43 mins ago
LONDON (AFP) – A Briton who was among eight foreign medical aid workers shot dead in Afghanistan was a 36-year-old female doctor, an organisation she had been working with said Saturday.
Dr Karen Woo, who British media reported was due to get married in two weeks, is believed to have been part of a group which had been delivering aid and medical care in the northeastern province of Badakhshan.
She is thought to have quit her job with a private healthcare firm in London so she could work in Afghanistan.
The group was working with the International Assistance Mission but Woo was also involved with Bridge Afghanistan, another aid group. Two Afghans were also killed in the attack.
Firuz Rahimi of Bridge Afghanistan paid tribute to her in an interview with BBC television, saying: "She was full of dedication and a very kind person... she loved the country, she loved the people".
He also confirmed the death on Bridge Afghanistan's blog, saying: "We have just heard the terrible news from Afghanistan.
"Unfortunately, Karen was part of the group that were killed whilst delivering aid and medical care in Nuristan".
Woo had earlier written on the blog that she would be acting as the team doctor and running mother and child clinics.
She added: "The expedition will require a lot of physical and mental resolve and will not be without risk but ultimately, I believe that the provision of medical treatment is of fundamental importance and that the effort is worth it in order to assist those that need it most."
Britain's Foreign Office said they could not confirm that Woo was among the dead.
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Eight foreign medical workers killed in Afghanistan
07 Aug 2010 20:41:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Medical team included 6 Americans, 1 Briton, 1 German
* Mobile medical clinic treated Afghans in remote area
(Adds details on British surgeon, German victim)
By Hamid Shalizi and Yousuf Azimi
KABUL, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Gunmen killed 10 medical workers, including eight foreigners, in Afghanistan's remote northeast, police and officials said on Saturday, and the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
A Christian aid group said those killed matched descriptions of members of one of its mobile eye clinics who had been travelling in northeastern Nuristan province and were heading back to Kabul after providing medical care for local Afghans.
Dirk Frans, executive director of the International Assistance Mission (IAM), said the group had been told the bodies of eight foreigners -- five men and three women -- and two Afghans had been recovered.
The 12-member team had consisted of six U.S. nationals, one British citizen, a German and four Afghans. Two Afghan staff members had escaped alive, Frans told Reuters. IAM had last had contact with the team's leader on Wednesday.
Aqa Noor Kentuz, the police chief for Badakshan province, said the "bullet-riddled" bodies were found early on Saturday.
He said they had been camping near dense forest on a tour of Nuristan and neighbouring Badakshan when they were attacked. Travel documents were found near their bodies, he said.
"Before their travel we warned them not to tour near jungles in Nuristan but they said they were doctors and no one was going to hurt them," Kentuz said.
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The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killings and accused the medical workers of proselytising Christianity.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters from an undisclosed location that the group had been found with bibles translated into Dari, one of Afghanistan's two main languages.
There was no independent confirmation of any Taliban role, or that the medical workers had bibles.
Nuristan is a remote region with a growing insurgent presence as well as smugglers and bandits. U.S. forces withdrew from the province in the past year after taking heavy losses in years of battle near its Pakistan border.
One of those killed was British surgeon Karen Woo, who worked with a separate group called Bridge Afghanistan.
"We have just heard the terrible news from Afghanistan," the group said on its website, www.bridgeafghanistan.blogspot.com. "Unfortunately Karen was part of the group that were killed whilst delivering aid and medical care in Nuristan ..."
In a post on the website she had described plans for the three week trek with the IAM team.
"REALLY BIG DIFFERENCE"
"I will act as the team doctor and run the mother-and-child clinics once inside Nuristan. The expedition team also includes an eye doctor and a dental surgeon," she wrote. "The communities who live in these remote areas get no medical care at all, so we are hoping to be able to make a really big difference to the lives and livelihoods of the people that we meet there."
The German government confirmed that a German woman was among the dead. Germany was "outraged at the appalling attack", government spokeswoman Sabine Heimbach said in a statement.
The U.S. embassy said it had reason to believe several Americans were among those killed, but gave no further details.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since U.S.-led and Afghan armed groups overthrew the Taliban in 2001.
June was the bloodiest month of the war for foreign forces in Afghanistan, with more than 100 killed. Hundreds of Afghan civilians have also been killed this year as they become caught up in the crossfire.
Jamaluddin Badr, governor of Nuristan, said the group was made up of doctors who had visited several districts in Nuristan and Badakshan, helping local Afghans.
The IAM describes itself as an "international charitable, non-profit, Christian organisation" which has been helping Afghans with health and economic development since 1966.
"At this stage we do not have many details but our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who are presumed killed," it said in a statement issued on its website (www.iam-afghanistan.org/).
"This tragedy negatively impacts our ability to continue serving the Afghan people ... We hope it will not stop our work that benefits over a quarter of a million Afghans each year."
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said it had no involvement in the incident and had no information.
Despite a record number of foreign forces in Afghanistan, standing at some 140,000 backed by tens of thousands of Afghan forces, the Taliban have extended their campaign out of traditional power bases in the south and east into the north and elsewhere in recent years.
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A Conflict of Interest
I (Dr Karen Woo MBBS,MRCS) met Firuz Rahimi at the Afghanaid fashion show back in March 2009. The fashion show was the brainchild of Lady Bridget Cowper-Coles wife of the British Ambassador to Afghanistan, and Mina Bavary and her sisters. I was the producer of the show and Firuz was covering the story for the BBC World Service – central Asia. We got chatting back stage and I discovered that Firuz had originally trained as a doctor back in Afghanistan before becoming a journalist and moving to the UK. As we talked we both discovered that we held the same opinion; that many things can be done if you have a will to do them. We shared the same spirit that whatever you dream to be possible can become a reality; and so a partnership was born.
