Roundup: 9 aid workers, 6 insurgents killed in attacks in Afghanistan

Militants, presumably Taliban fighters, attacked a camp of aid workers in the northern Balkh province Tuesday morning, killing nine aid workers, a local official said.

"Unknown militants attacked the camp of the aid workers in a village in Zari district early Tuesday and fled the scene after gunning down nine aid workers," the official who declined to be named told Xinhua.

He said that all the victims were Afghans, including a woman.

Meanwhile, Abdul Basid Hainy, head of provincial Rural Rehabilitation and Development Department, confirmed the incident but declined to provide details.

Mohammad Daud Naemi, a spokesman of the Ministry for Rural Rehabilitation and Development, said the victims include five staffs, two drivers and two guards who had worked for a foreign- funded relief agency that has been providing humanitarian assistance to remote communities in the conflict-ridden Afghanistan over the past decade.

Local officials blamed the attack on the enemies of peace, a term used them for Taliban militants.

The armed Taliban outfit fighting the government has yet to claim the responsibility.

In a similar incident, a group of gunmen targeted a convoy of UN World Food Program (WFP) in the western Farah province on Tuesday, but the attack was repelled by police. Six militants were killed on the spot and another was captured, the Interior Ministry said.

The WFP has been assisting needy families in Afghanistan over the past couple of decades. Endi