Post by FaithWalker on Oct 20, 2008 6:37:05 GMT -6
A British female aid worker shot dead on the street in Kabul Monday morning had only recently been pulled back to the Afghan capital because of security fears over her charity’s Kandahar office.
Gayle Williams, 34, of London, was gunned down at 8 a.m. in a drive-by shooting by two armed men on a motorcycle as she walked to work in the west of the city.
Taliban militants who claimed responsibility for the shooting accused her of spreading Christianity.
Williams worked with the Christian charity Serve Afghanistan. Mike Lyth, the charity’s chairman, paid tribute to Gayle as a "wonderful girl" who had found her niche in life through her charity work.
Another member of the charity's staff had found her lying on the sidewalk soon after the attack, he said, but she was already dead.
Lyth said that it was not clear whether the charity could continue to operate in the same way after the killing.
He dismissed the Taliban's claims to have targeted Williams for religious revenge as "opportunistic," saying that WIlliams had only recently arrived in Kabul and had changed her route to work every day. He also denied that Serve Afghanistan preached Christianity.
"There were rumors that had come through the security organization that [the Taliban] were going to target foreigners in Kandahar, so we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and pulled her back to Kabul," he said.
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Gayle Williams, 34, of London, was gunned down at 8 a.m. in a drive-by shooting by two armed men on a motorcycle as she walked to work in the west of the city.
Taliban militants who claimed responsibility for the shooting accused her of spreading Christianity.
Williams worked with the Christian charity Serve Afghanistan. Mike Lyth, the charity’s chairman, paid tribute to Gayle as a "wonderful girl" who had found her niche in life through her charity work.
Another member of the charity's staff had found her lying on the sidewalk soon after the attack, he said, but she was already dead.
Lyth said that it was not clear whether the charity could continue to operate in the same way after the killing.
He dismissed the Taliban's claims to have targeted Williams for religious revenge as "opportunistic," saying that WIlliams had only recently arrived in Kabul and had changed her route to work every day. He also denied that Serve Afghanistan preached Christianity.
"There were rumors that had come through the security organization that [the Taliban] were going to target foreigners in Kandahar, so we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and pulled her back to Kabul," he said.
Link