5 Afghan aid workers killed in ambush
Rumsfeld in Kandahar to visit US troops
AFP, Kabul
Five Afghans working for a non-governmental organisation have been killed after their vehicle was ambushed northeast of Kabul, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said yesterday. "Their vehicle was ambushed and five people died on the spot," and one other person was still missing, he said. Two people had also been injured in the incident which happened on Wednesday afternoon in Ozbin village of Tagab district of Kapisa province, he said. The victims were working for the Sanayee Development Foundation, an Afghan non-government organisation. The group was assisting the Ministry of Rural Development in implementing a National Solidarity Programme partially funded by the World Bank which aims to assist Afghan communities manage their own reconstruction and development projects. A spokesman for the World Bank confirmed that four or five people had been killed in the incident as they travelled towards Tagab district of Kapisa province. He said there were no firm figures on the number killed as yet because an investigating team had not yet returned to Kabul. The deaths come less than two weeks after four Afghan men working for a demining organisation were shot dead when their vehicles were ambushed in southwestern Farah province, bordering Iran. The four employees of the Organisation for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation killed on February 14 were the first aid workers to be killed in Afghanistan this year. Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in this former Taliban stronghold Thursday to visit US troops fighting rebels in the southern region bordering Pakistan. Lieutenant General David Barno, the commander of the 10,000 strong US force in Afghanistan, greeted Rumsfeld travelling on a C-135 plane. Later in the day Rumsfeld will meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Rumsfeld flew into Kandahar after visiting the Central Asian states of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan for talks on regional security problems and the situation in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, in 2001 allowed US forces to set up camp at a vast military base in the south of the country close to the border with Afghanistan. The US defence secretary has earlier visited Kuwait and Iraq.
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