Gunmen attack aid agency in Nooristan

The UK-based relief agency Afghan Aid (AA) has suspended activities in the northeastern province of Nooristan after an armed attack on its field office last Friday. A group of armed men broke into the AA office during the night, beat up the local staff and stole two vehicles and all the agency's electronic and communications equipment. "There were nine people. They beat up the staff and locked them in the guard's room. After two hours, the men took two AA vehicles, electronic and radio communications equipment and ran away," David Napher, managing director of Afghan Aid, told IRIN in the capital Kabul. Napher said the armed men had to leave the office when the community came to rescue the aid workers. He said the AA vehicles were burnt out 12 km from the office, adding that investigations by local authorities were continuing but that so far there was no clear sign of who the attackers were. "We don't know who they were, but they seemed to be looking for communications equipment. That is the main concern," said Napher. AA - the only international aid agency in the isolated, newly established province - has relocated "out of province" staff while local staff have been told to remain in the office. "Afghan Aid has suspended field activity in the province pending a review of the situation and the results of the ongoing investigation by local police," said the managing director. The agency has 450 staff, all Afghans, and is engaged in development and agricultural projects in the north, northeast and centre of the country. Security remains the major concern as Afghans prepare for their first ever-democratic presidential elections in early October. The insecurity has already affected aid deliveries in the war weary country. Many aid agencies have either pulled out or reduced operations in vulnerable rural areas. The Nooristan incident came a week after attacks on the compounds of the United Nations and international aid agencies in the western city of Herat. Dozens of aid workers and United Nations international staff members were moved out of the city when angry demonstrators burned and looted the compounds. Anti-government militants are blamed for many of the attacks and the deaths of more than 30 aid workers since March 2003, making the south and east of Afghanistan virtually off-limits.