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Associated Press 8:04 a.m. ET Feb. 8, 2017

Mourners attend a funeral ceremony of a female prosecutor of the Supreme Court who was killed in suicide bomb blast a day earlier, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday.(Photo: Jawad Jalali, EPA)

KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen killed six employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday, a spokesman for the aid group said.

Ahmad Ramin Ayaz, the groups Kabul-based spokesman, said the attack took place in the northern Jowzjan province, without providing further details.

Rahmatullah Turkistani, the chief of the provincial police, confirmed the attack, saying it took place 22 mileswest of the provincial capital, Shibirghan.

No one immediately claimed the attack, but Turkistani said militants loyal to the Islamic State group have a presence in the area. The Taliban denied involvement.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber detonated his payload after being stopped outside a district headquarters in the eastern Paktia province, killing two civilians and wounding a policeman, said Abdullah Asrat, the spokesman for the provincial governor.

No one claimed responsibility, but the Taliban frequently attack government targets.

On Tuesday, a suicide bomber struck at the entrance to the Afghan Supreme Court in the capital, Kabul, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 40.

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Gunmen kill 6 Red Cross workers in northern Afghanistan - USA TODAY

ISLAMABAD

Russia will host a regional conference on Afghanistan later this month to discuss efforts aimed at settling the protracted Afghan conflict and containing spillover effects of Islamic State terrorists trying to get a foothold in the war-ravaged nation.

Moscow organized a tripartite meeting on the subject late December where it only invited Pakistan and China. The dialogue prompted strong reaction and protest from the Afghan government for being left out of it.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday Afghanistan now has been formally invited to another round due in mid-February where senior officials from China, Iran, India and Pakistan also will be in attendance.

Lavrov made the statement in Moscow after talks with visiting Afghan counterpart, Salahuddin Rabbani, saying most of the countries already have confirmed their participation.

IS emerged in Afghanistan about two years ago, and has been conducting extremist attacks in the country and in parts of Pakistan under its regional name of Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP). But the terrorist group has not been able so far to extend its activities beyond few districts in eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan.

The violent IS campaign has worried Pakistan, which shares a nearly 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan.

Russia defends its active Afghan diplomacy, saying continued fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban would allow IS to extend its activities to northern Afghan regions in its bid to infiltrate bordering Central Asian republics, and ultimately undermine Moscows national security interests.

Russia is much more concerned about the growth of IS in Afghanistan because they regard IS as a threat. So, they don't want this force [IS] to knock at the Central Asian and Caucasian doors, said Pakistani prime ministers foreign policy advisor Sartaj Aziz while speaking to VOA.

FILE - Pakistan's National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz, far left, holds talks with Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, far right, at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, Pakistan, Aug. 13, 2015.

He added that Moscow apparently is trying to form a regional platform to prevent Afghan instability from spilling over into neighboring countries.

So, they need a regional approach and a cooperative approach to make sure that this turmoil does not go in their sphere of influence so that is their main motivation and that is our priority also to make sure that terrorism does not spread from this area to other parts, said Aziz.

Pakistani authorities maintain that IS militants operating in Afghan border regions have been behind recent deadly attacks in their country.

Advisor Aziz emphasized the need for seeking an urgent negotiated settlement of the Afghan conflict by encouraging peace talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government. He insisted that continuation of hostilities will only fuel instability in Afghanistan.

FILE - Afghan Foreign Minister, Salahuddin Rabbani, center, starts the meeting to discus a road map for ending the war with the Taliban at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Jan. 18, 2016.

Speaking Tuesday in Moscow, Foreign Minister Lavrov also underscored Russias support for involving the Taliban in peace talks to end the Afghan war.

"We have confirmed our common stance that Taliban should be involved in a constructive dialogue in keeping with the criteria contained in the U.N. Security Council resolutions," Russian media quoted Lavrov as saying.

The Taliban has shown no willingness to engage in peace talks with the Afghan government, and instead has expanded its insurgent activities across the country, capturing more territory and inflicting more casualties on Afghan security forces, as well as civilians.

The United Nations also has documented a sharp increase in IS attacks against civilians, particularly against the Shia Muslim religious minority in Afghanistan last year.

It noted in its annual report, issued Monday, the number of civilian casualties perpetrated by ISKP increased nearly 10 times in 2016 when 899 civilian casualties occurred, including 209 deaths. The figures stood at 82, including 39 deaths in 2015.

Russian officials maintain IS militants fleeing counter-terrorism operations in Syria and Iraq are seeking refuge in Afghanistan, and they are using the conflict-hit country to expand their extremist activities to neighboring countries. China and Iran also have expressed similar concerns.