I looked at the substantial and impressive work achieved by Bridge and felt drawn to become involved with the work of this organisation that was achieving so much, so swiftly and with so little.
Shortly after the Fashion show, which was a great success and raised £25,000 for Afghanaid, Firuz and I started to discuss the documentary project.
Just to give you a bit of background, I'm a surgeon and was able to visit Kabul in April this year when I went to the CURE Clinic, the French Medical Institute for Children (FMIC) and the Children’s House. The things that I saw during that visit made me, as a doctor, want to be able to bring back the human stories both good and bad.
For the last few months I've been working with a small team of journalists and filmmakers as part of Bridge Afghanistan to put together a plan for the documentary I envisioned. The principal drivers are to use the medium of healthcare to provide an in road for people outside of Afghanistan to come on a journey with me as I explain what it is I am seeing. The access that a doctor or healthcare professional has to a community is unlike that available to a journalist; the trust and conversations are different. The insight is through the lens of birth and death, of loss and disability, and reflects every aspect of the consequences of conflict on individuals and on their community. The loss of nearly all elements of the infrastructure of a country; security, governance, education, transport, clean water, sanitation and power, are all visible in the health of the people.
The body of the documentary will focus on key players whose commitment to providing healthcare and a sustainable offering go largely unsung, these people are both foreign nationals working in Afghanistan and Afghan men and women who a working to make a change. The context will be set by the women and men who are able to tell of their experiences giving first hand narration to the viewer. The predominant focus is on women as this is where the most disturbing and tragic scenarios are played out, occurring through ignorance, poverty and cultural and religious restrictions. The characters; both the patients and the care givers, give us their human stories and link us to the real people and families of Afghanistan. This perspective gives substantial reason to continue to invest in humanitarian aid and development.
The documentary aims to counterbalance the British media's bias toward reporting only the live conflict, to provide a deeper level of information and understanding of the complex situation which is the current Afghanistan. It aims to reflect the human spirit of survival and to remind of, or explain the relatively developed Afghanistan of the 1970s as a way of visualising a possible future of peace and stability.
A young lad with eye injuries being cared for at the Children’s House in Kabul.
The Children’s House funds board and lodging for families and their children and pays for surgical treatment and rehabilitation costs.
A young girl with a broken leg is accompanied by her father at the Children’s House in Kabul – April 2009.
The French Medical Institute for Children in Kabul
The United Nations Millennium Development Project.
The United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Project states eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of which this documentary and additional photographs, film, and recorded material will address:
* MDG 3: To promote gender equality and empower women
* MDG 4: To reduce child mortality
* MDG 5: To improve maternal health
Why make this Documentary? Afghanistan has contended with continued levels of instability and conflict throughout its modern history. The current government faces enormous challenges on every front not least to defend a fledgling democratic process, to extend its authority beyond the capital, and to create a unified nation. Much of the health infrastructure has been destroyed, and many people in remote villages have little or no access to health care. Reproductive health care in Afghanistan is particularly inadequate, resulting in some of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. One woman dies in childbirth every 28 minutes and 1 in 5 children die before the age of 5; health care issues should be at the forefront of the fight to stabilise Afghanistan. The documentary will explore the underlying reasons why healthcare continues to be limited in both urban and rural settings of Afghanistan.
Why now? Afghanistan is the hot media topic with the eyes of the world upon the conflict and the presence of foreign military powers. For countries that have troops and international aid present in Afghanistan there is both human and financial resource at stake. But what of the Afghan people who are living their daily lives in cities and in rural areas, who tells their stories and presents the human face of Afghanistan?
What do we see of the real Afghanistan?
For those living outside Afghanistan the perspectives offered are limited, the media shows a particular slant on events in Afghanistan. The history and the culture of the country provide a picture of a complex society; a myriad of problems that will by no means reach a resolution overnight. Afghanistan is a place where people conduct ordinary lives, live, eat, sleep, and have families amidst the harshest conditions. Many people strive to do the right thing, there is bravery and there is hope for a time of stability. There is beauty and creativity in Afghanistan but these are overshadowed by the media images of military casualties, burhkas, and conflict.
Posted by Bridge Team at Monday, September 14, 20
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British doctor executed by the Taliban in Afghanistan was due to marry in two weeks
By Chris Hastings, Oliver Tree and George Arbuthnott
Last updated at 12:12 AM on 8th August 2010
* Comments (0)
* Add to My Stories
* Wonderful, bubbly girl was a friend of top jockey Richard Dunwoody and gave up senior BUPA post to live in Kabul
* 'She had a passion for life and people'
Karen Woo
Courage: Dr Karen Woo had taken medical aid to a lawless province
A British doctor who quit her job in the UK to help civilians in Afghanistan has been murdered by the Taliban, two weeks before she was due to get married.
Dr Karen Woo, 36, and nine other volunteers were killed after they delivered medical supplies to the lawless province of Nuristan in the north-east of the country.
The former London hospital surgeon, six Americans, a German and an Afghan were lined up and shot one after the other by a ten-strong gang armed with AK-47 rifles.
Their abandoned bodies were discovered beside the bullet-riddled remains of their three 4x4s in the neighbouring province of Badakhshan. Their passports and all their belongings had been stolen.
Last night her devastated fiance Paddy Smith, who also works in Kabul, said: ‘Karen grabbed life by the horns. She went to one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan just to help people. That was the sort of girl she was. She was focused and professional.’
The couple met by chance after Mr Smith helped her unload her luggage from a plane in November last year. They exchanged numbers and fell in love when they met a month later.
