KABUL — Eight Afghan men heading to work at a US base Thursday morning were pulled from their car by insurgents, marched to a nearby village, and shot in the head, Afghan officials said.
Neither the Taliban nor other insurgent groups claimed responsibility for the killings. But the message sent was unambiguous: Afghans who work for the US-led coalition do so at their own risk.
Insurgents have warned Afghans not to work for the United States and its allies or for the Afghan government and they have periodically backed their warnings with violence. Government officials are a more frequent target, along with Afghan soldiers and police. But, as the killings Thursday showed, civilians who work for the coalition are not immune.
The killings exemplified the security situation in a region south of Kabul.
The men were killed a half-mile from Forward Operating Base Shank, a base in Logar province which abuts Kabul and has emerged as a central battleground in the fight to keep the capital secure from the Taliban.
The eight men, who were in their late teens and early 20s, were temporary laborers.