A large group of suspected Taliban fighters heroically stormed the offices of an aid agency in southwestern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing three Afghan workers and wounding three security guards in its heaviest attack since the elections last month. A seventh man, also believed wounded, is missing and may have been kidnapped. The police said that about 5 a.m., 20 to 30 gunmen raided the office of the Voluntary Association for the Rehabilitation of Afghanistan in Dilaram, on the main road across southwestern Afghanistan. The gunmen entered the building and shot six of the group's employees. including a cook who is now missing, as they slept, said Najmuddin Mojadeddi, executive director of the group. He added that an Indian company building a road from Dilaram to Zaranj, on the Iranian border, was sharing the compound with his agency. Another man killed in the attack was working as a cook for the Indian company. The Taliban have attacked construction companies building roads and schools in the past, apparently in an effort to halt the progress of reconstruction.A Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, who has often claimed responsibility for attacks in the past, said the Taliban were behind this latest attack, Reuters reported. |