Badakhshan, Taliban kill eight people for being “Christian missionaries”

[Nick]

Afghanistan: Badakhshan, Taliban kill eight people for being “Christian missionaries”

The ten men belonged to the International Assistance Mission (IAM), a Christian charitable organization based in Switzerland. According to the Taliban they were in possession of Bibles translated into Dari, the local language. Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman: "They were Christian missionaries ...

Monday, August 09, 2010
By Asia News

Kabul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Eight foreigners and two Afghans of the International Assistance Mission (IAM), a Christian charitable organization providing aid and medical assistance to the Afghan people were killed by the Taliban in the district of Kuran wa Munjan in the region of Badakhshan , northeast Afghanistan. Gen Kemtuz, one of three Afghan translators, is the only survivor. The organisation in question is Swiss based International Assistance Mission, which offers medical assistance.
Dirk Frans, IAM Executive Director said that doctors – all opticians - were returning to Kabul from the region of Nuristan, after a two and a half visit, through Badakhshan, considered the safest route. The IAM lost contact with the doctors vehicles on Wednesday and it is presumed they were attacked between Wednesday and Thursday.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the murders through spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid who claimed that the doctors were in possession of Bibles translated into Dari, the local language. "Yesterday - he said - " one of our patrols confronted a group of foreigners. They were Christian missionaries and we killed them all". He added that they were “American spies” and that they were looking for information on extremist strongholds.
Dirk Frans has strongly denied this claim: "We have been working in Afghanistan since 1966. They know that we are a Christian institution, but we certainly do not distribute Bibles”. He added that all of the victims were doctors and that IAM only provides medical assistance.
The names of the eight victims are already known but have not yet been made public. They include six Americans, a Briton and a German. The bodies have been transferred to Kabul. The group's leaders, said Frans, had worked in Afghanistan for decades.
The region of Badakhshan, bordering Tajikistan, is one of the few regions of Afghanistan that the U.S. has stolen control of from the Taliban after the 2001 invasion. The region is considered safe, although the local population has shown signs of revolt in recent times.
Afghanistan: Badakhshan, Taliban kill eight people for being “Christian missionaries” | Spero News

[Nick]

