Aid workers increasingly a target in conflict zones

The brazen daylight kidnapping of three international aid workers in Kabul last week by armed militants is a stark reminder that Afghanistan's security remains fragile.

Mirroring the tactics of Iraqi insurgents, the Afghan kidnappers have demanded that the United Nations withdraw its staff from Afghanistan or else the three captured UN workers - Filipino Angelito Nayan, British citizen Annetta Flanigan, and Kosovar Shqipe Habibi - would be killed.

Kidnapping is an age-old practice in Afghanistan, but traditionally the motive is profit, not politics. "These things evolve. If the UN pays money to liberate the three volunteers, you can be sure that this tactic will spread," says Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer in Pakistan. "If it becomes discredited [in the minds of Afghans] it will fade."

From Iraq to Afghanistan to the Sudanese province of Darfur, the very notion of impartial humanitarian support is coming under unprecedented attack. Aid workers complain they are often caught between two implacable foes - the US and Islamic insurgents - who have blurred the line between combatants and civilians to the detriment of the vulnerable.

"People have lost sight of what humanitarian action means; it's not for personal interests or international interests, it's for people in need," says an aid worker, requesting anonymity to avoid causing further trouble for the kidnap victims. "If you blur the distinction between civilians and combatants, and you extrapolate that, you have to wonder whether in fact there can be any kind of humanitarian efforts anywhere."

Aid workers - most of whom have spent their careers operating in conflict zones - say that the increasing dangers in Afghanistan and Iraq are rooted in the "hearts and minds" methods of the war on terrorism. By sending US troops to conduct what would ordinarily be seen as development work, or by requiring aid workers to coordinate their activities with those of the Western coalition, it becomes easier to identify aid workers - however falsely - as pro-Western and therefore justifiable targets for violence.

While Western aid workers are more likely to get media attention, most of the aid workers who actually have died in Afghanistan and Iraq have been national staffers, the humanitarian worker adds. "When you target foreigners, it's for publicity. But the people who get targeted most, who work day in and day out, are the nationals."

The local staff is able to keep working long after their foreign colleagues are withdrawn - but even they must close shop when the situation deteriorates too far. The international staff typically serves as a bridge to the international community - a vital communication and fundraising link that breaks down when aid groups must rely on national staff only.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, foreign aid workers say they are taking increased security precautions since the kidnapping of the three UN election workers. Turkish engineers and Indian workers were taken hostage by militants but this is the first time that Westerners have been kidnapped. Adding to the sense of insecurity, they were taken from their vehicle in heavily guarded Kabul, where around 5,000 peacekeeping troops have been deployed.

"It will make Western aid workers and foreigners nervous," says an Islamabad-based foreign aid worker. "The militants want to hamper aid work of the international community and create doubts among common Afghans that they are still a threat without realizing that it will affect Afghans the most. Our job is to provide aid purely on humanitarian grounds."

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