Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Taliban loyalists have beaten Afghan employees of the United Nations in three Afghan cities and confiscated a number of U.N. vehicles, a U.N. spokeswoman said Wednesday.
“Staff have been beaten in Kabul, Kandahar and in Jalalabad,” spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. “A significant number not yet specified of vehicles have been taken by the Taliban in Kandahar,” the headquarters of the religious militia.
Three ambulances and a pickup truck were among the vehicles seized, she said.
The three cities where the assaults took place have been targeted in U.S. missile and air attacks that began on Sunday. The United States has demanded Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden, accused in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
The United Nations withdrew its international staff from Afghanistan two days after the Sept. 11 attacks because of fears of American military action. Hundreds of Afghan employees remained behind in the country, trying to continue delivering food and other humanitarian aid.
After a 1998 U.S. missile attack on Afghanistan, angry protesters in Kabul killed one U.N. international staffer and injured another. The 1998 missile strikes were in response to the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, also blamed on bin Laden.
On Monday, four security guards at a U.N.-affiliated mine-clearing operation were killed during an American air raid on the capital.
Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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