Five Afghan aid, US firm workers killed in attacks

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, May 30 (Reuters) Taliban gunmen shot dead three Afghan women working for a Western aid agency in northern Afghanistan today, while a roadside bomb killed two Afghans employed by a US firm, officials said.

The three women from Action Aid were travelling in a car to the northeast of Shiberghan, the capital of Jowzjan province, when they were attacked by militants on motorbikes.

Their driver was also killed.

''Apart from the three women, the driver of the car also lost his life in the attack by Taliban fighters who were riding motorcycles,'' provincial governor, Juman Khan Hamdard, told Reuters.

The Taliban, who are present in the province but less active than in other parts of the country, did not issue any immediate claim of responsibility.

Separately, two Afghans working for a Washington-based firm, Planning and Development Collaborative International (Padco), were killed when their land cruiser struck a roadside bomb in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, a US embassy statement said.

Two Americans were slightly wounded.

Padco, which specialises in creating alternative livelihoods in rural areas, is under contract to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and its team in Badakhshan, one of the main poppy growing areas in Afghanistan, was scouting possible sites for a hydro-electric power project.

The poppy flower produces opium from which morphine and heroin are derived, and drug runners, along with the Taliban, are regarded as long term threats to Afghanistan's stability.

Driven from power by US-backed forces in 2001, the Taliban and their allies are mostly active in southern and eastern areas of the country, although militants have carried out attacks in some parts of the north during the past year.

The Taliban have declared a holy war against the government, US-led coalition forces, aid workers and have killed dozens of relief workers in the past.

Today's attacks comes amid rising violence in parts of the south where nearly 350 people have been killed over the past couple of weeks, the bloodiest phase of an insurgency that has raged since the fall of the Taliban.

REUTERS CH RK2150