THE hit was professional. Two bullets through the windscreen, probably fired by a gunman standing on the bonnet, had killed the Afghan driver and interpreter in the vehicle’s front seats. Someone had then moved to the rear of the car, put a bullet through the rear-door window, pushed the glass through and reached in to open the locked rear doors.

The three Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) international staff sitting inside were shot at point-blank range. The killers ripped away the vehicle’s radio handset and left. They did not even rob the dead: computers, wallets and money were left with the bodies.

“It was clinical, well planned and professional,” said Nick Downie, project manager for the Afghanistan NGO Security Office, given the task of recovering the dead. “The only intent was to kill.” The murders, on June 2, condemned by the Afghan Government as the work of Taleban insurgents, led to the withdrawal of MSF from Afghanistan last month, the single biggest blow for the aid community in the country and an unprecendented move for such a respected organisation, which has operated for 24 years in Afghanistan.

Yet senior foreign officials in Kabul now say that the killings were by a disgruntled local police chief. Rather than being victims of the “Talebs”, the dead MSF staff seem as much to have fallen foul of the international community’s haphazard commitment to stabilising Afghanistan.

“Everyone was saying the Taleban had done it,” a leading international figure in Afghanistan said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But the finger is pointing at a local police commander, sacked by the Government, who wanted to prove that there is a security problem in Badghis (Province) and that he should be reinstated. A lot of the problem here happens like this. It’s like an Afghan protection racket.”

Afghan authorities still insist they are investigating the killings. But insiders claim that all of the men originally arrested by the Government after the murders have been released without charge, and that there is no serious continuing investigation.

“I wasn’t even particularly disgusted with the Government for their behaviour,” Mr Downie said. “They haven’t got the capacity to mount an investigation outside Kabul, let alone the strength to back it with serious arrests. It’s just an indication of the lack of international investment here.” Security in the country has so far relied on three pillars: Nato, the US-led coalition, and the United Nations. The UN intended to complete a DDR programme — “demobilisation-disarmament-reintegration” — to disarm Afghanistan’s estimated 60,000 militiamen in time for the presidential elections on October 9. However, the DDR plan lies dead in the water.

There was little will among the warlords to disarm, and neither the means nor intent among the foreign community to enforce it. “We’re now working on a plan for the Government to fine commanders who refuse to disarm,” a Western diplomat said. “Unfortunately, though, it hasn’t been finalised yet and, as most of the big commanders have their own financial resources from opium, it may not affect them much anyway.”

Nato, which commits troops to the 6,500-strong International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, has long been criticised for its reluctance to augment its meagre forces. However, other than a hesitancy among member states to risk their troops in an Afghan deployment, diplomats allude to a genuine overstretch among the more capable nations.

“It’s no good sending in any Nato troops,” one commented. “We need experienced professionals who can project force. Basically that means Britain, France or maybe Germany, and what with Kosovo, Iraq and, for the French, Africa, these countries really haven’t got enough troops to spare.”

With 18,000 troops in Afghanistan the US has the largest force, albeit one geared more to hunting al-Qaeda and the Taleban than tackling warlords. Losers in the muddle of conflicting agenda are the Afghans, especially those in rural communities most affected by the limited aid effort.

“When I got to the MSF vehicle local villagers had gathered around it,” Mr Downie said. “They could have robbed the vehicle but they hadn’t. Instead they had offered to wash the bodies as part of their burial ritual. I won’t forget their faces. They looked really stunned — very upset. They knew they had just seen the last of MSF and their clinic — a remote clinic in an area where people really needed it.”

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