KABUL, 10 March 2005 — Foreign aid and reconstruction companies in Kabul tightened security yesterday after Taleban militants claimed responsibility for the killing of a Briton which shattered months of fragile calm in the Afghan capital. Westerners living in Kabul have been advised to keep a low profile and avoid moving around at night after the shooting of the British consultant to the Afghan government, diplomats said yesterday.

Police say they are baffled why Steven MacQueen, an adviser to the Rural Development Ministry, was killed in an ambush on Monday night by gunmen driving four-wheel-drive vehicles. “It is a little bit early to say how it’s going to affect the international community because we don’t know yet what are the reasons related to this incident,” Jean Michel Emeryk, of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office (ANSO), told Reuters. “For the time being, we are advising people to limit their movement during hours of darkness.”

Aside from thousands of Western military personnel, there are some 2,000 foreigners working in Kabul mostly as diplomats or aid workers for the many non-government organizations operating here.

Several foreigners could be seen yesterday traveling in their four-wheel-drive vehicles on Kabul’s muddy, clogged roads, and others were walking on the sidewalk in the city’s main shopping area during lunchtime. But the many restaurants catering to the international community may suffer a fall in trade if people follow the advice to stay home at night.

Few people gave credibility to a Taleban claim of responsibility for MacQueen’s murder, although the guerrilla movement has said it would attack Westerners working with the government and aid workers as well as military targets. The Taleban have been unable to mount an attack in Kabul since October, when a militant blew himself up along with an American woman and an Afghan girl on a popular shopping street.

There has not been a rocket attack for months either, but the occasional nighttime burst of small arms fire or controlled explosions of weapons caches by NATO-led peacekeepers are regular reminders of the dangers in Kabul. Many Afghans despair at the enduring lack of security, and while they are glad that the Taleban have gone and women and children can go out on the streets without fear of being punished, they now worry about being attacked or kidnapped.

Toofan, a bespectacled university student wearing a baseball cap, feared a backlash unless President Hamid Karzai’s government vastly improves the law and order situation. A demonstration against the relentless crime in the southern city of Kandahar earlier this week was broken up by guards after the crowd threatened to storm the governor’s residence. “If this situation continues and the government does not act positively, I am sure people will return to the Taleban,” said Toofan.

ANSO’s Emeryk said criminals posed more of a threat than militants to foreigners. “Generally speaking, the major problem we have in Kabul is the criminality,” said Emeryk. “That’s what we have identified so far as a major threat for the western community.” Whether MacQueen was killed because he was Western or for a more personal reason, investigators said it was too early to say.

Emeryk said extra security should probably be provided for foreign advisers to the government until more was known. MacQueen appeared to have been tailed after he drove alone from a restaurant favored by Westerners. One of the attackers’ cars pulled in front, forcing MacQueen to stop, whereupon he was shot several times and died on the spot.

Among several theories being circulated was one that MacQueen was targeted by drug lords, though Afghan and Western officials say everything is mere speculation. MacQueen was helping run a micro-finance program that would have included creating alternative livelihoods for farmers who have been growing poppy — the flower that produces opium — the base product for heroin and morphine.

At least four people were wounded when a homemade bomb exploded in the northwest province of Faryab, a police officer said yesterday. The bomb exploded on Tuesday in Maimana town, the provincial capital of Faryab, minutes after an explosion outside a Western-funded aid group called Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, the officer said.

The first blast caused minor damage to the CHA office, but attracted a crowd of people to the site. “While police and civilians gathered to see what had happened a second explosion occurred,” said Faryab’s Governor Abdul Latif. The wounded included two soldiers from the Afghan National Army, a policeman and one civilian, said Mohammad Aslam, a senior police officer for Maimana town.