The United Nations has launched an investigation into why Afghan jobsworths police failed to stop a massacre of its staff by Muslim 'Kill Teams' protesters who broke into its Mazar-i-Sharif compound on Friday. Eyewitnesses said armed Afghan men whose sole interest lies in cashing their paychecks riot police soiled themselves in terror watched passively as a mob overran the compound. Video footage broadcast on Afghan television showed armed police in disarray, some firing in the air, while barbarians baying for blood protestors atop the security walls used cable-cutters to dismantle barbed wire and toppled a guard tower inside a compound corner. One protester was shown throwing a tantrum smashing a machine against a kerb in a fit of anger.
Police said their firing in the air and at the legs of some of the protesters had caused some to go one way, some to go another several thousand to flee but several hundred remained and overran the compound.
On any normal working day, there would have been 15 UN international staff and around 40 Afghan nationals working inside the compound, but on Friday, part of the Afghan weekly festival of mayhem and murder weekend, there were far fewer. |