UN investigators believe that Afghan police mistakenly shot and killed four UN employees during a Taliban attack in October last year, UN officials said on Monday.
Susana Malcorra, a top UN peacekeeping official, made the remark in a briefing about a UN board of inquiry into an Oct. 28 Taliban attack on a guesthouse in Kabul that resulted in the deaths of five UN employees.
She described confusing circumstances in which Taliban attackers and Afghan security forces who responded were dressed in identical police uniforms. It was a “very, very chaotic situation in the middle of the night,” she said.
Investigators believe three UN employees were shot and killed by the Afghan police while trying to escape from the guesthouse, Malcorra said.
“The sense is that it was friendly fire,” she said.
Malcorra said that UN security officer Louis Maxwell, an American, might also have been killed by Afghan police who appeared to have mistaken him for an insurgent. She rejected suggestions that Maxwell was killed at close range by Afghan troops in an execution-style shooting.
Maxwell was surrounded by Afghan troops but forensic analysis established that “he was killed by a long-distance shot ... beyond 5 meters,” Malcorra said.
Concern over the circumstances of Maxwell’s death were heightened when the German magazine Stern reported earlier this month that the security guard was shot execution-style by Afghan forces after heroically defending UN staff.
Stern, citing a joint probe by the UN and the FBI, broadcast an amateur video that it said backed its version of events.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky issued a statement saying: “Maxwell died protecting his UN colleagues, many of whom are alive today because of his heroic actions.”
The fifth UN victim died in a fire that began raging after the Taliban attackers set off grenades in the guesthouse, Malcorra said.
The UN has asked Afghan authorities to pursue the investigation, Malcorra said. Afghanistan’s UN mission declined to comment but said Ambassador Zahir Tanin had passed on the report to Kabul.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that the inquiry report, which will not be made public, highlighted shortcomings in UN security measures and coordination between the UN, Afghan authorities and NATO partners.
UN officials have said privately that it also reflected the Afghan security forces’ lack of training and discipline.
The Afghan government originally said the Taliban killed all five UN staffers. Shortly after the attack, Ban criticized the police for taking so long to arrive at the site, where Maxwell was struggling to fend off the attackers.
Ban said in his statement that he has asked UN security chief Gregory Starr to review the security findings in the report and to lead a team to Kabul next week “to discuss next steps and follow up with the Afghan authorities.”
Meanwhile, the Afghan Interior Ministry said yesterday a rocket attack killed three civilians inside a home in the northern Kunduz province and wounded three others. The statement blamed insurgents for the Monday night attack.
In Kabul, the deputy police chief said a rocket hit the ground near the Ministry of Urban Development early yesterday, but there were no casualties.
In other news, two Chinese nationals kidnapped three months ago by the Taliban have been freed and are in good health, Beijing said yesterday.
The pair were kidnapped on Jan. 16 as they were working on a road project in Faryab Province. The Taliban had claimed responsibility for their abduction.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry statement gave no details on the circumstances or timing of their release. The Chinese were seized along with their two Afghan drivers and two guards, who were freed in late January after negotiations with tribal elders.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS