Six Americans on medical team killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan
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 two-week trip to Nuristan province. They drove
to the province, left their vehicles and hiked for hours over
mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley in the province's
northwest.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in
Pakistan that they killed the foreigners because they were "spying
for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity."
Frans said the International Assistance Mission 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 was expelled by the Taliban 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 Afghanistan after the Taliban
government was toppled in November 2001 by U.S.-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 Quran and saying 'I am Muslim. Don't
kill me,"' Kemtuz said.
Elsewhere, five people 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.
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 Taliban faction with
close ties to al-Qaida, in the eastern province of Khost.