Nine killed in Afghan attack

MAZAR-I-SHARIF: Nine people, including a woman, who were working on a reconstruction project in a remote part of northern Afghanistan were shot dead in an attack on their guesthouse in the early hours of Tuesday, an official said.
The attack took place in the Zari district of Balk province at 2 a.m., when gunmen burst into the workers’ rooms as they slept, said Abdul Basset Ayni, director of the province’s rural development department.
Seven of the dead were workers and the other two were security guards, Interior Ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, said on his official Twitter feed.
The spokesman for the Balkh chief of police, Shir Jan Durrani, said that the workers were employed by the National Solidarity Program, which oversees rural development projects across the country.
All the dead were Afghan nationals, he said. An investigation team had been sent to the area and the motivation and perpetrators of the attack were still unknown. Durrani said.
Balkh has recently been beset by insurgent activity and a spike in violence since the Taleban launched its warm-weather offensive in late April.