Aid to north at risk after medics' murder

Aid workers were yesterday reviewing their operations in Afghanistan after 10 members of a medical team were killed, prompting fears that Taleban gains in the previously calm north could hit aid programmes and allow corruption to flourish.

The British Government is expected to review the safety of civilian staff working outside the main cities after the 10 volunteers - six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Briton - were shot in the forest of Badakhshan.

The Taleban claimed the victims were spying for the United States and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. The claim was angrily denied yesterday by the family of one of the victims, British doctor Karen Woo, 36. They described her as a "true hero" whose motivation was to help Afghans without medical care. Woo had written in a recent blog posting that she would act as the team doctor and run a mother-and-child clinic in Nuristan.

The expedition was run by the Christian charity International Assistance Mission, which also denied the Taleban claims. "The accusation is completely baseless; they were not carrying any Bibles except maybe their personal Bibles," said Dirk Frans, the executive director.

Woo's body, and those of the other victims, was flown back to Kabul yesterday. Her fiance, who was to marry her in Britain in two weeks, identified her body in a city morgue.

The medics were heading back to Kabul when they were intercepted by gunmen. According to the sole survivor, an Afghan, the group was robbed then lined up and shot.

The killings were roundly condemned. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described them as a "despicable act of wanton violence" and described the aid workers' efforts as heroic. "The Taleban stopped them on a remote road on their journey from Nuristan, led them into a forest, robbed them, and killed them," she said.

Officials fear that restrictions on civilian work in the north will hinder efforts to ensure that the millions of dollars in aid is not being wasted through corruption and incompetence.

Aid work has focused on the north of Afghanistan since violence has made it impossible to operate in other parts of the country.

Britain's Foreign Office and Department for International Development stepped up efforts to oversee aid funding after parliamentary committees accused officials of failing to supervise projects, leading to widespread mismanagement and fraud. The civilians hired to oversee the projects are protected by private security firms.

However, an official involved in organising security for British Government staff said: "We carry out reviews of security after an incident such as the one which has just taken place.

"I appreciate that those who were killed appear not to have any security but it did take place in an area which was thought to be relatively safe and under the circumstances it seems very likely there will be a review of the movements of our people and safeguards put in if necessary."

Nato is understood to be concerned about Taleban inroads in Badakhshan, as well as neighbouring Takhar province.

The sharp decline in security in northern Afghanistan is one of the most dramatic trends of the war but has been under-reported, with far more attention falling on the country's south and east where Nato's resources are concentrated.

Security analysts in Kabul said that no NGOs had so far decided to pull out of Badakhshan because of the murders.

The growth of insurgency there may spell trouble for Nato plans to transfer security of some of Afghanistan's safer provinces to Afghan government control.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since US-led and Afghan armed groups overthrew the Taleban in 2001.

June was the bloodiest month of the war for foreign forces in Afghanistan, with more than 100 killed.

- INDEPENDENT