A 29-year-old French woman working for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was shot dead Sunday in the Afghan town of Ghazni when two men on a motorcycle opened fire on her vehicle with a pistol.

Bettina Goislard's death was the first among U.N. international staff in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban to U.S.-led forces two years ago.

Local authorities in the town to the southwest of the capital Kabul have arrested two gunmen and said they believed the killers were rebels from the ousted Taliban regime which has staged a comeback in parts of the country in recent months.

"Two unknown gunmen on motorbikes opened fire on the car of the UNHCR which fatally wounded the international staffer of the UNHCR...at midday today," U.N. spokesman David Singh said.

Goislard had been in Ghazni since June 2002, after also working for the UNHCR in Rwanda and Guinea. She was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

Local driver Abdul Salam Sadid was shot in the arm but is in stable condition, while field assistant Ali Mohammad ducked away from the firing and was unhurt.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the attack as "outrageous and contemptible."

"The secretary-general was distressed and angered to learn of the cold-blooded killing of Ms Bettina Goislard...and the wounding of a national staff member," a U.N. statement said.

The UNHCR's chief of mission in Afghanistan, Filippo Grandi, said workers were "deeply shocked and greatly angered by the senseless murder of Bettina, who was an exemplary young colleague always actively seeking ways to help people in need."

President Hamid Karzai issued a statement in which he expressed "shock" at the killing, calling it "an act of enmity by terrorists against the Afghan people."

Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah said the killers belonged to the "Taliban-Al Qaeda network" who "found refuge among their mentors along our eastern and southern borders," a reference to suspicion in Kabul that militants are launching attacks from Pakistan.

INSECURITY FEARS

A Western aid worker said the incident underlined the need for 5,500 peacekeepers in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to expand operations beyond Kabul.

Afghanistan is building up for presidential elections scheduled for June 2004, but much of the country remains off-limits for aid workers concerned about a resurgent Taliban and local turf battles.

More than 350 people, including many rebels, have been killed in Afghan violence since early August, the worst bloodshed since the Taliban fled Kabul on November 13, 2001.

In March, suspected Taliban rebels executed an El Salvadorean employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern province of Kandahar, the former stronghold of the hard-line militia.

There are currently 813 international staff working with UNAMA (U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan).

Taliban officials have given a series of warnings that they would not spare foreign aid workers and Afghans working for them in their jihad, or holy war, against foreigners in the country.

The UNHCR said it had suspended all operations in Ghazni province.

"In the rest of Afghanistan, UNHCR staff is on stand-by, pending decisions on future measures," it said.

The shooting came less than a week after a car bomb went off outside U.N. buildings in Kandahar, wounding three people and causing damage to property.

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