The recent attacks staged by the Taliban on contractors working in U.S.-funded projects in southern Afghanistan could undermine the development projects in the region, several U.S. officials have told The Washington Post. There were at least five attacks between March and April 2010 against U.S. Agency for International Development employees in the Kandahar and Helmand provinces.
The latest and worst of these attacks was a car suicide bombing on a Kandahar city compound on April 15, which killed at least four and injured 16 others. The compound is used by several USAID contractors, including Chemonics International, the Central Asian Development Group and Louis Berger Group.
The attack on the compound came days after an Afghan woman was shot dead while travelling home from her work. The woman worked in Kandahar for DAI, also a USAID contractor, according to The New York Times.
“USAID now is going to have to really start scrambling to mitigate any damage to their operations,” an unnamed aid official was quoted by The Post. “You don’t want to see implementers pulling back.”
William Frej, USAID’s Afghanistan director, travelled to Kandahar on April 18 to assure the province’s officials that U.S. assistance would continue despite the attacks, The New York Times reports.