs 4-7) By Atef Sa'ad NABLUS, West Bank, Feb 20 (Reuters) - A Palestinian man demanding medical expenses for a battle wound abducted three American women near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday, and freed them an hour later, Palestinian sources said. The women, all in their 20s, were unharmed, Kamal el-Sheikh, the governor of Nablus, told Reuters. No further details on their identities were released. Sheikh said "a guy with personal demands" had seized the women shortly after nightfall and held them in a village called Kufr Kalil. The kidnapper, armed with a pistol, freed them an hour later after negotiations, Sheikh added, saying "the girls are in our hands". Two of the women were volunteers with a non-governmental group involved in water projects in the West Bank, and a third was a friend of theirs, a Palestinian security source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The source said the women had been on an outing in Nablus and were headed back in a taxi when the man kidnapped them at gunpoint, demanding the driver drive to the village. The kidnapper, who was wounded in the leg in fighting with Israeli forces during the six-year uprising in the occupied territory, had demanded medical care and a job in exchange for the women, and officials said they would look at his case, the source said. The women were the first foreigners abducted in the Palestinian territories since Jan. 23 when a French diplomat and two bodyguards were held for a few hours. More than 20 foreigners have been abducted by Palestinians in the past year, mostly in the Gaza Strip. All have been released, most of them within hours or days. Security has fallen apart in Gaza and the West Bank amid a bitter power struggle between the ruling Hamas militant group and the Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas. More than 90 Palestinians have been killed in factional fighting since December, violence which has subsided since the groups reached a preliminary agreement to form a unity government in talks in Saudi Arabia earlier this month. (Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)
