¡¡¡¡KABUL, April 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Afghanistan's security authorities have identified the killer of a foreign Red Cross worker and a search operation for the Taliban-linked gunman was going on in southern provinces, official sources here said on Wednesday.

¡¡¡¡Police said that Abudul Satar, believed having connections withthe ousted Taliban, was responsible for the killing of Ricardo Munguia, a Swiss citizen working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the country.

¡¡¡¡Munguia, a water supply engineer, was shot dead by unidentifiedgunmen last week in the southern province of Oruzgan when he was on his way to a local town, where the ICRC aid agency has a water supply project.

¡¡¡¡Afghan officials blamed the killing of Munguia on remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorist network, who have recently carried out a series of rocket attacks, armed ambushes and road kidnappings mainly against foreign troops in the country and foreign aid workers especially in southern Afghanistan.

¡¡¡¡Intensive search operations by local Afghan security forces were being conducted in Oruzgan and neighboring Kandahar province to capture the Taliban gunman, who reportedly shot Munguia on the head with a AK-47 rifle simply because he was a foreigner.

¡¡¡¡Munguia was the first foreign aid worker killed in Afghanistan since former ruling Taliban was ousted in late 2001 by the US-led coalition forces.

¡¡¡¡Afghan president Hamid Karzai has demanded the security authorities to find out those responsible for the brutal killing of Munguia and bring them to justice at an earliest date, officials said. Enditem