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Afghan gunmen kill 11 Chinese

Gunmen killed 11 Chinese road workers in northern Afghanistan after bursting into their compound and attacking them with automatic rifles early yesterday, the Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan said.

It was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Afghanistan since the Taliban militia were ousted two-and-a-half years ago.

The raid occurred 35km south of the northern city of Kunduz, until now deemed a secure area. Previously, Islamic insurgents have concentrated their attacks in the south and the east.

The provincial governor blamed the raid on militants bent on destabilizing the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai by attacking foreign and Afghan troops as well as aid organizations as Afghanistan prepares for landmark elections in September.

The incident was another blow for the leader, currently visiting the US, who faces growing instability that is undermining vital assistance missions and reconstruction in the war-shattered country of 28 million people.

"For sure, this was a politically motivated act," said Kunduz Governor Mohammad Omar.

"It was carried out by the enemies of Afghanistan," he said, using the euphemism for remnants of the ousted Taliban or their allies in al-Qaeda and forces loyal to renegade warlord and former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Omar said the attackers used assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades in the attack at around 1am. One Afghan guard was also killed and four Chinese were wounded.

Some of the 100 or so Chinese workers at the site, many of them from Shandong Province, only arrived at the compound site on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency said.

"Last night there were about 20 unidentified armed personnel who went into the work site and used automatic rifles, shot at Chinese workers and caused 11 deaths and four injuries," Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan Sun Yuxi (孫玉璽) said.

He spoke in Kabul before boarding a plane for Kunduz where he will visit the compound and the wounded Chinese.

An official at the embassy in Kabul, who asked not to be identified, said the men were were working on a road-paving project for a Chinese company that is being funded by the World Bank.

Guerrillas have been most active in their old strongholds in the south and east, but an attack in the northwest last week that killed three foreigners and two Afghans from the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group, together with the Kunduz raid, have raised concern that the insurgency is spreading.

The reason for the attack just outside the provincial capital of Kunduz was not known. China has pledged to help Afghanistan rebuild a major irrigation project near Kabul.

Kunduz is 250km north of Kabul and is a seven-hour journey by road from the capital.

The official said the wounded would be treated at a German hospital in Kunduz, where a joint military-civilian team led by German troops is operating. The bodies had also been taken by the German Provincial Reconstruction Team.

No decision has been taken on whether to pull the Chinese workers out of the area.

"The first thing is to take care of the wounded," the embassy official said.

Manoel de Almeida e Silva, spokesman for the UN in Afghanistan, said that voter registration sites in Kunduz had been closed as a precaution and that UN road missions in and out of Kunduz province had been temporarily suspended.

China backed the US-led "war on terror" after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, but has expressed misgivings over the war in Iraq.

Militant attacks on Chinese overseas have been rare.
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