Mr Smith added: ‘It was one of those crazy relationships. Nothing is normal in Afghanistan, but when we met it just made sense.
'You know when something is right and this was just right.’
More...
* 'My life hung by a thread, all for the want of a £10 cable': Decorated bomb disposal officer speaks of the terror of confronting a roadside IED
The couple had been due to fly back to London from Kabul today to prepare for their wedding at Chelsea Register Office, but Dr Woo was ambushed as she made the journey back to the Afghan capital.
Her work in Afghanistan involved helping women who were pregnant or about to give birth in a country with the highest infant mortality rates.
Details of the shocking attack, which happened on Friday morning, began to emerge yesterday.
One member of the aid team escaped death only by reciting verses of the Koran, prompting the attackers to release him.
Karen Woo
At play: Dr Woo relaxing on a break. The 36-year was described as having a passion for life and people
An interpreter called Saifullah, who was on the trip but managed to escape, said the aid workers were lined up against their vehicles and shot, one by one.
Their bodies were later found in a densely wooded area but all their belongings, including passports, had been stolen.
He said: ‘One of them first came towards us and shot each person one by one. I was standing on the spot when he was running towards me. I got down on my knees and started reciting the Holy Koran. He left me and shot everyone else.’
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said the volunteers had been killed because they were ‘American spies and Christian missionaries’.
He added: ‘At around 8am, one of our patrols confronted a group of foreigners. They were Christian missionaries and we killed them all.’
Dr Woo had trained as a contemporary dancer before deciding to take up medical studies at the age of 22. Until last year she was working as an associate medical director, with a six-figure salary, with the private health firm BUPA.
Prior to that, she had spent five years as a general surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, West London.
Afghanistan
She had previously worked at hospitals in South Africa, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Trinidad and Tobago.
But she fell in love with Afghanistan and its people when she visited a friend there two years ago.
She finally made the decision to move to Kabul for good last October, after she returned to the capital to make a documentary about the local healthcare system.
Dr Woo, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and her fellow volunteers had made the arduous 120-mile trip to Nuristan, much of it on foot and by horse, for the Christian charity the International Assistance Mission.
They had spent three weeks carrying much-needed medical supplies across some of the most inaccessible terrain in Afghanistan, including 16,000ft snow-covered mountains.
Nuristan, which lies in the Hindu Kush valleys and which has been abandoned by American forces, is as dangerous as it is remote.
Last month it emerged that 700 Afghan Taliban and ‘foreign fighters’ had crossed the border from Pakistan and had begun battling with police to try to gain control of the area.
Friends and colleagues had urged Dr Woo and her fellow volunteers to abandon the trip, and the doctor herself had questioned whether she would make it back.
Heidi Kingstone, a freelance journalist in Kabul and a friend of Dr Woo, said: ‘The word that sums her up is bubbly. Sometimes you had to prick yourself to remind yourself she was a doctor.
‘She was extremely smart and capable but she was also very easy-going and girly.
‘She and Paddy only met a couple of months ago and they were so excited about the wedding. They were a lovely couple and looking forward to setting up home together in Kabul.
‘Karen knew her latest trip was dangerous and when we talked about her wedding she would say, “If I make it back.” ’
Karen Woo
Karen Woo
Meeting the locals: Dr Woo, left, on one of her many travels and, right, in her medical scrubs helping treat a sick child in one of her jobs before going to Afghanistan
Former champion jockey Richard Dunwoody was also a friend of Dr Woo. They met when she successfully bid for riding lessons with him at a charity auction in London. He later stayed at the house she shared in a compound in Kabul.
Yesterday he said: ‘I am totally devastated by what has happened. She had a passion for life and a passion to help people.
‘She and Paddy were very good to me when I went out to stay with them for a week to do some filming with them. They showed me around and looked after me. It was her birthday while we were out there in June and a good time was had by all. We celebrated with a Chinese and a karaoke.
‘Your heart has to go out to Paddy. He is a top bloke.’
Speaking at her home in Stevenage, Miss Woo’s cousin Lorraine Nugent, 52, said: ‘I just can’t believe it. What she does is fantastic. She’s been an inspiration to her family.
‘She’s just such a wonderful person. To give up everything just to help people.
‘Killing her is like killing thousands because of all the people she’s saved. She saves thousands of lives with the work she’s done.’
Miss Nugent, a sales manager at a gym, added: ‘We’re just so in awe of what she does. She cared for people who never get any care.’
Mark Smith, who befriended Dr Woo in Kabul, said: ‘Becoming friends with Karen was no effort as she welcomed people in to her special heart. Always the first with a compliment and the last to judge, she had a beautiful outlook on the world.’
karen woo
Dr Karen Woo's family were too upset to comment today
She worked as both a doctor and film-maker and helped to set up a charity, Bridge Afghanistan, which raised funds and equipment for medical and social projects in the country.
Friends and colleagues remember her as a tireless fundraiser.
In March her efforts attracted media attention in the UK when she organised an airlift of medical supplies from British hospitals to a clinic she had established in a women’s prison. She described herself as ‘broke and living in a war zone’.
Firooz Rahimi, co-founder of Bridge Afghanistan, said: ‘She left a comfortable life in the UK to try to make a difference on the other side of the world and people here will always remember her for that.
‘She was a charismatic person who wanted to make a difference in one of the poorest and most remote parts of Afghanistan.’
Dr Woo was an enthusiastic blogger, and in July she wrote: ‘I wanted to write to you directly regarding my upcoming trip to the Nuristan, a remote province in Afghanistan.
