KABUL: The International Committee of the Red Cross has halted all staff movement across Afghanistan and closed its office in Jalalabad that was hit by a suicide and gun attack.
“All movements have been frozen throughout Afghanistan, there is not a single ICRC delegate or employee that is moving, taking the roads, today,” Jacques De Maio, ICRC’s South Asia Chief, said in Geneva.
“Our sub-delegation in Jalalabad has been closed, so we are reconnecting with the government and re-connecting with armed groups to determined what happened and why.”
The ICRC maintains strict neutrality in the Afghan conflict and was thought to be protected from attack by its working relations with the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
Taliban denied responsibility for the Red Cross attack on Wednesday evening, in which one guard and two militants died at the start of the two-hour assault.
“He was unarmed, defenceless, he was protecting a compound from where hundreds of thousands of Afghans were getting valuable services,” De Maio said.
“It was a brutal, despicable and frankly senseless attack... there isn’t a single Afghan that would not recognise that we are strictly independent and humanitarian in what we do.”
It was the first time that offices of the ICRC had been targeted since the organisation began work in Afghanistan in 1987.
ICRC, which has 1,800 employees nationwide, had 36 staff, including six expatriates, in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said it was “mystified” why its low-key compound in Kabul was stormed by Taliban fighters last Friday, triggering a battle with security forces that lasted several hours as the city shook with explosions and gunfire.
“This is a warning to every international organisation here,” Najib Tajali, Deputy Director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) said. “These aid groups have no political, government or military ties, and they are much needed, so they should be shown respect. The recent assaults are very strange and absolutely shocking.”
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the IOM attack, in which four militants, one policeman and two civilians died, saying that their target had been a guest house allegedly used by Afghan and US intelligence staff.
In both attacks, the militants’ primary goal appeared to be killing foreign staff, though only one IOM expat was wounded.
At the IOM’s compound, 10 foreigners hid for two terrifying hours in a reinforced strong-room as insurgents tried to kill them before Afghan special forces carried out a successful rescue mission. “The ICRC attack is particularly disturbing as they have got such a strong reputation here,” said Kate Clark, of the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
AFP
