KABUL, Aug 7 (AFP) - Two electoral workers were killed when a joint UN and Afghan electoral registration convoy was attacked late Friday in south-central Afghanistan, a UN spokesman said Saturday.
"In the attack Mohammed Hashim, a training officer, and Mohammed Hussain, a driver, were both killed. A third person whose name we don't have yet is reported to be missing," UN spokesman David Singh told AFP.
The four-vehicle convoy was attacked near Yakhdan village in Uruzgan province's Kijran district, some 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of the capital Kabul between 5:30 and 6:00 pm (1330 GMT) Friday, he said.
"All four vehicles were destroyed and there is an investigation ongoing," Singh said, adding that police had caught one of the attackers.
According to a local official the team had been registering voters in Uruzgan province's Charchino district and were en route to Kijran when they came under fire.
The attackers fired on the convoy with light weapons, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, provincial governor Jon Mohammed told AFP.
The convoy's armed guards returned fire for several hours before the attackers fled the area, he said.
A man identifying himself as a Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, called AFP from an undisclosed location and claimed responsibility for the attack.
"Our men attacked an electoral convoy in Uruzgan province and destroyed the vehicles and killed the people in the convoy," said Hakimi.
The attack brings to 12 the number of electoral workers killed since May in the run-up to the country's first presidential elections on October 9.
Taliban-linked militants have vowed to disrupt the elections through violence. Parliamentary elections have been pushed back to early 2005 to allow the government time to quell rising attacks.
There have been repeated attacks on electoral workers and sites, UN staffers, aid workers, reconstruction companies and Afghan and US-led forces in southern and southeastern Afghanistan.