KUNDUZ, AFGHANISTAN — Masked gunmen killed 10 people working for the HALO Trust mine-clearing organization in northern Afghanistan in an attack the government blamed on the Taliban Wednesday, but the Britain-based charity said the insurgents actually helped end the assault.
اضافة اعلان
The raid happened late on Tuesday as dozens of deminers were relaxing at a HALO compound in
Baghlan province, around 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of the capital Kabul, after a day spent looking for ordnance in the area.
Baghlan has seen fierce fighting in recent months, with near-daily battles between the Taliban and government forces in several districts.
A survivor of Tuesday’s attack told AFP that five or six armed men scaled the compound walls and gathered everyone together before asking if there were any Hazara present.
Afghanistan’s Shiite Hazara community is often targeted by jihadists from the Daesh group, who consider them heretics. The SITE Monitoring website reported Wednesday that Daesh had claimed responsibility for the attack.
“Nobody responded,” said the survivor, who asked not to be identified.
He told AFP the gunmen then asked the compound leader to identify himself, before shooting him dead.
“Then one of them said ‘kill them all’,” he said.
“As they opened fire, we all tried to escape. Some were killed and some, like me, were wounded.”
Before the Daesh claim, Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh blamed the Taliban for the attack, saying in a tweet the insurgents wanted to “steal money and unexploded devices” from the HALO base.
But James Cowan, chief executive of HALO, told BBC radio that the insurgents actually helped end the assault that also left 16 workers wounded.
Cowan said the attackers went “bed to bed, murdering in cold blood my staff”.
“This is a horrific incident, the worst in the HALO Trust’s history,” he said.
The Taliban dismissed the government’s accusation that they were behind the attack -- and Cowen also said the insurgents were not responsible.
“The Taliban have denied responsibility for this and indeed the local Talib group came to our aid and scared off the assailants,” he said, adding his organization was unaware who the attackers were.
The Taliban said they were not to blame.
“We condemn attacks on the defenseless & view it as brutality,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter.
“We have normal relations with NGOs, our Mujahideen will never carry out such brutal acts.”
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