‘I will be trekking for over three weeks as part of a medical team in to the mountains of this inaccessible area to deliver medical care to the people living there. I will act as the team doctor and run the mother and child clinics once there.
‘The expedition will require a lot of physical and mental resolve and will not be without risk but ultimately, the provision of medical treatment is of fundamental importance and the effort is worth it in order to assist those that need it most.’
Abdul Farani, owner of the Kabul Health Club which hosted one of her fundraisers, said: ‘A friend of mine who is a former Northern Alliance general begged her not to go because of the poor security.
‘She was a wonderful woman who was very driven, very motivated and extremely passionate.’
Dr Woo’s parents, who still live in Stevenage, and her two brothers declined to comment last night.
Poignant blog reveals search for a ‘special’ ball gown
In a humorous yet candid online blog, Dr Karen Woo recorded her turbulent and dangerous life in Afghanistan. Here we publish some recent extracts.
Sunday, July 11
‘This is a very different place from England. The upsides are the generosity, the subtleties like the terrible driving but the lack of road rage, and the lack of food, space and money, but the offer to share nonetheless.
‘The downsides are the rigidity of the system, the safety in conformity and therefore the lack of courage to break the mould by being an individual.’
Monday, July 12
Karen writes about a boy who had been mistakenly abducted: ‘The kidnappers realised their mistake almost immediately and rang the boy’s father to tell him what had happened. “Really sorry and all that, erm, it was an accident, and we’d like to return your son, but we can’t just let him go as it will, erm, look a bit funny. Tell you what, we’ll only charge you our basic costs for the kidnapping and we’ll get him straight back to you.”
‘Apparently, basic costs for a kidnapping out here came in at around $10,000, and this was just to cover the expenses of mobilising all the people involved in the snatch.
Karen Woo
Online diary: Karen Woo at work on her laptop
‘The boy’s father agreed to pay and a relatively straightforward drop was arranged in a desert area far from any town.
‘A convoy of about 20 Land Cruisers forged into view and, just like in the film with Leonardo DiCaprio as a foreign agent, the cars started circling faster and faster, raising a circular wall of dust disguising the pick-up of the funds and the drop-off of the boy.’
Tuesday, July 20
Karen muses on the difficulty of buying a silk ball gown in Kabul for a ‘special occasion’, possibly her wedding. ‘I probably shouldn’t be worrying about a ball gown right now, but still, what’s a girl to do? It’s certainly been an interesting process having a dress made here.
‘My first round at the tailors produced a reasonable skirt. It wasn’t bad. The top, however, was more of a circus, with a bust that would have fitted Diana Dors.
‘They grossly overestimated the size of my bust. I imagine that this was one of those clashes-of-style moments that I should have anticipated. If you don’t specify exactly, then you’ve only yourself to blame when a vision of Madonna at the height of the Eighties rears into view in a gaudy puffball number.
‘I wanted the silk as I’m making a dress for a special occasion. Me being me, I’ve left everything to the last minute and just to add extra pressure, I’ve decided to run the gauntlet of the Afghan dressmaker.’
On the same day, she wrote: ‘PM [a friend] told me last night that he had heard several loud bangs in the distance. Apparently I was engrossed in the computer and heard neither the bangs nor him telling me about them. Repeated rocket fire on the airport . . . and us waiting to fly out of there [to Nuristan].’
In a fundraising letter about the expedition to Nuristan, she writes: ‘I will be trekking for over three weeks as part of a medical team in to the mountains of this inaccessible area to deliver medical care to the people living there.
‘Afghanistan has the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the world; one in five children dies before the age of one.
‘The communities who live in these remote areas get no medical care at all, so we are hoping to be able to make a really big difference to their lives.
‘The trek will not be easy; it will take three weeks and be done on foot and with packhorses – no vehicles can access the mountainous terrain.
‘The expedition will require a lot of physical and mental resolve and will not be without risk but ultimately, I believe that the provision of medical treatment is of fundamental importance and that the effort is worth it in order to assist those that need it most.
‘Ailments include respiratory infections, parasites, worms, and skin infections as well as more debilitating conditions such as cataracts and malnutrition.’
Vital clues that point towards the Taliban
ANALYSIS By ALEX THOMSON
Chief Correspondent for Channel 4 News
The province of Badakhshan, where the aid team was murdered, is one of the poorest parts of Afghanistan, which makes it one of the poorest places on Earth.
Infant mortality and female death rates are pitifully high, even by Afghan standards.
Badakhshan, in the north-east of the country, is almost exclusively populated by ethnic Tadjiks, so it is difficult for the Taliban to operate there unnoticed. The relative safety of the province means it is an area in which Western medical charities often feel comfortable offering help, even though its bitter winters and deep snows mean that Fayzabad, the provincial capital, can be cut off from the rest of Afghanistan for days.
Locator map l
The group was on a two-week mission in a remote northern region of Afghanistan. They had been setting up an eye clinic
The mountain villages will be isolated for months every winter. Even for the hardiest insurgents, this is not a conducive fighting environment.
In Kandahar, Helmand and the vast southern sweep of ethnic Pashtun areas, the insurgents have fighters who speak the local language, villagers who support their aims and an all-year season of conflict. They have neither in the far north-east of the country.
But the Taliban, of course, knew that the aid team was working in the area. They want to spread their operations across Afghanistan, particularly into areas where Nato hopes to hand security control to the Afghan army and police in the near future.
Badakhshan is number one on that wish list, so what better place for the Taliban to mount such an operation?
Tom Little
Taliban fighters display their weapons during a patrol in Ghazni province earlier this year. A spokesman claimed the ten had been spying for America and spreading Christianity
And we have one key fact from Afghan survivors of the attack: the accents and language of the men who carried out the massacre were from neighbouring Nuristan. That is a Taliban stronghold in which the medics had recently been working.
