Afghanistan Ambush Kills Three Aid Workers

Three western women working for an American aid organization are reported to have been shot dead in an ambush in Afghanistan.

The women, so far identified by local officials only as an American, a Canadian and an Irish national, were traveling by car in the eastern Logar province towards Kabul when they were attacked.

Abdullah Khan, the deputy counter-terrorism director in Logar province, said the three worked for the New York-based aid group International Rescue Committee. The women's Afghan driver was also killed.

Afghan police officials blamed militants linked to the Taliban for the attack. Aid workers are regular targets of the insurgents, who aim to halt any development work that might help the fragile Afghan government build its authority in the poverty-stricken country's rural areas. Nineteen Afghans working for NGOs have been killed so far this year.

However, in Logar, as in much of southern and eastern Afghanistan, local criminals also exploit the general insecurity. "Attacks in Logar are frequently the actions of criminals rather than so-called hardcore, ideologically-motivated Taliban," said one senior United Nations official.

Violence in Afghanistan has reached its worst level since the end of the Taliban regime in 2001. There were more violent incidents in each of the last three months than in any other month since 2001, aid agencies say.

Security in and around the capital, Kabul, has deteriorated in recent months. Yesterday, the provincial governor of Ghazni province was ambushed 35 miles south of Kabul, and on Monday a suicide bomber killed a British soldier on the outskirts of the city.