Afghan attack sparks U.N. rethink
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The UNHCR's announcement could affect tens of thousands of returning refugees.
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- The United Nations refugee agency has announced it is pulling non-Afghan staff out of large areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan following the killing of a French employee at the weekend.
The decision involves the withdrawal of 30 international staff and the closure of several refugee centers, potentially affecting assistance to tens of thousands of Afghan returnees.
The move follows the killing on Sunday of Bettina Goislard, a 29-year-old French national, as she was driven through a bazaar in the town of Ghazni, 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of the capital, Kabul.
Goislard's driver, an Afghan national, was wounded in the attack, carried out by gunmen riding a motorcylce.
On Tuesday a spokesman for the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan admitted the group was behind the attack.
"Yes we did that. Our guerrillas were involved in killing that Christian woman," Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdul Samad told Reuters.
"We have confirmed information that most of the foreigners working in our country are American agents and have no sympathy for Afghanistan," the news agency quoted him as saying.
'Painful decision'
Commenting on the U.N. decision Filippo Grandi, the chief of mission in Afghanistan with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said the move was essential to ensure the safety of employees.
"We are taking today a painful decision to temporarily reduce staff in the eastern and southern province," he said. "We will review the situation after two weeks."
Refugee centers in the provinces of Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar were being closed as a result of the decision, he added.
Aside from Goislard's murder, U.N. workers have been the targets of a series of other attacks in recent days.
In a separate incident also on Sunday a U.N. vehicle in Paktia province was the target of a bomb attack.
And on November 11, a car bomb exploded outside U.N. offices in Kandahar, injuring two people.
Goislard is the first U.N. staffer in Afghanistan to be killed since the world body resumed operations there following the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001.
U.N. officials say that since then the refugee body has helped 2.5 million Afghan returnees from Iran and Pakistan as well as some 500,000 internally displaced Afghans.
Speaking Monday High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers condemned the killing as "yet another dastardly assault on an innocent humanitarian worker."
And the U.N. Security Council condemned the "callous murder" and urged Afghan authorities to make every effort to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Goislard is the fifth UNHCR staff member to be killed in the line of duty since 2000, when three staff members were killed in Indonesia and another in Guinea.
Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