The Badakhshanis insist this was simply a bandit attack. They point out that a lot of property belonging to the doctors was stolen, which is unusual in a Taliban attack.
Equally, there was no apparent attempt to take hostages. These people would have had a high value in the busy Afghan kidnap market. Also, the Taliban took an uncharacteristically long time to claim responsibility for the killings.
But the Badakhshanis will do anything to deflect any hint that insurgent activity is taking place in their hitherto peaceful state.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301216/British-doctor-executed-Taliban-Afghanistan-marry-weeks.html#ixzz0vyrZY2JA
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Group denies Afghan Taliban claims over dead workers
08 Aug 2010 11:09:41 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Paul Tait
KABUL, Aug 8 (Reuters) - An international Christian aid group denied on Sunday Taliban accusations that eight of its foreign medical workers among 10 killed in Afghanistan's remote northeast had been proselytising.A new convert to a doctrine or religion.
The bodies of the medical aid workers were flown by helicopter from Badakshan province back to Kabul on Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in the Afghan capital said.
"Consular staff and FBI special agents assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, alongside Afghan counterparts and representatives from the UK and German Embassies, are now working to identify the victims of this tragic attack," the embassy said in a statement.
Although those killed have not been formally identified, aid group the International Assistance Mission (IAM) has said it appears the victims were from its 12-member eye care team that had been working in Badakshan and neighbouring Nuristan.
IAM has said the team consisted of six Americans, a German, a British woman and four Afghans. Five of the foreigners were men and three women.
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On Saturday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing, saying the medical workers had been carrying bibles in Dari -- one of Afghanistan's two main languages -- and were killed because they were proselytising.
"The accusation is completely baseless, they were not carrying any bibles except maybe their personal bibles," Dirk Frans, the executive director of IAM, told Reuters.
"As an organisation we are not involved in proselytising at all," he said.
Despite the Taliban claim, there was no independent confirmation of any role by the Islamist group.
The IAM said the members of its eye care team were on their way back to Kabul when they were killed by unidentified gunmen.
"NO ONE EVER EXPECTS"
One of those killed was British surgeon Karen Woo, who worked with a separate group called Bridge Afghanistan and was well known in the foreign aid community in Afghanistan.
She wrote in a recent blog posting that she would act as the team doctor and run a mother-and-child clinic in Nuristan.
"Perhaps no one ever expects it to be them, perhaps not their immediate friends either, it (is) always some poor unknown person, a local national, a third country national. We count those that matter to us," Woo wrote in another recent blog about the dangers of working in Afghanistan (http://link.reuters.com/puc83n).
The IAM describes itself as an "international charitable, non-profit, Christian organisation" which has been helping Afghans with health and economic development since 1966.
Frans said the group would review its security procedures after the incident but thought it was "highly unlikely" they would leave Afghanistan.
"We have been here when the king was in power, when the Russians were in power, when the mujahideen were fighting here in Kabul under the Taliban and all the time we have stayed," Frans said.
Afghan police told Reuters the bodies had been found early on Saturday and that the group had been warned not camp near dense forest in Nuristan.
Nuristan is a remote region with a growing insurgent presence as well as smugglers and bandits. U.S. forces withdrew from the province in the past year after taking heavy losses in years of battle near its Pakistan border.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since U.S.-led and Afghan armed groups overthrew the Taliban in 2001.
June was the bloodiest month of the war for foreign forces in Afghanistan, with more than 100 killed. Hundreds of Afghan civilians have also been killed this year as they become caught up in the crossfire.
(Additional reporting by Abdul Saboor and Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Nick Macfie; paul.tait@reuters.com; Reuters Messaging: paul.tait.reuters.com@reuters.net; Kabul Newsroom, +93 706 011 526))
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By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writer Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer – 54 mins ago
KABUL, Afghanistan – A Christian charity said Monday that it had no plans to leave Afghanistan despite the murders of 10 members of its medical aid team and repeated that the organization does not attempt to convert Muslims to Christianity.
The 10 team members — six Americans, two Afghans, one Briton and a German — were gunned down Thursday after they were accosted by gunmen after finishing a two-week mission providing medical care to impoverished villagers in remote Nuristan province. The Taliban have claimed responsibility and alleged the group were spies and tried to convert Muslims.
During a press conference Monday, the International Assistance Mission, a Kabul-based charity that organized the trip, released the names of the last two victims. They were Brian Carderelli of Harrisonburg, Virginia, a freelance videographer who worked for the International School of Kabul, and Daniela Beyer of Chemnitz, Germany. German media say she was a 35-year-old translator.
"We want to pay tribute to each of our colleagues who died, to their commitment to serve the Afghan people," said IAM director Dirk Frans. "Those who have known them and seen them at work can do nothing but pay the highest tribute to them."
Frans displayed an Afghan government document granting the team permission to treat people in the remote Parun valley for eye diseases and insisted there was no attempt to preach Christianity.
"Our faith motivates and inspires us — but we do not proselytize," he said. Frans said it was likely that members of the group were carrying personal Bibles in English and German but not in Afghan languages as alleged by the Taliban.
Frans said the organization has worked in Afghanistan for four decades and has no plans to leave. Of the eight foreigners, families of five have requested burials in Afghanistan, Frans said. The bodies are being flown back to the U.S. for FBI autopsies and returned to Kabul later for burial.
Click image to see photos of the murdered aid workers
AP
But Frans acknowledged that the losses left the organization "devastated."
