THE coffins of 11 Chinese workers killed in Afghanistan last Thursday were flown to Nanchang in East China's Jiangxi Province late on Monday after a solemn ceremony at Kabul airport.

Four workers wounded in the murderous attack also arrived back in China on Monday and were immediately sent to East China's Shandong Province for treatment. A fifth wounded worker had decided to stay on in Afghanistan, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The workers belonging to Bureau 14 of the China Railway Building Group were killed several hours after they arrived in Kunduz on the night of June 8.

Among the dead, 10 were farmers from Guangfeng County of Jiangxi Province and one was from East China's Shangdong Province. The oldest was 56 and the youngest 31. Although the employer had bought them insurance, terrorist killing is not covered by the insurance policy. Each family of a victims family has received compensation of 4,000 yuan (US$484.26) from the local government.

Hundreds of Chinese construction workers are in Afghanistan, more than 120 on the Kunduz railway construction project. The Chinese Government condemned the "brutal terrorist act" but has no plans to pull Chinese workers out of Afghanistan.

The Chinese were working on a World Bank-funded road construction project in the north of the country. A group of gunmen stole into their camp as they slept and sprayed their tent with bullets.

Most workers were shot in head and chest. Two Afghan guards were also killed.

An Afghan provincial commander blamed guerrillas loyal to a renegade warlord allied to the Taliban for killing the workers and said four suspects had been arrested.

They belong to the Hezb-i-Islami faction of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, General Dawood, government commander in the northern province of Kunduz, said last Sunday.

"The investigation is ongoing. Inshallah (God willing) we will arrest the others as well," he said. "These four are Hekmatyar's people."

Worsening security

The killing of the Chinese workers while they slept was the worst attack on foreigners in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in late-2001.

The attack was a further blow to efforts to rebuild and provide essential aid to the war-battered country and raised questions about whether plans to hold landmark elections in September were still viable.

Xinhua quoted General Dawood as saying that 14 gunmen were involved and they were members of Hekmatyar's party who had "later joined the Taliban".

The Taliban, which has claimed responsibility for repeated attacks on aid and reconstruction workers elsewhere in Afghanistan, has denied it was behind the attack on the Chinese.

But the government says Hekmatyar's forces work closely with the Taliban and share their determination to force foreign troops out of the country, to disrupt aid work and the elections.

On June 2, three foreigners and two Afghans from the aid group, Medecins Sans Frontieres, were killed in the northwestern province of Badghis, raising concern that militant insurgency is spreading.

The election has already been delayed from June because of worries about violence, the slow pace of disarmament of tens of thousands of factional militiamen and slow voter registration.

China has strongly condemned the attacks on its workers and urged the government to bring those responsible to justice.

Dawood said neighbouring provinces had been told to arrest suspects who fought with the Taliban in the past.

More than 800 people have been killed, most in militant-related violence, since August, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's fall.

The latest Taliban attack came despite a sweeping three-week operation by US and Afghan forces across southern provinces which the US military said killed more than 80 guerrillas.

(Star/Agencies)