Afghanistan aid workers murdered as they tried to flee attackers
12th August 2010
Speaking for the first time since the attack, the Afghan told how several of the charity workers tried to hide under vehicles but were gunned down or hit with grenades as they fled.
When the eight aid workers and two Afghans had been killed, the attackers told associates over a radio: “Everything’s finished. We killed them.”
Two of the three women in the team, which included the British medic, Dr Karen Woo, 36, jumped into the 4×4 vehicle to try to escape but were killed by a grenade.
One-by one the rest of the group were shot, included the team’s cook who was hiding under a car.
Safiullah told investigators the lead gunman spoke like a Pakistani.
Despite the safe-passage the British had been granted, they were attacked by Ghilzai warriors as they struggled through the snowbound passes.
Looks like things haven’t changed very much in 150 years:
On 1 January 1842, following some unusual thinking by Elphinstone, which may have had something to do with the poor defensibility of the cantonment, an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependants from Afghanistan. Five days later, the withdrawal began. The departing British contingent numbered around 16,000, of which about 4,500 were military personnel, and over 12,000 were civilian camp followers. The military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion, 44th Regiment of Foot.
August 15th, 2010 at 18:58
If one is normal, one might reason that in order to do good, one must be alive; and that they couldn’t do bad, if they were dead. That is, go armed, and shoot back, or, better yet, first. However, that isn’t how these fools think and yet it’s the same fools that run modern democracies, and we let them.
August 16th, 2010 at 08:43
I had a similar discussion with a friend of mine, Heinrich Liedtke, when we went to see the movie GANDHI. He pointed out that Gandhi’s campaigns of ‘civil disobedience’ would only have worked with the British; the French or Germans or Italians would have crushed them ruthlessly and hanged him at the first opportunity, and he would have remained a minor footnote in history rather than this great iconic figure. Contrast the British record in India with what the Belgians did in Congo or the Germans in Namibia. Nelson Mandela would have suffered the same fate — if the Germans had been running South Africa, the prisons would have been empty and the graveyards full.