Team leader Tom Little of Delmar, New York, had worked in Afghanistan since the late 1970s and was the "driving force" in the group's efforts to expand vision care in the country. Fluent in the Afghan language Dari, Little and his wife raised three daughters in Kabul despite political turmoil and a bloody civil war.
"He is irreplaceable," Frans said.
The bodies were flown from northern Afghanistan back to Kabul by helicopter Sunday along with the lone survivor of the attack, an Afghan driver who said he was spared because he was a Muslim and recited Islamic holy verses as he begged for his life. The IAM said the driver had been a trusted employee with four years of service.
Police said they don't know if he is a witness or an accomplice in the killings.
"We are heartbroken by the loss of these heroic, generous people," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Washington. She condemned the Taliban for the deaths and what she called a "transparent attempt to justify the unjustifiable by making false accusations about their activities."
Among the victims was Dan Terry, 64, who had lived in Afghanistan since 1980 with his wife, rearing three daughters while working with impoverished ethnic groups.
Others had made financial sacrifices to come here.
Dr. Thomas Grams, 51, quit his dental practice in Durango, Colorado, four years ago to work full-time giving poor children free dental care in Afghanistan and Nepal. His twin brother, Tim, said Grams wasn't trying to spread religious views.
"He knew the laws, he knew the religion. He respected them. He was not trying to convert anybody," Tim Grams said, holding back tears in a telephone call from Anchorage, Alaska. "His goal was to provide dental care and help people."
Khris Nedam, head of a charity called Kids 4 Afghan Kids that builds schools and wells, said Grams and the others were "serving the least for all the right reasons."
"The kids had never seen toothbrushes, and Tom brought thousands of them," Nedam said Sunday. "He trained them how to brush their teeth, and you should've seen the way they smiled after they learned to brush their teeth."
Nedam said the medical group had never talked of religion with Afghans.
"Their mission was humanitarian, and they went there to help people," said Nedam, a third-grade teacher from Livonia, Michigan.
Dr. Karen Woo, 36, the lone Briton among the dead, gave up her job with a private clinic in London to work in Afghanistan. She was planning to leave in a few weeks to get married, friends said.
"Her motivation was purely humanitarian. She was a humanist and had no religious or political agenda," her family said in a statement.
Another victim, Glen Lapp, 40, a trained nurse from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, had come to Afghanistan in 2008 for a limited assignment but decided to stay, serving as an executive assistant at IAM and manager of its provincial eye care program, according to the Mennonite Central Committee, a relief group based in Akron, Pennsylvania.
"Where I was, the main thing that expats can do is to be a presence in the country," Lapp wrote in a recent report to the Mennonite group. "... Treating people with respect and with love."
Cheryl Beckett, the 32-year-old daughter of a Knoxville, Tennessee, pastor, had spent six years in Afghanistan and specialized in nutritional gardening and mother-child health, her family said. Beckett, who was her high school valedictorian at a Cincinnati-area high school and held a biology degree, had also spent time doing work in Honduras, Mexico, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
"Cheryl ... denied herself many freedoms in order to abide by Afghan law and custom," her family said.
The group's attackers, her family said, "should feel the utter shame and disgust that humanity feels for them."
Elsewhere, an American service member was killed Monday in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan, and an Afghan child was shot dead the day before during a gunbattle between NATO forces and insurgents in Kunar province in the east, the alliance said.
NATO did not provide further details on the death of the American.
Sunday's fighting in Kunar started when militants attacked a small U.S. base in Watahpur district, according to Maj. Michael Johnson, a spokesman for the coalition.
Insurgents fired on the outpost and soldiers saw the rounds hit two children nearby, killing one and wounding the other, Johnson said.
NATO also announced that a German unmanned surveillance aircraft crashed Monday in Kunduz province. The statement said the aircraft lost altitude due to technical problems and was destroyed on impact.
The drone can provide battlefield imagery as well as target data.
Over the weekend, two U.S. Marines were killed Saturday when they tried to subdue a prisoner who was trying to escape from an undisclosed prison in southern Afghanistan, NATO said Monday. The prisoner escaped a room where he was observing prayers, acquired a rifle and started fighting Afghan and coalition forces. The inmate was shot and killed. NATO said the incident is being investigated.
In eastern Afghanistan, a suicide bomber approached an Afghan army base about 4 a.m. Monday in Gayan district of Paktika province. An Afghan soldier opened fire and the bomber detonated his suicide vest and died, said provincial governor spokesman Mokhlis Afghan. At the same time, six militants attacked the Gayan district compound near the base. All six were killed by Afghan soldiers, he said. No one else was hurt in the assaults.
In a Taliban-controlled area of northwest Afghanistan, a woman named Bibi Sanubar was fatally shot by militants Sunday — once in the head and once in the chest — for allegedly killing her newborn child, Abdul Jabbar Khan, deputy police chief of Baghdis province, said Monday. The woman, a widow, gave birth, but was accused of killing the child to hide illicit sex, Khan said. After hearing reports and investigating, Mullah Yousef, the Taliban commander of the Qadis district of Baghdis, determined she was guilty and ordered her death, Khan said.
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by Claire Truscott Claire Truscott – Tue Aug 10, 12:14 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The FBI is conducting its own probe into the deaths of six Americans who were among eight foreign workers on a medical aid project gunned down in Afghanistan in an attack claimed by the Taliban.
The Afghan interior ministry is also investigating the killings in the country's northeast, which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned as "a despicable act of wanton violence".
The bodies of the workers -- five US men and three women, an American, a German and a Briton -- were found in Badakhshan province on Friday. Two Afghans were also shot dead and while the group's driver survived.
The murdered foreigners were volunteers with the Christian aid group International Assistance Mission (IAM) and were mostly medics working on an eye care project, but also included a US filmmaker.
