Afghanistan denies police role in killing of U.N. staffers

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan —  By Laura KingThe Afghan government Tuesday took sharp exception to U.N. assertions that Afghan police officers, not suicide assailants, may have killed four of the five U.N. workers who died in an insurgent attack on a Kabul guesthouse in October.

A day earlier, United Nations officials in New York had cited an independent report when saying that friendly fire from Afghan security forces responding to the early-morning attack Oct. 28 in the capital might have caused four U.N. fatalities.

However, the report acknowledged a “confused situation” at the Bakhtar guesthouse, in which it was difficult to distinguish attacker from defender or victim as the suicide squad burst in.

Some, or possibly all, of the assailants were wearing Afghan police uniforms. Adding to the chaos, the compound was on fire during much of the assault. In addition to the U.N. staffers who died, three Afghan security officers were killed, as were the three assailants.

Adding fuel to the controversy is a video, widely circulated in the diplomatic community, that reportedly shows men in police uniforms apparently firing randomly during the attack.

The incident underscored the highly fraught question of whether Afghan police ought to be the first line of defense in such attacks.

The U.N. now employs extra armed guards at compounds used by its staffers, including those, like the targeted guesthouse, that are not official U.N. installations.

At the time, some foreign aid workers in Kabul expressed consternation over how long it took Afghan authorities to respond to the attack.

A spokesman for Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry, Zemari Bashary, said Tuesday that there was no evidence to back up the U.N. claim that Afghan forces had caused most of the deaths.

“We …do not accept this report; we in fact reject it,” he told reporters in Kabul, adding that the findings had not been fully shared with Afghan authorities.

“The terrorists …were wearing police uniforms. The first unit of police that arrived to the scene witnessed one of them, a suicide bomber, who was shooting in a scattered manner everywhere,” he said.

Bashary said he did not believe the investigators cited by the U.N. had ballistic evidence to back up their claims.

The dispute over blame in the deaths comes at a sensitive time for the United Nations, which said Monday that it had curtailed its operations in Kandahar, the southern Afghan city that NATO has said will be its next main focus. An alliance push to root out the Taliban from the city, Afghanistan’s second-largest, is expected this summer.

The U.N. said it had instructed more than 200 local Afghan staff members in Kandahar to stay home for the time being, and it recalled an unspecified number of foreign staffers to Kabul or other locations. In recent months, insurgents have been methodically targeting government officials and anyone affiliated with foreign aid agencies or Western military forces.

The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai clashed bitterly with the United Nations over the outcome of last summer’s presidential election. A fraud-monitoring body with ties to the U.N. tossed out about one-third of the votes cast for the Afghan leader. That would have necessitated a runoff election, but Karzai’s principal opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out.

Bashary said the Afghan government was committed to ensuring the safety of U.N. staffers in Kandahar, Kabul and elsewhere, but also demanded additional inquiries on the October attack.

laura.king@latimes.com