10 missionaries, including 6 Americans were brutally murdered after having what was to be their last meal at a picnic in the forest in the Sharrun Valley, high in the Hindu Kush mountains of northern Afghanistan.

The aid workers, six Americans, a Briton, a German and four Afghans, coming home from a three-week journey on foot to deliver free medical care to the remotest regions of the country,  had just finished eating when they were raided by gunmen with long dyed-red beards, the police said.

The gunmen marched them into the forest, stood them in a line and mercilessly shot 10 of them, one by one.

The Badakhshan Province police chief, Gen. Aqa Noor Kentoz said Saturday that the police found their bodies, seven men and three women, on Friday.

This slaughter, the largest massacre in years of aid workers in Afghanistan, offered chilling evidence of the increasing insecurity in the northern part of the country and added to fears that the insurgency has turned even more in vicious in recent months.

The Taliban proudly claimed responsibility for the killings, accusing the group of being spies and Christian missionaries.  Because of pressure in their traditional strongholds in the south and east by NATO forces, the Taliban have become more active in areas once relatively quiet, like Badakhshan Province.

They have recently begun using women and children as suicide bombers, and assassinating tribal elders. Now it appears they have the murdering of defenseless aid workers to their holy war in the name of Allah.   Aid workers in the past have often been free to work in both government and Taliban-dominated areas.

The police identified the group of doctors, nurses and technicians as working for the International Assistance Mission, a Christian aid group that has operated in Afghanistan since 1966.

Dirk Frans, the group’s executive director said:

All indications are this is probably our team.  They were on an optometric expedition, running an eye camp.

Mr. Frans confirmed that an Afghan man who survived the attack and later told his story to the police was the group’s driver.  And the local police identified the mission’s team leader, Dr. Tom Little of Delmar, N.Y., as one of the dead.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed that the aid workers had ignored orders from a Taliban patrol to stop and were shot as they tried to flee. He said they discovered among their belongings a Bible in the Dari language widely spoken in Afghanistan, and maps showing Taliban positions in northern Afghanistan.

This weasel proclaimed:

They were not actually here to provide medication for people, but were here for spying.  The punishment for spying is death.

Mr. Frans originally said that he doubted the Taliban claim of responsibility, and said the police had told him the probable motive was robbery. However, the police proved his assumption wrong after interviewing witnesses and on Saturday were saying that the Taliban were responsible.

The accusations of spying or proselytizing, Mr. Frans said, were “out of the question.”

That would be against the laws of this country and the rules of our organization.  Although we are a Christian-supported charity, we would absolutely not proselytize.

He said all aid workers signed agreements not to divulge any information to governments or outside parties.

Mr. Frans said Dr. Little, a 61-year-old optometrist, had been working in Afghanistan for the past four decades and spoke fluent Dari.

Friends and family members said that Dr. Little and his wife, Libby, had reared three daughters in Afghanistan, weathered the Russian occupation and the civil war that followed, hid in his basement for months during Taliban rule, but kept on serving the people of Afghanistan, even after a rocket attack flattened one of his hospitals so he could not provide eye care for impoverished Afghans.

He was even thrown out of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 2001 during a crackdown on Christian aid organizations,but returned after the Taliban were overthrown later that year.

A British surgeon, Dr. Karen Woo, 36, was also among the dead, according to by her organization, Bridge Afghanistan.

Dr. Woo wrote on a fund-raising blog:

The expedition will require a lot of physical and mental resolve and will not be without risk.  The effort is worth it in order to assist those that need it most.

Dr. Woo was engaged to be married.  She recently had an Afghan tailor make her a ball gown out of raw silk.

Sadly,  she wrote in the last entry on her personal blog before she left on the latest mission:

I hear what you’re saying about priorities, and seriously, I probably shouldn’t be worrying about a ball gown right now, but still, what’s a girl to do?

The police commander said that the other women were an American and a German.  The International Assistance Mission is withholding their names until positive identification can be made.

Two of the Afghans were killed. A third, the driver, saved himself by reciting the famous verses from the Koran, “There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet,” He later told the police that the Taliban released him. The fate of the fourth Afghan remains unknown.

The missionaries set out three weeks ago to reach the northern corner of Nuristan Province, traveling by foot with pack horses to carry their medical equipment and hiking over a 16,000-foot pass into the roadless Parun Valley.

With the exception of the driver, retained for the group’s final leg by four-wheel drive, the personnel were medically trained, and there were three doctors among them, including a dental surgeon.

In addition to treating cataracts and other eye problems, they planned to conduct maternal and infant health and dental clinics in the valley, where about 50,000 people live.

According to the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group for aid organizations, abductions and assassinations of aid workers have been mounting quickly in recent years. Five Doctors Without Borders workers were killed in 2004, and four International Rescue Committee workers were shot to death in a Taliban ambush in 2008.

According to Mr. Frans, his group had run many such expeditions, as recently as 2009, always at the invitation of local communities, with a local guide. Even so, four of its workers have been killed in three separate episodes.

He said the mission to Nuristan was told that there were no active Taliban in the area, although Afghan officials said the Taliban and other insurgent groups had been active in northern Nuristan and even across the border in Badakhshan.

The governor of Nuristan Province, Jamaluddin Badar, said the local police had escorted the expedition members as they left the province, but when they crossed into Badakhshan, they told the authorities they no longer wanted armed guards in their midst.

General Kentoz, the provincial police chief said:

They said we’re doctors and civilians and no one will bother us.

 According to local residents, the red-bearded gunmen spoke the Nuristani dialect, which indicates that they probably were tracking the group. It is common in some parts of Afghanistan for older men to dye their beards with henna.

Ms. Little told family members in an e-mail that she last heard from the group on Thursday morning.  Her husband told her that their caravan of Land Rovers had been delayed trying to ford a flooded river.

Despite the slaughter of these missionaries, Mr. Frans said the organization would not be deterred from its work in Afghanistan:

We have worked here under the king, under the Russians, under the Communists, under the warlords and the Taliban.  Is it time to quit now?

The White House reaction?  **crickets**  The Obamas are too busy taking their four vacations in one month and, after all, Islam is the religion of peace.

What kind of faith does it take to serve the people of a foreign land for 30 years?

I want to leave you this Sunday with this promise: 

 1 John 2:1

…And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

Talk to Him.  He’ll listen.  Here’s some information you need to hear.  It’s the world’s shortest sermon.  God bless you and may God bless America…again.

Sources:  nytimes.com, bible.com, youtube.com