Three Italian charity workers were among nine people arrested in southern Afghanistan over what officials said was a plan to assassinate a provincial governor.
Suicide vests and improvised explosive devices were found at a storeroom in a Lashkar Gah hospital where the three work, which is run by the Italian charity Emergency.
“They were planning attacks in Lashkar Gah and the No. 1 target was myself,” Helmand Provincial Governor Gulab Mangal told reporters on Saturday, saying the operation was funded by the Afghan Taliban based in Pakistan.
Nine hand grenades and five guns were also found, he added.
Helmand government spokesman Daud Ahmadi said an investigation had been launched and that police, who had the facility under surveillance for the past month, swooped after “material” was brought there on Saturday.
Three of those detained were Italians, he said.
In a statement posted on their Web site on Saturday, Emergency said it had learned of the arrests and the allegation of an intended assassination through press reports.
“No Afghan authorities or representatives from the international coalition have contacted us to explain the reasons for this detention,” the statement said, referring to the NATO force operating in the country.
The allegation “sounds simply groundless to us and we are absolutely certain that the truth will come forth quickly,” the statement said.
Emergency said it had been unable to make contact with its employees, who it did not identify, since their arrest.
“The only contact we have been able to make has been through one of the employees cellphones answered by someone who identified himself as a British military official,” the statement said.
The statement called for their employees’ rights to be respected and for the detainees to be allowed to get in touch.
In Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini was closely following developments, a foreign ministry spokesman said.
“Pending details in this matter, the government reaffirms its strictly rigorous line against any direct or indirect support for terrorism, be it in Afghanistan or elsewhere,” the spokesman said.
Taliban and other Islamic militants trying to topple the Western-backed government in Kabul use suicide bomb attacks as a tactic against Afghan and Western troops.
Southern Afghanistan has been the focus of the nearly nine-year insurgency since the Taliban were ousted from power in late 2001.
US and NATO troops are expected to swell from 126,000 to 150,000 in the coming months as part of a major counter-insurgency push against militant fighters in Kandahar Province, next to Helmand, in the coming months.
Emergency, which was set up in 1994 in Milan, has had a facility in Lashkar Gah since 2003 and has operated in Afghanistan since 1999, treating 2.5 million people.
The group aims to provide high-quality medical treatment to civilians in war-torn countries and “promotes a culture of solidarity, peace and respect for human rights.”
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