Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance
Mission, said one German, one Briton and two Afghans also were part of the team
that made the three-week trip to Nuristan province. They drove to the province,
left their vehicles and hiked for hours with pack horses over mountainous
terrain to reach the Parun valley in the province's northwest.
Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated
Press that they killed the foreigners because they were "spying for the
Americans" and "preaching Christianity." Frans said the
International Assistance Mission, the longest serving nongovernmental
organization operating in Afghanistan, is registered as a nonprofit Christian
organization but does not proselytize.
"This tragedy negatively impacts our ability to
continue serving the Afghan people as IAM has been doing since 1966," the
charity said in a statement. "We hope it will not stop our work that
benefits over a quarter of a million Afghans each year." The team, made up
of doctors, nurses and logistics personnel, was attacked as it was returning to
Kabul after the two-week mission in Nuristan, Frans said. They had decided to
travel through Badakhshan province to return to the capital because they
thought it would be the safest route, Frans said.
Among the dead was team leader Tom Little, an optometrist
from Delmar, New York, who has been working in Afghanistan for more than 30
years, Frans said. Another relief organization, Bridge Afghanistan, said on its
website that the group included one of its members, Dr. Karen Woo of London.
Little, who oversaw eye hospitals in Kabul and two other
major cities as well as small clinics in three smaller towns, had been expelled
by the Taleban government in August 2001 after the arrest of eight Christian
aid workers - two Americans and six Germans - for allegedly trying to convert
Afghans to Christianity. He returned to live in Afghanistan after the Taleban
government was toppled in November 2001 by US-backed forces.
Frans said he lost contact with Little on Wednesday. On
Friday, a third Afghan member of the team, who survived the attack, called to
report the killings. A fourth Afghan member of the team was not killed because
he took a different route home because he had family in Jalalabad, Frans said.
According to Frans, two members of the team worked for
IAM, two were former IAM workers and four others were affiliated with other
organizations, which he did not disclose. He said five of the Americans were men
and one was a woman. The Briton and German also were women.
Gen. Agha Noor Kemtuz, police chief in Badakhshan
province, said the victims, who had been shot, were found Friday next to three
bullet-riddled four-wheel drive vehicles in Kuran Wa Munjan district. He said
villagers had warned the team that the area was dangerous, but the foreigners
said they were doctors and weren't afraid. He said local police said about 10
gunmen robbed them and killed them one by one.
He said the two dead Afghans were interpreters from
Bamiyan and Panjshir provinces. The third Afghan who survived "told me he
was shouting and reciting the holy Qur'an and saying 'I am Muslim. Don't kill
me,"' Kemtuz said.
Frans told The Associated Press that he was skeptical the
Taleban were responsible and that the team had studied security conditions
carefully before proceeding with the mission. The team trekked from village to
village during the two weeks, treating about 400 people for eye disorders and
other illnesses.
"We are a humanitarian organization. We had no
security people. We had no armed guards. We had no weapons," he said.
In a blog posting last month, Woo said the expedition
would include an eye doctor, a dental surgeon "as well as me as the
general practitioner."
"The trek will not be easy; it will take three weeks
and be done on foot and with packhorses - no vehicles can access the
mountainous terrain," she wrote. "The expedition will require a lot
of physical and mental resolve and will not be without risk but ultimately, I
believe that the provision of medical treatment is of fundamental importance
and that the effort is worth it in order to assist those that need it
most."
Elsewhere, five Afghans were killed and 13 were wounded
Saturday when a bomb struck a police vehicle in the Nahri-Saraj district of
Helmand province in the south, the Interior Ministry said. Four of the dead
were police, but all but one of the wounded were civilians.
In Gereshk district, one Afghan policeman and a civilian
were killed and 16 other people were wounded Saturday morning when a bomb
exploded in a market, said Kamaluddin Khan, local security chief.
The NATO-led coalition also reported the arrests late
Friday of two suspected insurgents in Kandahar province and of
"several" suspected members of the Haqqani network, a Taleban faction
with close ties to Al-Qaeda, in the eastern province of Khost.
The coalition also said two NATO troops were killed
during an explosion Saturday in southern Afghanistan. NATO did not release any
details of the incident or the nationalities of the troops.