US officials and the charity denied Taliban claims that they were proselytisers and spies.
A US embassy spokeswoman in Kabul said Monday that the FBI has opened an investigation in cooperation with local authorities.
"Under federal law, the FBI has jurisdiction to conduct investigations worldwide when US citizens are killed," Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.
"Plans have not been finalised by the families and authorities involved, but one of several possibilities is returning the remains of the deceased US citizens with dignity to the United States for autopsies."
The 10 bodies have been flown back to Kabul.
Click image to see photos from Afghanistan
Reuters
US special envoy Richard Holbrooke said Monday that average Afghans were shocked at the Taliban-claimed murders.
"This was an act of a small ruthless minority, which is what the Taliban are," he told reporters, adding that investigators had still to confirm the Taliban claim they were behind the killings.
"They (the Taliban) do not represent the popular will in Afghanistan and every poll, every survey... shows that their support is in the single digits," Holbrooke said.
"But entrenched ruthless people have the ability to kill unarmed people who are coming back from a humanitarian mission. It's not hard to do," he said.
The Taliban and militant group Hizb-e-Islami separately claimed responsibility for the attack, which the interior ministry said was the work of "terrorists".
The driver, named only as Saifullah, was spared apparently after he recited Koranic verses to the gunmen, and is being questioned by interior ministry officials, IAM's executive director Dirk Frans told reporters.
Saifullah said the team had set out by car, then trekked 100 miles through the Hindu Kush mountains in eastern Nuristan province to dispense medical care to remote communities. They were escorted by local residents, he said.
One of the Afghans on the original team left to return home to Nuristan, and the rest were with their vehicles en route to Kabul when the attack took place during a food stop in woodland, Frans said.
Among the murdered Americans was Tom Little, an optometrist who had lived in Afghanistan since the mid-1970s and raised his three daughters in Kabul through years of civil war and Taliban rule.
Abdullah Abdullah, a former presidential candidate who trained as an eye surgeon with Little, said the foreign medics were bringing desperately needed healthcare.
Dismissing the Taliban's claims as "ridiculous", Abdullah told the BBC: "These were dedicated people. Tom Little used to work in Afghanistan with his heart -- he dedicated half of his life to service the people of Afghanistan."
British doctor Karen Woo, 36, had quit a job with a private healthcare firm in London to volunteer in Afghanistan, and on her blog had written with passion about life in the shattered country.
According to British media reports, she was preparing to return to London to marry a former British army officer in two weeks.
Northeast Afghanistan has been regarded as largely free of the Taliban-led insurgency blighting other parts of the country.
The United Nations condemned the "cold-blooded execution" and called on the rights of medics to be upheld.
Frans said the organisation would continue to work in Afghanistan "as long as we are welcome here".
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Nine US-led soldiers die in Afghan war
Sun Jun 19, 2011 12:56PM
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US-led troops patrol a village in Afghanistan
Nine US-led soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan as foreign troops continue to experience some of their deadliest days in the war-ravaged country.
NATO said on Sunday that four of the soldiers died of injuries sustained in non-battle related incidents. Four others were killed in fighting in southern Afghanistan.
On soldier, identified as a Frenchman, was killed by small arms fire in Afghanistan's central Kapisa Province. All the deaths occurred on Saturday.
The US-led military alliance did not reveal the nationalities of the soldiers.
At least 2,531international troops -- most of them American, have been killed in Afghanistan since the invasion of the country in 2001.
The developments come as the security situation continues to deteriorate in Afghanistan with US-led troops and government forces killed by Taliban militants on a near-daily basis.
Tens of thousands of civilians have also lost their lives since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
The security situation has been steadily worsening across Afghanistan over the past few years despite the presence of around 150,000 US-led foreign troops in the country.
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NATO says helicopters kill three attackers on Kabul hotel roof
28 Jun 2011 22:33
Source: reuters // Reuters
KABUL, June 29 (Reuters) - Two helicopters from the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan fired on and killed three insurgents on the rooftop of a hotel in Kabul after Taliban fighters, including suicide bombers, launched an attack, a spokesman said on Wednesday.
"Two International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) helicopters have just engaged three individuals on the roof," coalition spokesman Major Tim James told Reuters. "The indications are that the three individuals on the roof have been killed."
Afghan officials said at least five suicide bombers attacked Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel, one of two major hotels frequented by Westerners in Kabul, late on Tuesday night. (Reporting by Paul Tait; editing by Alistair Scrutton)
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Suicide bombers attack landmark hotel in Afghan capital
28 Jun 2011 23:47
Source: reuters // Reuters
By Hamid Shalizi
KABUL, June 29 (Reuters) - Up to seven Taliban fighters, including suicide bombers, attacked a hotel frequented by Westerners in the Afghan capital late on Tuesday, Afghan officials said, before NATO helicopters killed the last three insurgents in a final rooftop battle.
Reuters witnesses heard at least seven blasts over the course of more than two hours, with bursts of gunfire heard during the late-night attack on the Intercontinental Hotel, one of two main hotels used by foreigners and Afghan government officials in Kabul.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said there had been gunfire coming from inside the hotel. There was no confirmation of any civilian casualties.
"Two ISAF helicopters have just engaged three individuals on the roof," coalition spokesman Major Tim James said. "The indications are that the three individuals on the roof have been killed."
One Reuters witness said smoke could be seen rising from the hotel, although no fires were visible. Afghan security forces surrounded the hotel and firefighters arrived after the last of the insurgents were killed.
The attack came the night before the start of a conference about the gradual transition of civil and military responsibility from foreign forces to Afghans. The hotel was not one of the venues to be used by the conference or its delegates, an Afghan government official said.
