Apr
27
Afghan police have mistakenly killed UN employees: agency
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – UN investigators believe that the Afghan police mistakenly shot dead at least three UN workers in a Taliban attack in October 2009, an official said Monday the agency.
Susana Malcorra, an important official of UN peacekeepers, made the remark at a briefing on an investigation committee of United Nations on a Taliban attack on October 28 at a residence in Kabul, which ended with the death of five employees.
The official described unclear circumstances in which the attackers Taliban and Afghan security forces were dressed in police uniforms identical.
It was a “situation very, very chaotic in the middle of the night,” said Malcorra.
Researchers believe that three UN workers were shot dead by Afghan police while trying to escape from the residence, he said.
“The feeling is that it was friendly fire,” he said.
Malcorra said security official of the UN Louis Maxwell, an American, had also killed by Afghan police who apparently mistook him for an insurgent. But he said it remained unclear how he died.
The fifth member of the UN who died in the attack died in a firefight began after Taliban attackers threwf9agrenades into the residence , she said.
United Nations requested the Afghan authorities continue the investigation, said Malcorra. The UN inquiry is being led by Australian Andrew Hughes, a former police chief of international agency.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that the report of the investigation not be made public, stressed problems in the security of the UN and in the coordination between the agency, the Afghan authorities and NATO partners.
UN officials said privately that this also reflected the lack of training and discipline of the Afghan security forces.
The Afghan government originally said that the Taliban killed five members of UN. Shortly after the attack, Ban criticized the police for delaying so long to get where Maxwell struggled to repel the attackers.
Ban said in his statement that asked the security chief UN, Gregory Starr, to review the report and lead a team to travel to Kabul next week “to discuss the next steps and follow up with the Afghan authorities.”
(Published in Spanish by Steve Addison)