The International Committee of the Red Cross suspended field operations across Afghanistan today after gunmen ambushed and killed one of its workers on an isolated road in a southern province that was formerly a Taliban stronghold. Ricardo Munguia, 39, a Swiss engineer developing water wells for the town of Tirin Kot in Uruzgan province, was the first foreign aid worker to be slain in Afghanistan since a U.S.-led military coalition toppled the Taliban, the radical Islamic militia that ruled most of the country for five years. Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali blamed Taliban supporters for Munguia’s death and said he was targeted because he was the only Westerner traveling in a two-car convoy of Red Cross workers when it was ambushed. “They wanted to make a political statement by pulling him out,” Jalali said. “This is just an act of terrorism aimed at destabilizing the situation.” Full Story