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November 20, 2003
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Thursday
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Ramazan 24, 1424
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Demining in Afghanistan suspended
KABUL, Nov 19: The United Nations has restricted movement of demining teams in southeastern Afghanistan after masked men stole a car at gunpoint in the same town where a French UN worker was shot dead at the weekend.
In the incident on Monday in the centre of Ghazni, four masked gunmen wearing turbans stopped a car belonging to the Afghan-run Mine Detection and Dog Centre (MDC), took the driver’s money and drove away in the vehicle.
“In light of what happened to us, we won’t be deploying our teams out of Ghazni until necessary security measures have been taken,” said a spokesman for the UN mine clearing agency, which coordinates other de-mining NGOs, including the MDC.
The decision affects several hundred Afghans helping to clear the country of millions of mines left over from more than two decades of conflict.
MDC director Engineer Mohammad Shahab Hakimi told Reuters he suspected the Taliban or its supporters were behind the attack.
The United Nations suspended road missions in the south and east and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees withdrew 30 international staff from border areas after that attack.
Afghan de-miners based in Ghazni were involved in clearing the Kabul-Kandahar highway, the largest reconstruction project since the fall of the Taliban to US-led forces two years ago.
SEOUL ENVOY: South Korea has evacuated its ambassador and another diplomat from its embassy in Kabul after warnings of a suicide attack by al Qaeda or the Taliban, Korean sources in Afghanistan said on Wednesday.
The diplomatic sources said the departure of the ambassador and the first secretary to a third country left one full-time staffer in the country and a temporary worker who was expected to leave in the next two to three days.
“We got the warning from ISAF (the International Security Assistance Force),” said the full-time staff member, who did not want to be identified by name. “That is why we have emptied the embassy.”—Reuters
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