Afghanistan: Taliban kill 10 medics, including 6 Americans

NDTV
Bellevision Media Network

Kabul, 08 August 2010:  A spokesman says that 10 members of a medical team, including six Americans, have been shot and killed by militants as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages in northern Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that they killed the foreigners because they were "spying for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity".

 

Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, said Saturday that one German, one Briton and two Afghans also were part of the team that made the three-week trip to Nuristan province. They drove to the province, left their vehicles and hiked for hours with pack horses over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley in the province’s northwest. The group had decided to head through Badakhshan to return to the capital because they thought that would be the safest route, Frans said.

 

 

"This tragedy negatively impacts our ability to continue serving the Afghan people as IAM has been doing since 1966," according to a statement released by the non-profit Christian organization. "We hope it will not stop our work that benefits over a quarter of a million Afghans each year. 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.

 

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 US-backed forces. Provincial police chief General Agha Noor Kemtuz said the victims, who had been shot, were found on 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 Afghan interpreters were from Bamiyan and Panjshir provinces. A third Afghan man, who had been traveling with the group, survived.

 

"He told me he was shouting and reciting the holy Quran and saying ’I am Muslim, don’t kill me,’" Kemtuz said. Kemtuz also said that the survivor told him that the group was surrounded by gunmen and then attacked.  "We couldn’t find any passports or anything," he said, adding, "Nothing was left behind."