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Increasing Danger Puts Afghan Aid At Risk

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The Associated Press

Published: August 17, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - Deteriorating security in Afghanistan is making it more difficult for aid organizations to carry out their work, the director of a group that lost four workers in a Taliban attack said Saturday.

Ciaran Donnelly, director of operations in Afghanistan for the International Rescue Committee, said the entire aid community is affected by worsening security.

"We're not the only NGO nongovernment organization to have suffered an attack. Unfortunately we suffered the most egregious and most tragic of these attacks," he said.
Taliban fighters wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles killed four IRC workers, including three women, in an attack Wednesday in Logar province, just south of Kabul. A Trinidadian-American, a British-Canadian, a Canadian and their Afghan driver were killed.

The ambush of two clearly marked aid vehicles on the main road south of Kabul was the latest in a record number of attacks on aid groups this year - a surge that has workers questioning whether they can safely provide services in remote and dangerous areas where help is most needed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility and said the women were linked to a Western military.

Despite the increasing danger, no aid groups have pulled out of Afghanistan, though some might suspend projects or move personnel out of dangerous regions, said Mohammad Hashim Mayar, deputy director for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group for aid organizations in Afghanistan.

Attacks against aid workers have spiked this year. Wednesday's assault brings the number killed in militant attacks to at least 23 compared with 15 killed in all of 2007.

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