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Russia to Host Wider Regional Conference on Afghanistan - Voice of America

The Red Cross in Kabul; six of its workers were killed on Wednesday in Jowzjan province in the north. Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images

Six Afghan Red Cross aid workers have been killed in an ambush in the countrys north while travelling to a remote area to deliver humanitarian aid.

Three vehicles carrying eight International Committee of the Red Cross employees were travelling through Dasht-e Leili, a desert in Jowzjan province, when they came under fire, according to the provincial governor, Lotfullah Azizi. Three drivers and three other personnel were killed, and two are missing.

ICRC in Afghanistan confirmed the killings. Its director-general, Yves Daccord, described the incident as the worst attack against us since 20 years. We are all outraged and so sad.

The ICRC vehicles were clearly marked when they were ambushed outside Turkman Qudoq village by militants carrying Kalashnikov rifles, said the provincial police chief, Rahmatullah Turkistani. He said a local delegation of elders was investigating the incident.

The attack underscores the danger facing NGOs in Afghanistan. More humanitarian workers are attacked here than in any other country in the world. Proportionally, in terms of attack per aid worker, only South Sudan is more violent.

Fifteen aid workers were killed in Afghanistan last year, in more than 200 incidents of violence, kidnappings and killings directed against humanitarian organisations, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).

Northern Afghanistan in particular has become increasingly dangerous for aid workers. In 2013, militants shot and killed six employees of the French charity ACTED in Faryab. In 2015, nine Afghan staff members with the Czech organisation People in Need were shot in a guesthouse in Balkh.

Jowzjan, where Wednesdays incident took place, is rife with insurgency and armed struggles between competing pro-government factions.

Up to 25 armed units, fighting for the Taliban and Islamic State, are present in Jowzjan alone, said Azizi, the governor. They fight for turf against each other, and with security forces and various pro-government militias. Azizi said a local affiliate group of Isis was behind the ambush.

In a statement, the Taliban said they were not involved, calling the attack the work of kidnappers.

Qush Tepa, where the attack occurred, is highly contested. The area is largely controlled by Qari Hekmat, an ethnic Uzbek with a long history as a Taliban commander and up to 200 men under his authority, according to Obaid Ali, a researcher with the Afghanistan Analysts Network.

Ali said Hekmat previously had a dispute with the Talibans shadow governor in the province over taxation issues, and had recently set a cluster of civilian houses on fire, but he could not confirm claims from Azizi, the governor, that Hekmat had joined Isis.

As a sign of the deteriorating security, only one Afghan charity works permanently in Qush Tepa.

ICRC, which enjoys special protection under the Geneva Conventions, has traditionally not come under attack in Afghanistan, apart from the killing of an Italian engineer in 2002. Its reputation of impartiality has allowed the group to work in areas inaccessible to others.

In 2012, the Afghan Taliban even issued a statement in support of ICRC after one of its aid workers was killed in Pakistan, commending ICRC for truly serving the people.

More recently, however, as aid workers have increasingly become targets in Afghanistan, ICRC has also suffered. In 2013, suicide bombers attacked an ICRC compound in Jalalabad, killing a guard and wounding another employee. In December, a Spanish employee was abducted in Kunduz. He was freed last month.

Additional reporting by Mokhtar Amiri

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Six Red Cross workers in Afghanistan are shot dead in ambush - The Guardian

Afghan National Security Advisor Mohammad Hanif Atmar requested support from NATO and its partners in the alliance's Resolute Support training mission during a special meeting with the North Atlantic Council at NATO headquarters in Brussels Feb. 7.

Atmar said after the meeting with allied ambassadors that it had discussed improvements in the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and that he had requested support for the four-year roadmap to improve these forces.

The desired support includes not only trainingbut also close air support, which Atmar described as a "key gap" in the ANDSF's capabilities. He requested close air support from the United States until the ANDSF is able to provide it in the longer term. Developing these capabilities "requires time", Atmar pointed out.

Atmar said the ANDSF's requirements include weapons, communications and logistics.

He blamed the increase in Afghan military and civilian casualties in 2016 on the greater number of Afghan and Pakistani terrorists, as well as those from elsewhere in the region and from international networks.

He said Afghanistan had "expressed strong concern" to Russia and Iran over their support of the Taliban.

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Afghanistan Requests Close Air Support - Aviation Week (blog)

Afghanistan - Conflict (DG ECHO, UNAMA, Media) (ECHO Daily Flash of 07 February 2017) ReliefWeb According to the latest UNAMA report, more than eleven thousand civilians were killed or injured in the conflict in Afghanistan last year, setting a new record since systematic documentation started in 2009. Almost one third were children, up 24 per ...

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Afghanistan - Conflict (DG ECHO, UNAMA, Media) (ECHO Daily Flash of 07 February 2017) - ReliefWeb