U.N. complains staff beaten in Kabul, two other cities

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Taliban loyalists have beaten Afghan employees of the United Nations in three Afghan cities and confiscated a number of U.N. vehicles, a U.N. spokeswoman said Wednesday.

"Staff have been beaten in Kabul, Kandahar and in Jalalabad," spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "A significant number not yet specified of vehicles have been taken by the Taliban in Kandahar," the headquarters of the religious militia.

Three ambulances and a pickup truck were among the vehicles seized, she said.

The United Nations withdrew its international staff from Afghanistan two days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States because of fears of an American attack. Hundreds of Afghan employees remained behind in the country, trying to continue delivering food and other humanitarian aid.

After a 1998 U.S. missile attack on Afghanistan in response to embassy bombings in East Africa, angry protesters in Kabul killed one U.N. international staffer injured another.

The United States blames the Sept. 11 attacks on Osama bin Laden and his Afghanistan-based terrorist network, al-Qaida. Bin Laden is also accused in the 1998 attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania and Kenya.

On Monday, four security guards at a U.N.-affiliated mine-clearing operation were killed during an American air raid on the capital.