Worst attack on U.N. in Afghanistan kills at least 7

| Fri Apr 1, 2011 7:52pm EDT

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghans protesting the burning of a Koran by an obscure U.S. pastor over-ran a U.N. compound on Friday and killed at least seven international staff in the deadliest-ever attack on the United Nations in Afghanistan.

Thousands of demonstrators flooded into the streets after Friday prayers and headed for the U.N. mission in usually peaceful Mazar-i-Sharif, a city considered safe enough to be in the vanguard of a crucial security transition.

The governor of Balkh province said insurgents had used the march as cover to attack the compound, in a battle that raged for hours and raised serious questions about plans to make the city a pilot for security transfer to national forces.

The confirmed dead were three international U.N. staff and four international Gurkha guards.

In New York, U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told reporters after briefing members of the Security Council who convened an emergency session to discuss the attack, that some of the protesters seemed to be more than demonstrators.

"Some of them were clearly armed," Le Roy said, adding that they appeared to have targeted the foreigners at the compound. "We are not sure at all that the U.N. was the target."

"Maybe they wanted to find an international target and the U.N. was the one in Mazar-i-Sharif," Le Roy said, adding that an investigation of the incident was in progress.

The attackers overwhelmed security guards, burned parts of the compound and climbed up blast walls to topple a guard tower. Five protesters were also killed and about 20 wounded, some after trying to take weapons off U.N. security guards.

"The insurgents have taken advantage of the situation to attack the U.N. compound," said Governor Ata Mohammad Noor.

He told a news conference that many in the crowd of protesters had been carrying guns. Some 27 people have already been detained over the attack, he added.

Le Roy said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's chief-of-staff, Vijay Nambiar, and head of U.N. security Gregory Starr were heading to Kabul on Friday night. He added that U.N. security in Afghanistan would be reviewed.

Ban and the U.N. Security Council condemned the attack.

DEADLIEST ATTACK

The attack was one of the worst on the world body in years.

"It is the worst incident ever for U.N. staff in Afghanistan. Mazar mobs were active in the 1990s, repeatedly ransacking UN offices ... but so far as I remember, they never actually killed anyone," a former U.N. employee in Afghanistan told Reuters.