Eight held in Afghanistan in German worker murder

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Mar 9 (Reuters) Afghan authorities detained eight men today in connection with the murder of a German aid worker in northern Afghanistan.

Gunmen killed the worker for a German aid group, which builds hospitals and other development projects, on a road in Shar-e-Pul province on Thursday.

''Eight people have been detained. Six of them are suspected of being involved in the killing while two others could be criminals,'' Shar-e-Pul governor Sayed Mohammad Iqbal Munib told Reuters.

''It was an organised terrorist attack and they wanted to disrupt security in the province.'' Munib said all eight suspects were residents of the province and could have links with ''terrorists''. He did not elaborate.

German troops operating in northern Afghanistan said they had received the body of the slain aid worker and planned to fly it out.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday said the aid worker had been the victim of a ''perfidious murder''.

Northern Afghanistan has been relatively free of fighting but bandits operate freely there as they do in much of the country.

Two German journalists were killed in nearby Baghlan province in October as they camped by the side of a road.

The Taliban and other insurgents often attack and kill aid workers to halt development work in one of the world's poorest countries.

REUTERS PDM KP2238