US, British, German Aid Workers Killed By Taliban

(NewsCore) - Christian aid organization the International Assistance Mission (IAM) said Saturday it was "likely" the group of Westerners killed by the Taliban was a group of its eye doctors and translators working in northern Afghanistan.

"We have been informed that 10 people, both foreign and Afghan, were murdered in Badakhshan. It is likely that they are members of the International Assistance Mission (IAM) eye camp team," IAM said in a statement, adding that "if these reports are confirmed we object to this senseless killing of people who have done nothing but serve the poor. Some of the foreigners have worked alongside the Afghan people for decades."

The IAM group included six Americans, a German national and U.K. citizen, as well as two translators.

"Five men, all American, and three women -- an American, German and Brit -- were killed," Dirk Frans, the executive director for the IAM told reporters in Kabul.

He identified the team leader as Tom Little, an optometrist from Delmar, N.Y., who had worked in Afghanistan for more than 30 years.

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 of the same year by U.S.-backed forces.

The British victim is feared by friends in Kabul to be Dr. Karen Woo, who spent weeks fundraising for the expedition in Kabul. She ran her own organization called Bridge Afghanistan but teamed up with IAM.

She had been writing an online blog about the trip. Her final entry July 20 described her feelings about the journey, saying: "I'd had several email updates on the progress of the vehicles and thus far all was going well, they'd not had any problems and we were still on target for our rendezvous up North. We found out a couple of days ago that there is still a lot of snow on the pass and the horses won't be able to go all the way over. We had planned for the horses to carry the bulk of our kit (and there's a lot of it) so now, when their little hooves can go no further, we'll be lugging it over the pass ourselves. The image of a straggly band of people laboring through the snow at 16,000 feet comes to mind but seems so very remote and painless as I sit at my desk in Kabul -- I know it's going to hurt but I just can't imagine it right now.“

The U.S. embassy in Kabul confirmed reports of U.S. nationals among the dead, and the U.K.'s Foreign Office was investigating reports of a British national among the victims. There was no immediate response from German authorities.

IAM said its work in Afghanistan, begun in 1966, helps more than 250,000 Afghans each year.

The Taliban claimed responsibility earlier in the day for the killing of "nine Christian missionaries" in northern Afghanistan after the bullet-riddled bodies of the eight foreign doctors were discovered in a dense forest in northern Afghanistan's Badakhshan province, according to AFP.

"Yesterday at around 8:00am (local time), one of our patrols confronted a group of foreigners. They were Christian missionaries, and we killed them all," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed.

Mujahed said the group, comprising five foreign men and four foreign women as well as one Afghan national, was lost and its members were killed as they tried to escape, adding that "they were carrying Persian-language Bibles, a satellite tracking device and maps."

Provincial police chief Aqa Noor Kintoz told AFP the foreigners and two Afghan men were believed to have been killed by armed men in a remote area of Badakhshan, according to the testimony of a sole Afghan survivor.

Kintoz said the group of eight foreign ophthalmologists and three Afghans were traveling between Badakhshan and Nuristan provinces and spent a few nights in the forest, according to a man referred to only as Saifullah, who was released without being hurt.

"On the last day, they were confronted by a group of armed men who lined them up and shot them. Their money and belongings were all stolen," said Kintoz, adding that according to Saifullah's testimony, he escaped death by reading verses of the Koran, prompting the men to realize he was a Muslim and release him in neighboring Nuristan.

The police chief said local villagers warned the group not to enter the dangerous forested area, but the foreigners insisted they would be safe because they were doctors, according to Saifullah's statement.

He said the bodies were found in Kuran wa Minjan district, an area on the border with Nuristan, one day's drive from the provincial capital Faizabad.