KABUL, 6 May 2004 — Two Britons helping with upcoming Afghan elections and their interpreter were killed by unidentified attackers in northeast Afghanistan, British and Afghan officials said yesterday.
Interior Ministry spokesman Litfula Mashal said the three were killed in the remote mountainous province of Nuristan, bordering Pakistan, in an incident the United Nations said was a setback to the country’s fragile vote preparations.
“Three people working for the British security firm Global Risk were killed by unidentified armed men in the Mandol district,” Mashal said. “Their bodies were discovered this morning in the village of Mandol by troops from the 28th division in Nuristan,” he said, adding the circumstances of the killings were still unknown.
Taleban commander Mullah Sabir Momin said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location that the Taleban were responsible and were stepping up attacks in the south.
“The two Britons and their Afghan translator were killed by the Taleban because the Taleban are killing all locals and foreigners who are helping the Americans to consolidate their occupation of Afghanistan,” he said.
London confirmed the two foreigners were British. “I can confirm that two British nationals have been killed in Afghanistan,” a Foreign Office spokesman said, adding they were employees of Global Risk Strategies.
The private security firm is working for the United Nations on the huge task of registering some eight million Afghan voters outside main cities ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for September. The firm is in charge of ensuring security for the operation, which started May 1 in 30 of the country’s 34 provinces.
Voter registration has been held up because of insecurity in Nuristan, central Uruzgan province and the southeastern border provinces of Zabul and Paktika.
Afghan security forces have captured seven suspected militants during raids in neighboring Kunar province. “We have captured seven people over the past week in Kunar province,” provincial Governor Fazil Akber said from the capital Asadabad.
A major haul of weapons hidden in a secret cave network outside Kabul in readiness for a possible extremist assault on the Afghan capital has been uncovered by peacekeepers, officials said yesterday.
Maj. Jacek Ciszek of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that patrols Kabul told reporters that a “large weapons cache” including of 650 artillery and mortar rounds had been uncovered and destroyed from the the caverns 34 km west of Kabul.
“The city was the likely target for the munitions,” he said, without identifying the owners of the weapons.
