Bomb Kills 4 U.N. Workers Near Kabul

Bomb Kills 4 U.N. Workers Near Kabul

NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2001

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Four U.N. workers died during the second night of U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan when a bomb struck a U.N. de-mining facility on the outskirts of Kabul, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

"Four staff were killed, and four staff were injured," said Stephanie Bunker, a U.N. spokeswoman for the organization's Afghanistan coordination office. "The four who were killed died on the spot, and the pieces of their bodies are still being recovered from the wreckage of the building."

Bunker said that at about 9 p.m. a bomb or missile struck a building that housed equipment for the land-mine program. Bunker said the four men were all Afghani and worked as security guards at the facility. She said the building was apparently demolished.

U.S. and British forces on Sunday opened a campaign against Taliban sites after the ruling militia refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the U.S. search for a possible mastermind behind the Sept. 11 hijackings and attacks on New York and Washington in which some 6,000 people died. Bin Laden has been sheltered by the Taliban for two years and U.S. officials had said that countries that refuse to help deal with suspected terrorists could come under military attack.

Bunker said the U.N. Afghanistan coordination office was urging the international community "to protect civilians from harm" who had "nothing to do with arms and do not bear arms."

The deaths of the U.N. workers were the first confirmed civilian casualties in Afghanistan since the United States and Britain began bombing military targets near major cities Sunday night in retaliation for terrorist attacks on New York and Washington last month.

In Washington, the Pentagon has emphasized that the air strikes are aimed at military facilities of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia and suspected terrorist training camps run by bin Laden.

Taliban officials say up to 20 people have died in the attacks, but the death toll has been impossible to confirm because independent sources have been forced out of the country.

Bunker said the United Nations was "lucky" to have received the information about the deaths since communications between Afghanistan and Pakistan have almost completely broken down. The fighting has forced the United Nations to abandon most of its operations in the country, including the World Food Program, which had stocked Kabul with two weeks' worth of food before fighting stopped regular food shipments from Pakistan.

The four U.N. deaths followed a violent demonstration at U.N. offices Monday in Quetta, where protesters staging an anti-American demonstration attacked U.N. High Commission for Refugees offices. U.N. staffers inside at the time were able to escape unhurt.

Anti-American protests kept a U.N. team from inspecting refugee camps near Preshawar, a Pakistani city near the Afghani border.

Monday morning, following the first night of U.S. and British airstrikes inside Afghanistan, the United Nations shuttered its offices in Islamabad for security reasons, retaining only a skeleton staff. Operations are slowly resuming, Bunker said, with suspended U.N. programs struggling to deal with an expected refugee influx in the wake of the bombings.

U.N. officials said they expected some 300,000 refugees to flee Afghanistan for Pakistan, where some 3 million have already flooded the country. Another 80,000 Afghani refugees are likely to head for Iran, U.N. officials said.

Six cargo planes from Japan carrying tents, blankets, water buckets and plastic sheeting were scheduled to arrive in Islamabad, for distribution in refugee camps in Peshawar and Quetta.

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