Aid worker attacked

With the Afghan capital Kabul suffering a series of security breakdowns, an aid worker for UNICEF in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif was shot after four armed men raided his house over the weekend, a UN official confirmed to IRIN on Monday.

"These workers have got a bit more economic power than others in the city and this could be a reason for him to have been targeted as they are better off," spokesperson for the Office of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, Ariana Yaftali told IRIN in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

The man was taken to hospital following the incident. "We are very concerned about security for staff and we would like safety assurances from authorities for national staff so they can continue to carry out their duties and help the desperate people of Afghanistan," she added.

In a separate incident, also in Mazar-e Sharif, a worker for the British-based Focus aid agency was believed to have been abducted on Friday. Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai has pleaded for a beefed-up international military presence throughout Afghanistan in order to consolidate his rule and allow aid work and reconstruction to take place.

Despite the deployment of 4,200 ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) troops in Kabul, residents were edgy on Monday following the recent murder of a minister and British troops coming under fire at the weekend.

Ghulam Hussain, a resident of the Kot-e Sangi area of Kabul that was wrecked during the factional fighting in the mid 1990s, told IRIN that Afghanistan's future depended on security. "Give us safety, we will have everything else," he said.

Karim Jan, another Kabul resident told IRIN that he had pinned all hopes on the international security forces. But he maintained that the peace was fragile and entirely dependent on the foreign peacekeepers. "If a minister is not safe how can we expect safety?," he said.

Playing down recent incidents of violence in Kabul, Neal Peckham, ISAF spokesman, said: "They are extremely regrettable but we have no evidence of any linkage to a general outbreak of violence."

UN security sources told IRIN that there are still concerns over parts of southeastern and northern Afghanistan where factional fighting continues and members of the Al-Qaeda network are believed to be hiding.