By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 20, 2003; Page A28

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 19 -- The shooting death of a 29-year-old French woman working for the U.N. refugee agency has prompted aid groups to dramatically scale back their work in southeastern Afghanistan, which has been the focus of increasing attacks by resurgent Islamic guerrillas.

At the same time, Bettina Goislard's brazen slaying Sunday by two gunmen on a motorcycle, who opened fire on her U.N. vehicle in the busy center of the provincial capital of Ghazni, has unleashed an outpouring of anger from residents and has evoked calls for the eye-for-an-eye justice that characterized the country's lawless past.

On Tuesday, U.N. officials here announced they were suspending all assistance to refugees returning from Pakistan, as well as withdrawing all their foreign workers from the southeastern region that borders Pakistan and halting all road travel there. Meanwhile, a group of private foreign aid agencies said they may withdraw from that region entirely.

"In the south, we are now at a critical juncture," said Anne Wood, a regional official with the nonprofit group Mercy Corps. She said current and planned security measures were inadequate to protect foreign workers from attack. "We do not believe that the measures taken so far . . . will address the deepening crisis."

Goislard's slaying was the first violent death of a foreign U.N. worker here since the collapse of the ruling Taliban militia and the installation of an internationally backed Afghan government in late 2001. It occurred less than a week after a car bomb exploded outside the main U.N. compound in Kandahar, the southern headquarters for most aid agencies, injuring two people. In another incident Monday near Ghazni, about 80 miles south of Kabul, masked gunmen carjacked a vehicle belonging to a U.N.-affiliated agency that clears land mines along the highway between Kabul and Kandahar. The driver was beaten, and the agency's work has been scaled back.

On Wednesday, South Korea withdrew its ambassador to Afghanistan and two other diplomats and sent them to Pakistan after receiving warnings through international peacekeeping forces that the envoys might be the target of terrorist attacks. South Korea is sponsoring a number of aid projects in Afghanistan.

According to news reports, Taliban spokesmen have asserted responsibility for Goislard's killing, and Afghan officials who spoke to the two gunmen after their arrest said they confessed to having been ordered to follow and kill her. Taliban spokesmen have also reportedly threatened to kill a kidnapped Turkish engineer unless Afghan authorities free Taliban prisoners.

Goislard, an outgoing and well-liked figure in Afghanistan for the past year, became so attached to the country that she asked to be buried here if she died. Her parents, sister and brother arrived here on Wednesday from France, and she will be buried privately Thursday at the British cemetery in Kabul. A public memorial service will be held here Sunday.

"We have lost our child, our sister, and we realize how many people are suffering also from her absence," the family said in a brief statement. "Bettina loved Afghanistan with a passion. She paid with her life for her commitment and her convictions. The pain we are going through today reminds us that, if we give in to indifference, human values will be lost."

Maki Shinohara, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees here, described Goislard as "extraordinarily active and open to the Afghans she knew and helped. People really liked her. We are all shocked by this, but the Afghans are very hurt."

Shinohara said Goislard, a graduate of the Sorbonne in Paris whose father is a French diplomat based in the Middle East, had worked for international relief organizations in Rwanda and Guinea before coming to Afghanistan in mid-2002.

Her slaying unleashed a wave of highly emotional and even violent reactions by people in Ghazni, according to Afghan and U.N. officials. Bystanders and shopkeepers leaped on her assailants and tried to beat them to death, officials said. Police intervened, but one attacker had to be hospitalized.

Over the next 48 hours, the officials said, angry residents tried to burn down the houses of the assailants, who were quickly identified, and a mob surrounded the jail where they were being held, demanding that they be summarily executed in public. Meanwhile, a caravan of 80 vehicles spontaneously followed officials carrying Goislard's body to Kabul.

Afghan officials said that President Hamid Karzai personally intervened to deter the violence, repeatedly telephoning Ghazni officials and insisting that the attackers be protected from mob revenge and brought to formal justice. "As the news spread, crowds gathered. They wanted the two men, and they wanted their families banished from the area," said Jawad Luddin, Karzai's chief spokesman. "The president spoke with the governor and told him not to allow it. Justice has to be served in the proper legal manner."

On the other hand, Luddin said, the public outrage over Goislard's slaying "shows there is a very clear difference between the terrorists and the people." The convoy that followed the aid worker's body to Kabul, he said, was a "significant gesture of solidarity," especially because it occurred during an evening in Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Asadullah Khan, the governor of Ghazni province, said he had come to know Goislard well during her year there and that she had told him just 10 days ago she wanted to be buried in Afghanistan if anything should happen to her. Other friends said she told them recently she thought she was being followed.

Khan said the attackers were definitely from the Taliban movement, which has staged numerous attacks across southeastern Afghanistan since spring, including an attack Wednesday on a road checkpoint in the southern province of Helmand in which three guards were killed and two others were wounded.

Khan said Goislard's killers had expressed shame for their actions but claimed to have been acting under orders from Taliban officials in Kandahar, who gave them a pistol and motorcycle.

"The people beat them a lot. They wanted to burn their houses, and then they had a big demonstration and they wanted us to kill the prisoners right away," he said. "I agreed with them, because this was a very big crime and we have our tribal laws in Afghanistan. But the president called me many times and ordered that they have to go to trial. That's why they are still alive."

Goislard's slaying, coupled with the other recent threats and attacks, have put intense pressure on the Karzai government and its Western backers to step up security. NATO recently promised to expand the force of 5,500 peacekeepers who patrol Kabul, but few countries have offered to send troops or equipment.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special representative to Afghanistan, said Tuesday that Goislard's killing had led to the "painful decision" to withdraw foreign staff members from the region and suspend aid to refugees there for at least two weeks. He also said the killing showed the urgency of increasing international protection for foreign aid efforts. The United Nations has resettled about 3 million refugees in Afghanistan since early 2002, including 55,000 in Ghazni province.

"The attack in Ghazni has proved that civilian workers are exposed to the deadly threats of those who are against peace in Afghanistan," Brahimi said. If reconstruction and aid are to continue, he added, foreign governments must do more to help. "We cannot do this alone," he said. "This murder tragically proved it."