Map of Afghanistan.
British aid worker shot dead in Kabul
Mon-Oct 20, 2008
Kabul / Agence France-Presse
A British aid worker was shot dead in the Afghan capital on Monday in a killing claimed by the Islamic Taliban militia which accused her organisation of "preaching Christianity."
The woman was shot several times by two men on a motorbike as she walked to work in the west of Kabul, the interior ministry and police told AFP.
It is rare that foreign nationals are killed in the city, although there have been several kidnappings. A non government organisation security group said last week that attacks on aid workers by insurgents in Afghanistan were at the highest level in six years.
The British embassy in Kabul said the woman was British.
"We are confirming that we are dealing with the death of a British national," an embassy spokeswoman told AFP without giving details.
The interior ministry and police said earlier the woman was a South African working with a non government organisation called SERVE Afghanistan and there were some suggestions she had dual nationality.
A SERVE employee confirmed the incident to AFP but would not give any details.
The group's management would not comment. The group, which describes itself on its website as a British-based Christian charity, works with disabled Afghans.
The interior ministry said the attackers had fled immediately and their motive was unclear.
"Two armed men sitting on a motorbike shot her dead. Some bullets hit her body and some hit her leg and when police got there she was dead," spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
Politician kidnapped
The woman was shot several times by two men on a motorbike as she walked to work in the west of Kabul, the interior ministry and police told AFP.
It is rare that foreign nationals are killed in the city, although there have been several kidnappings. A non government organisation security group said last week that attacks on aid workers by insurgents in Afghanistan were at the highest level in six years.
The British embassy in Kabul said the woman was British.
"We are confirming that we are dealing with the death of a British national," an embassy spokeswoman told AFP without giving details.
The interior ministry and police said earlier the woman was a South African working with a non government organisation called SERVE Afghanistan and there were some suggestions she had dual nationality.
A SERVE employee confirmed the incident to AFP but would not give any details.
The group's management would not comment. The group, which describes itself on its website as a British-based Christian charity, works with disabled Afghans.
The interior ministry said the attackers had fled immediately and their motive was unclear.
"Two armed men sitting on a motorbike shot her dead. Some bullets hit her body and some hit her leg and when police got there she was dead," spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
Politician kidnapped
Unknown assailants kidnapped a one-time Afghan presidential candidate and a relative of the late king near his home in the capital Kabul, police said on Monday, in the latest in a spate of abductions.
Humayun Shah Asifi, who stood in the 2004 presidential elections won by Hamid Karzai, was snatched at gunpoint while returning home from a dinner late last night, deputy Kabul police chief Alishah Ahmadzai told AFP.
There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction. "Asifi was returning from a dinner at about 11:00 pm (local time). As he was near his home, four armed men kidnapped him. His driver and one of his servants were with him when he was kidnapped," Ahmadzai said.
It was not known who might have been behind the abduction but kidnapping of wealthy Afghans or their relatives, most often for ransom, is rife in Kabul and other cities amid weakening security since the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime.
The police chief blamed the abduction on "the cowards, the enemies of our country".
Asifi, aged in his 60s, was a brother-in-law of former King Mohammed Zahir Shah who died last year. Zahir Shah was overthrown in a 1973 coup. He studied law and political science at Dijon university in France and spent around 20 years in exile.
He had retired from politics and had not intended to stand in presidential elections due next year, according to his brother Haroun Asifi.
Humayun Shah Asifi, who stood in the 2004 presidential elections won by Hamid Karzai, was snatched at gunpoint while returning home from a dinner late last night, deputy Kabul police chief Alishah Ahmadzai told AFP.
There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction. "Asifi was returning from a dinner at about 11:00 pm (local time). As he was near his home, four armed men kidnapped him. His driver and one of his servants were with him when he was kidnapped," Ahmadzai said.
It was not known who might have been behind the abduction but kidnapping of wealthy Afghans or their relatives, most often for ransom, is rife in Kabul and other cities amid weakening security since the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime.
The police chief blamed the abduction on "the cowards, the enemies of our country".
Asifi, aged in his 60s, was a brother-in-law of former King Mohammed Zahir Shah who died last year. Zahir Shah was overthrown in a 1973 coup. He studied law and political science at Dijon university in France and spent around 20 years in exile.
He had retired from politics and had not intended to stand in presidential elections due next year, according to his brother Haroun Asifi.
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