It was also a week after U.S. President Barack Obama announced plans for the initial withdrawal of 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, with another 23,000 to leave by the end of 2012.
Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, confirmed that all of the attackers in the hotel had been killed.
He said six or seven insurgents had been involved in the attack, one of the worst in the Afghan capital in months. "All have been killed," he said.
Mohammad Zahir, the head of the Kabul police crime unit, said three police officers had been wounded as they cleared the hotel on the city's western outskirts.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said several fighters from the Islamist group had attacked the hotel.
Mujahid, who spoke to Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location, said heavy casualties had been inflicted.
The Taliban often exaggerate the number of casualties in attacks against Western and Afghan government targets.
FLARES, TRACER ROUNDS
One blast was heard at the start of the attack and then three more at least an hour later, one of the Reuters witnesses said. Bursts of gunfire were heard over the same period and flares lit up the sky over the hotel.
Reuters television footage showed police firing tracer rounds into the air as other officers moved through the hotel. Power was cut in the hotel in the hotel and in surrounding areas after the attack.
The hotel, built on a hillside in western Kabul with heavy fortifications all around it, is often used for conferences and by Westerners visiting the city.
Police threw up roadblocks immediately after the blast, stopping people from approaching the area.
Violence has flared across Afghanistan since the Taliban announced the start of a spring offensive at the beginning of May, although Kabul has been relatively quiet.
The last major attack on a major Kabul hotel used by foreigners was in January 2008, when several Taliban gunmen killed six people in a commando-style raid on the nearby Serena hotel.
The increase in violence comes as NATO-led forces prepare to hand security responsibility to Afghans in seven areas from next month at the start of a gradual transition process that will end with all foreign troops leaving Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
The two-day conference to discuss the transition process was due to begin in a government building in the centre of the city on Wednesday.
Violence across Afghanistan in 2010 was already at its worst levels since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. (Additional reporting by Omar Sobhani, Alistair Scrutton and Akram Walizada; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
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Afghanistan presses for answers on long-term U.S. military bases
Sat, Mar 31 04:40 AM EDT
image
By Sanjeev Miglani and Hamid Shalizi
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan wants the United States to clearly spell out what sort of military presence it will leave behind once most of its combat troops leave by the end of 2014, a senior Afghan official said.
It is also pressing Washington in talks over future cooperation to detail to be more forthcoming on what will be on offer for Afghan forces as they ready to take over responsibility security in the country that is still at war.
"These are issues that concern us. We want to know how many bases will be there, how many soldiers and what will be their mission. And what will we get from the United States for our security forces," President Hamid Karzai's chief spokesman Aimal Faizi told Reuters, without specifying what levels he thought would be appropriate.
In negotiations for a Strategic Partnership Deal on long-term cooperation, one of the stumbling blocks is the U.S. plan for a limited military presence to ensure members of al Qaeda and other militant groups do not find a sanctuary again.
Countries such as Russia, China and Pakistan are wary of an indefinite U.S. military presence in the region. Neighboring Iran strongly opposes the plan.
"Ultimately, it is we who are responsible for our security. We are moving towards taking full control. If there will be foreign military, then it has to be put clearly in a future security document," another senior Afghan official said.
The issue comes at a time of growing sensitivity over the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan after a series on incidents involving U.S. troops.
In January a video surfaced showing U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses, followed by burning of copies of the Koran at the main American base in Bagram.
Then this month 16 people, mostly children and women, were killed in two villages of Kandahar in an unexplained shooting rampage blamed on a U.S. soldier. Karzai called for NATO forces to pull out of rural areas and stay in their bases, saying he was at the "end of the rope."
A spike in so-called green-on-blue attacks on foreign forces by Afghan army and police has stoked concern that some of that anger is spilling over into the security forces and turning them against their western allies.
The talks halted after the Kandahar killings but have since resumed.
Because of Afghan concerns, both sides have agreed to separately discuss the issue of military bases while pressing on with the strategic partnership deal they hope to wrap up by May when a NATO summit in Chicago is scheduled.
"Right now negotiations are taking place, almost on a daily basis. We think we will have an agreement soon," Faizi said.
Afghanistan, which earlier had sought a blanket ban on the night raids by foreign troops, says it is ready to consider them as long as they are "Afghanized" or conducted by Afghan forces and in accordance with the laws of the country.
"You just can't have a situation where a bunch of people land up somebody's house, break open the door and go in," Faizi said.
The United States says the night raids are a key element in the fight against the Taliban who it says operate in many parts of the country from within population centers.
(Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
==
Bomber kills four American troops in Afghan north
Wed, Apr 04 10:13 AM EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber detonated his explosives on Wednesday in Afghanistan's northern Faryab province, killing at least 10 people including four U.S. troops who had strayed from their base to take photographs in a park, Afghan police said.
Slain soldiers lay on a blood-soaked pavement beside a blown-off leg and strewn helmets. Afghan police rushed to try and move the soldiers into vehicles.
The American soldiers were taking tourist photographs in a nearby park in Maymana, the capital of the relatively peaceful Faryab province, when they were targeted, provincial police chief General Abdul Khaliq Aqsai told Reuters.
Four civilians and two Afghan policemen were also killed in the attack, which came ahead of the traditional summer fighting months and wounded at least five more Afghans, Aqsai added.
"We warned them (Americans) not to roam around the city," Aqsai said, adding that witnesses said the bomber walked right up to them and screamed "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) before detonating his suicide vest.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said three of its service members had been killed in the north by an improvised explosive device. A spokesman declined to name the soldiers' nationality, or where the blast took place.
(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi, Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman,)
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