Unidentified gunmen shot dead a British development worker in a nighttime attack in downtown Kabul after a monthslong lull in violent incidents in the Afghan capital, police and the British embassy said yesterday.
Steven Blair MacQueen, 41, who worked as an adviser to Afghanistan's rural development ministry, was killed as he drove a pickup truck through downtown Monday night.
The attack happened about 10:15pm in front of the main guest house for UN workers in Kabul and the Dutch Embassy, said General Sher Agha, a Kabul police commander.
The British Embassy confirmed the incident, and said MacQueen's next of kin had been informed and were being provided consular assistance.
The motive for the shooting was unclear.
Agha said two vehicles, one of them a black landcruiser, had followed the British man's white Toyota pickup truck then drove ahead of him and blocked his way. From inside the landcruiser, someone opened fire, killing the man, before driving away.
The man was alone inside the fourwheel driver vehicle, which belonged to the rural development ministry, he said.
A police official, who requested anonymity, said MacQueen was shot at least twice in the head and arm.
Agha said police were still investigating the shooting.
A British Embassy official had few details about MacQueen's employment, other than that he worked with the rural development ministry and that he was not an employee of the British government.
UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the victim was not UN personnel.
Since holding its first direct presidential elections last October, Afghanistan has enjoyed a period of relative calm, marked by a decline in attacks by Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents that have plagued restive areas of the south and east. But last November, three foreign election workers were kidnapped in Kabul by a Taliban splinter group. They were released unharmed a month later.
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