Three Western Aid Workers Killed in Afghanistan Ambush

Three western women working for a US aid organization have been shot dead in an ambush in Afghanistan.

The women, so far identified only as a British-Canadian national, a US citizen and a Trinidadian were traveling by car in the eastern Logar province when they were attacked this morning at around 11am (0830 BST).

The attack, which according to news agencies has been claimed by the Taliban, is a significant new escalation in the violence in Afghanistan.

Abdullah Wardak, the governor of Logar, told the Guardian that the three worked for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a New York-based aid group.

Wardak said the aid workers were traveling from the eastern city of Gardez to Kabul when their convoy of two four-wheel-drive vehicles was followed and then fired on by five gunmen. One of the women's Afghan drivers was also killed, the other injured. According to humanitarian officials, the cars were clearly marked.

"This was a treacherous attack by traitors of Afghanistan," Wardak said. "We cannot at the moment say what motivated the attack. The enemy are changing tactics. They are fanatics."

Kai Eide, the UN special envoy in Afghanistan, said he was "shocked and saddened" by the attack.

"I condemn this cowardly act in the strongest possible terms and urge the authorities to leave no stone unturned in the search for the perpetrators.'

Eide said that Afghans faced a "growing humanitarian challenge" and called on all parties to respect the neutrality of the aid community.

The attack has shocked Afghanistan's substantial group of humanitarian workers. "We haven't seen as direct attack on the aid [community] as this for many years," said one Kabul-based official. "It has sent a shiver up everyone's spines."

Local aid workers have been regular targets of the insurgents, who aim to halt any development work that might aid the fragile Afghan government build its authority in the poverty-stricken country's rural areas. Twenty-three aid workers have now been killed so far this year, the vast majority local staff.

A statement on the IRC website said that the group, which has been working in Afghanistan for 20 years, had now suspended their activities in the country indefinitely.

Three district IRC offices have been attacked and destroyed since March, according to the IRC site. Two Afghans working for IRC were killed in an ambush, also in Logar province, last year.

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, described the attack as unforgivable. "It is not in our culture to kill women, Afghans never kill women," Karzai said in a statement.

"This unforgivable incident, without any doubt, was carried out by the enemies of Afghanistan, by non-Afghans."

Karzai has repeatedly accused neighboring Pakistan of assisting the Taliban.

A Taliban spokesman, Zahibullah Mujahed claimed responsibility, saying that they had targeted "the foreign invader forces".

"They were not working for the interests of Afghanistan and they belonged to those countries whose forces ... took Afghanistan's freedom," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the Associated Press in a phone call from an undisclosed location. Mujahid called the women spies, a frequent Taliban accusation.

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 month since 2001, aid agencies say.

The attack in Logar, a province adjacent to the capital Kabul, will increase the sense of insecurity around the city still further. 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 itself.