Grenade attack on UN offices

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar were attacked with a grenade on Thursday morning. Initial reports said that the bomb smashed some windows but did not cause any injuries. "The incident has raised our concern about security," UNHCR spokesman Jack Redden told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad on Friday. According to initial details, two people riding on a motorbike threw a grenade into the FAO compound, which is adjacent to UNHCR offices, around 9 am local time. The attackers fled from the scene, but crashed their motorbike and escaped on foot afterwards. Redden added that local authorities in Kandahar were investigating the incident. Kandahar was the spiritual capital of Afghanistan's hard line Taliban regime. "It is the first attack on a UN compound, although they have been attacking the [US-led] coalition forces in the area," he said. After nearly seven months of the installation of a new government in Afghanistan, security remains the key concern of the international community. The UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, in his briefing to the UN Security Council in late July, cited security as one of foremost challenges facing the new Afghanistan.