Afghans working on US project killed by Taliban
Suspected Taliban militants ambushed and killed five Afghans working on a US-funded project to end opium farming in the south of the country, officials said.
The workers were attacked as they drove through Helmand province, about 110 miles north-west of the southern city of Kandahar, said senior provincial official Ghulam Muhiddin.
Two of the victims were engineers working for Chemonics, a US-based company; one was a government engineer; the other two were a driver and a policeman employed as a security guard, he said.
“Police are investigating the killings and are searching for the Taliban attackers,” Muhiddin said.
Carol Yee, a senior Chemonics worker in the area, confirmed the killings. She said the men were working on a project to provide alternative livelihoods to farmers growing opium, the raw material for heroin.
Hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent in Afghanistan by various organisations to persuade farmers to grow legal crops.
Afghanistan last year produced nearly 90% of the world’s opium, sparking warnings that it is fast becoming a dangerous “narco-state” less than four years after the end of its role as a haven for al Qaida.
Taliban-led militants have stepped up attacks on military and civilian targets in recent months in a campaign of violence that is impeding aid to the impoverished south and east of the country.
