Taliban blamed for Afghanistan aid-worker killings

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Suspected Taliban rebels stopped a car carrying Afghans working for a Danish aid organization, tied them up, then shot four of them to death, the provincial governor and aid officials said Wednesday.

The aid workers, who worked for the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees, or DACAAR, were killed Monday afternoon on a road in southeastern Afghanistan's Ghazni province, Gov. Haji Asadullah told The Associated Press.

Gorm Pedersen, the DACAAR director in the capital, Kabul, said the team had finished work on a water supply project and was heading home when it was ambushed by nine men.

"The attackers ordered them to get out of the car and then tied their hands," Pedersen said. "The attackers then opened fire with AK- 47 rifles."

A fifth aid worker was wounded in the attack and was able to give authorities details of what happened. He was in good condition at a Kabul hospital, Pedersen said.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, a DACAAR official said the attack was likely the work of Taliban insurgents who have targeted people working for aid groups or non-government organizations.

"They were murdered because they were working for an NGO, which in some people's minds mean that they were working for and working with the new government," Sten Andreasen, DACAAR's program coordinator, told AP.

Andreasen said the car was carrying two DACAAR staffers and three other men who were working as contractors with the organization. He said the group was driving from Ab Band to Muqur when they were ambushed.

He said it was likely an attack by Taliban "because this fits into a pattern that we have seen lately, unfortunately."

"We now will have to reconsider the security situation," Andreasen said. "As an immediate consequence we must stop working in the eastern part of the country," he said.

DACAAR, which has been in Afghanistan since 1988, is overseeing several water supply, building and health projects in the country.

Anti-government insurgents -- a mix of Taliban militants, al- Qaida fighters and supporters of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar -- are waging a hit-and-run war in much of southern and eastern Afghanistan.

In recent months they have stepped up attacks, targeting government troops, officials and aid workers.

Last month, two Afghans working for the Afghan Red Crescent were killed and three wounded when gunmen attacked their convoy in Ghazni. Those killings followed a rocket attack on the offices of the U.N. refugee agency in the eastern Afghan city of Asadabad.

In March, an International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent worker from El Salvador, Ricardo Munguia, was shot and killed.

The Red Cross suspended their operations in Afghanistan following the attack. It later resumed work but restricted movement of its expatriate staff in southern Kandahar province.

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Associated Press Writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Aleksandar Vasovic in Kabul contributed to this report.

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