KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Taliban gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed a Western female aid worker in the Afghan capital on Monday, fueling a sense that insurgents are increasingly encroaching on the country's seat of government.
In addition, a suicide bomber killed two Western soldiers and five children in the north of Afghanistan, where violence is relatively rare. NATO did not release the nationalities of the troops killed in the attack in Kunduz, but provincial officials identified them as German.
Taken together, the attacks illustrate a recent pattern of activity by militants in areas usually free of such assaults. Western military officials consider this an attempt to make the insurgency appear stronger and better entrenched, with a geographic spread beyond its main bases in the country's volatile south and east.
Attacks on humanitarian groups across Afghanistan have risen dramatically this year, and some of the assaults -- including the killing of three foreign female aid workers and their driver in August -- have taken place not far from Kabul.
But Monday's execution-style street killing of a worker for a British-registered Christian charity was notable for its brazenness.
The fact that the assault took place within the city limits and in daylight sent chills through the expatriate community in Kabul, where the staffs of most international organizations in Afghanistan live and work in heavily fortified compounds.
Security at most foreign installations in the capital, already extremely high, was tightened as word of the killing spread.
The slain woman, who held British and South African citizenship, worked for an organization called SERVE Afghanistan, which says on its website that its main mission is aiding refugees and the disabled. The group identified her as Gayle Williams, 34.
The Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the killing, accusing the woman's organization of trying to spread Christianity. Attempting to convert Muslims is a crime in Afghanistan.
SERVE, whose full name is Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises, says that although it is a Christian charity, its mission in Afghanistan is a strictly humanitarian one.
The woman was walking alone in western Kabul about 8 a.m., apparently on her way to her office, when she was shot at least twice, in the leg and torso, by assailants who then sped away on a motorbike, Afghan authorities said.
