10 in unarmed medical mission killed by Taliban

KABUL - They had hiked for more than 10 hours over rugged mountains - unarmed and without security - to bring medical care to isolated Afghan villagers. Then their humanitarian mission took a tragic turn.

Ten members of the Christian medical team - six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Briton - were gunned down in a gruesome slaughter the Taliban said it carried out, alleging the volunteers were spying and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Among the dead was team leader Tom Little, an optometrist from Delmar, N.Y., near Albany, who has been working in Afghanistan for about 30 years and spoke fluent Dari, one of the two main Afghan languages, said Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, which organized the team.

The gunmen spared only an Afghan driver, who recited verses from the Quran as he begged for his life.

Team members - doctors, nurses and logistics personnel - were attacked as they were returning to Kabul after their two-week mission in the remote Parun valley of Nuristan province about 160 miles north of Kabul. They had decided to veer northward into Badakhshan province, thinking that would be the safest route back, Frans said.

The bullet-riddled bodies - including three women - were found Friday near three four-wheeled drive vehicles in a wooded area just off the main road that snakes through a narrow valley in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan, provincial police chief Gen. Agha Noor Kemtuz told The Associated Press.

Little had reared three daughters in Afghanistan, and survived both the Soviet invasion and bloody civil war of the 1990s that destroyed much of Kabul. Also killed was Dr. Karen Woo, 36, a British surgeon, who was getting married in two weeks.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the AP they killed the foreigners because they were "spying for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity." In a Pashto language statement acquired by the AP, the Taliban also said the team was carrying Dari-language Bibles and "spying gadgets."

Frans said the International Assistance Mission, or IAM, one of the longest serving nongovernmental organizations operating in Afghanistan, is registered as a nonprofit Christian organization but does not proselytize. He said the team had driven to Nuristan, left the vehicles and hiked with pack horses over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley. There, they traveled from village to village on foot offering medical care for about two weeks.

"This tragedy negatively impacts our ability to continue serving the Afghan people as IAM has been doing since 1966," the charity said in a statement.

Little and employees from other Christian organizations, were expelled by the Taliban government in August 2001 after the arrest of eight Christian aid workers - two Americans and six Germans - for allegedly trying to convert Afghans. He returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban government was toppled in November 2001 by U.S.-backed forces. Known in Kabul as "Mr. Tom," Little supervised a network of IAM eye hospitals and clinics around the country largely funded through private donations.