Jihadist Ideology and the Targeting of Humanitarian Aid Workers, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Jihadist Ideology and the Targeting of Humanitarian Aid Workers

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

October 22, 2008 | 1921 GMT

In a message on SERVE’s Web site, the organization noted that Williams had worked for nearly two years in Kandahar and Kabul directing projects designed to integrate disabled Afghans into the mainstream educational system. SERVE has a long history of working with the needy and with refugees in Afghanistan. The organization was founded in 1972 to help famine victims in Ghor province, and began to work with Afghan refugees in Pakistan in 1980. Since 1992, the group has focused on work inside Afghanistan, providing assistance to refugees returning to Afghanistan and vocational training for the disabled.

In September 2007, we discussed the burgeoning kidnapping industry in Afghanistanand how the Taliban were beginning to focus on humanitarian workers — not only as a moneymaking enterprise, but also as a political lever. Indeed, reports from organizations such as the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) and the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief indicate that attacks on aid workers have increased dramatically in 2008. According to ANSO, the 19 humanitarian aid workers killed in the first half of 2008 surpassed the 15 killed in all of 2007, and the death toll has continued to mount.

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