Sketches of 10 people slain in Afghan aid attack

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A 12-member team with International Assistance Mission set off from Afghanistan's capital for remote Nuristan province to operate a mobile clinic with eye doctors, a dentist and a general practitioner for people who had little access to medical care. Ten of the team were killed in an ambush Aug. 5 in neighboring Badakhshan province as they made their return trip to Kabul.
A look at those who died:
- Team leader Tom Little of Delmar, New York, had worked in Afghanistan since the late 1970s and was the "driving force" in the efforts of the International Assistance Mission, or IAM, to expand vision care in the country. Fluent in the Afghan language Dari, Little and his wife raised three daughters in Kabul despite political turmoil and a bloody civil war.
"He is irreplaceable," IAM director Dirk Frans said.
The 61-year-old Little was affectionately known as "Mister Tom" among many staff at the NOOR eye hospital that he helped build. He recruited many of the team members to the Nuristan trip.
- Dr. Karen Woo, 36, the lone Briton among the dead, gave up her job with a private clinic in London to work in Afghanistan. She was planning to leave in a few weeks to get married, friends said.
"Her motivation was purely humanitarian. She was a humanist and had no religious or political agenda," her family said in a statement. She was a general surgeon and went on the trip to bring treatment to mothers in the remote parts of Nuristan.
- Glen Lapp, 40, was a trained nurse from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who had come to Afghanistan in 2008 for a limited assignment but decided to stay, serving as an executive assistant at IAM and manager of its provincial eye care program, according to the Mennonite Central Committee, a relief group based in Akron, Pennsylvania.
"Where I was, the main thing that expats can do is to be a presence in the country," Lapp wrote in a recent report to the Mennonite group. "... Treating people with respect and with love."
He also previously helped with medical response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In Afghanistan, he was responsible for organizing mobile eye camps like the Nuristan trip.
- Dr. Thomas Grams, 51, quit his dental practice in Durango, Colorado, four years ago to work full-time giving poor children free dental care in Afghanistan and Nepal. His twin brother, Tim, said Grams wasn't trying to spread religious views.
- Dan Terry, 63, of Wisconsin came to Afghanistan in 1971. He and his wife settled here in 1980 and raised three daughters in the country. He worked with impoverished ethnic groups, trying to make connections between aid organizations and the government to improve services in remote areas.
"He had a heart for the rural areas of Afghanistan," IAM said in a statement.
- Cheryl Beckett, the 32-year-old daughter of a Knoxville, Tennessee, pastor, had spent six years in Afghanistan and specialized in nutritional gardening and mother-child health, her family said. Beckett, who was her high school valedictorian at a Cincinnati-area high school and held a biology degree, had also spent time doing work in Honduras, Mexico, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Her job on the trip was to translate for women patients.
- Daniela Beyer, 35, of Chemnitz, Germany, was a linguist and a translator in German, English and Russian. She also spoke Dari and was learning Pashto. She worked for the IAM from 2007 to 2009 doing linguistic research and joined the eye camp so that she could translate for women patients.
- Brian Carderelli, 25, of Harrisonburg, Virginia, was a freelance videographer who worked as a public relations manager for the International School of Kabul. He was recruited by the school shortly after he graduated from James Madison University in 2009.
"Brian quickly fell in love with the Afghan people and culture," the school said in a statement. He had hoped to stay in Afghanistan another year, said school director John Brown.
- Mahram Ali, 50, an Afghan from eastern Wardak province had worked as a watchman with NOOR eye hospital in Kabul since 2007. He guarded the team's vehicles as they left them to trek more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) into Nuristan. He leaves behind a wife and three young children.
- Jawed, a 24-year-old Afghan from Panjshir province, was the team's cook. He worked as a cook at a government eye hospital in Kabul and had been given time off to go with the IAM team. The organization said Jawed, who had gone on a number of similar trips with the IAM eye doctors to Nuristan, was well-loved for his sense of humor. He also helped the doctors hand out eyeglasses.

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1104ap_as_afghanistan_medical_team_factbox.html?source=rss

[Nick]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/world/asia/10afghan.html?src=mv

[MeemWawMeemNoon]

So what if they were preaching? Guidance is in the hands of Allah.

[Zarawar]

I was just reading about the slain medical workers, it's possible, that they could really be there to spread Christianity and use people's poverty and innocence. For those that think it is robbers or there is no motive behind. The organization did admit that they were carrying bibles, I know some might say, oh we carry Quran in US or their (western) countries, does that mean they will start executing us too? Well, since the west follows democracy and secularism, it's a part of the system, not to interfere in people's religious business. Afghanistan is a very conservative society, a group of foreigners, traveling all over the mountainous region, getting caught with bibles? What do you expect the Taliban to do with them? real talk..
Do the west spares civilian taliban lives? By civilian Taliban, I mean the real Tolaba e Karam, as in not the front line fighters, but rather the spiritual students or Qaris etc. I've heard dozens of incidents where they have raided a village mosque, killed the preacher, Qaris, and either took some to bagram or let their dogs bite them. Or lets put that aside, what about when they raid houses and kill elderly people, some with more than 15 bullet wounds. How can you accidentally shoot someone 25 times? it's obvious, there are no rules in war, You do not defeat an Empire fighting by their rules.
It makes sense, how even the media has started to side with the coalition propaganda, up to extreme. Their (western media's) liability was questionable a while back, but now it's obvious and clear that we don't get the first hand and real news. Everything gets twisted and is presented in a way, where seculars/democrats will sigh and pay condolences to the subject or the so called victim. Whereas, when civilians die or someone like a mosque Mullah dies, they label them as a spiritual leader or the recruiter.
Another important point to be noted is, most of the missionaries that go around the world are not going to approach an Islamic society with 10 feet crosses (Saleeb) over their shoulders. Instead, they are going to go there as medics, doctors and what not, that's the case with the missionaries in Africa and anywhere else in the world.
This should be a good example for the other active missionaries in Afghanistan, chey bya jwand wee doi ba da kar wanakee.

[Master Khan]

But they have no right to force their believes on the kids of Afghanistan, Its up to them if they want leave islam or not.