Gunmen kill 3 women foreign aid workers in Afghanistan
An American is among the slain.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Gunmen riddled a humanitarian group's vehicle with bullets today, killing three foreign women aid workers including an American, together with their Afghan driver, officials said.
The bloody ambush in Logar province, southeast of the capital, Kabul, underscored the increasing dangers faced by those engaged in humanitarian and reconstruction work in war-wrecked Afghanistan. It was the worst attack of its kind involving foreigners in several years.
The three women worked for a U.S.-based organization called the International Rescue Committee, which helps develop programs for providing refugees with food, shelter and healthcare, according to its website.
The group said it was notifying next of kin and would have a statement later. It said that in addition to the American killed, the other slain women were a Trinidadian and a dual British-Canadian national. (Earlier, the group had said that the slain American woman also held Trinidadian citizenship and that the others were a Canadian and a British-Canadian national.)
Abdullah Wardak, the governor of Logar, blamed the attack on "opposition forces," Taliban fighters or other insurgents. He said the bodies of the three women and their driver had been recovered.
The vehicle was part of a convoy traveling toward Kabul on the main road from the southeastern city of Gardez, officials said. At least one other Afghan worker with the organization, traveling in a separate vehicle, was reported hurt in the ambush.
IRC staffers were the target of another deadly attack in Logar just more than one year ago. Two of its Afghan workers were killed in July 2007 when they also were ambushed on the road.
An organization that tracks the dangers faced by humanitarian workers in Afghanistan said recently that 2008 was shaping up as the worst year for nongovernmental organizations since the fall of the Taliban. At least 23 aid workers have been killed so far this year, said the group, ANSO.
The United Nations in Kabul issued a statement condemning the attack and called on all parties to respect aid groups' neutrality and their role in helping the most vulnerable of those afflicted by the conflict.
laura.king@latimes.com
Special correspondent M. Karim Faiez reported from Kabul and Times staff writer Laura King from Islamabad.
