PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Gunmen killed a U.N. employee and a guard during a failed kidnap attempt at a refugee camp in northwestern Pakistan today, officials said, a blow to humanitarian efforts to help civilians displaced by army offensives against the Taliban.
Also today, a U.N. commission investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto arrived in Pakistan for the first time since opening its inquiry.
The attack on the U.N. worker took place early today at the Kacha Garhi camp near Peshawar. Local police chief Ghayoor Afridi said the assailants tried to abduct the U.N. official and opened fire when he resisted.
The chief of the U.N. refugee agency in Pakistan, Guenet Guebre-Christos, identified the dead U.N. worker as Zill-e-Usman, a 59-year-old Pakistani in charge of the U.N.’s relief efforts at the camp. She said Usman had worked for the U.N. for nearly 30 years and was set to retire soon.
“He was quite an old hand and he was looking forward to his retirement,” Guebre-Christos told The Associated Press. She strongly condemned the attack, calling it a “cowardly assassination.”
The U.N. said in a statement a camp guard was also killed, while another guard and a local U.N. worker were wounded.
Some 2 million Pakistanis have been driven from their homes in northwest Pakistan because of military offensives against militants in the region — and many ended up in refugee camps. International organizations have stepped up humanitarian efforts, leaving them vulnerable to attack by militants or criminals.
Islam Khan, a guard at the Kacha Garhi camp, said four men drove up to Usman’s office in a blue car. Usman was coming out of the office, and the men tried to kidnap him. A camp guard opened fire. In the subsequent gunfight, one of the assailants was also wounded, Khan said.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack, and there was no claim of responsibility.
Guebre-Christos said she wasn’t aware of any direct threats toward U.N. workers at the camp.
“We don’t know who these people are who attacked or why they did it,” she said.
Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for Pakistan’s northwest tribal regions, said today’s attack sounded like the work of criminals rather than the Taliban because the militants had largely been driven from that area.
The number of kidnappings has soared in Pakistan in recent years, especially in the northwest. While many of the criminal gangs behind them are believed to be in it for their own gain, others are suspected of links to the Taliban, and kidnappings are believed to be an important source of funding for the militancy.
U.N. employees and foreigners have been the target of kidnappings and bombings several times in recent months.
Last month, there were U.N. employees among the 11 people killed in a suicide attack that devastated the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar.
Earlier this year, Taliban militants beheaded a Polish geologist, and suspected Baluch rebels kidnapped American U.N. refugee worker John Solecki and held him for about two months in southwest Pakistan before freeing him. His driver was shot dead.
Last year, Lynne Tracy, the top U.S. diplomat in the northwest, narrowly survived an attack on her vehicle in Peshawar by suspected militants. In November, also in Peshawar, gunmen shot and killed American aid worker Stephen Vance.
In Islamabad, the three-member U.N. commission arrived today in the country for the first time since formally opening its investigation into Bhutto’s death. The members were meeting with senior officials.
Bhutto was killed in late 2007 as she campaigned to return her political party to power in parliamentary elections. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, took over the party and was elected president by lawmakers in September 2008.
Little progress has been made in the domestic probe into Bhutto’s slaying. The government hopes the U.N. inquiry will help bring her killers to justice.
Also today, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, toured refugee camps in the northwest — although not Kacha Gari — and was holding talks with top Pakistani officials on security issues.
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