Afghanistan: Red Cross workers missing after 'Islamic State ambush'

A hunt is on the way for two Red Cross employees who went missing after their convoy came under insurgent fire in northern Afghanistan, leaving six other workers dead, the charity said on Friday.

The workers were ambushed in northern Jowzjan province on Wednesday while they were en route to a remote snowbound area to deliver much-needed relief supplies.

"Unfortunately, there's no news yet on our two colleagues unaccounted for," Thomas Glass, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told AFP.

"We are actively trying to locate them."

The  attack - described as one of the worst on the international charity in the country for years - saw six employees killed on the spot, many from close range.

No militant group has so far claimed responsibility for the killings, but Jowzjan's police chief Rahmatullah Turkistani has blamed the local Islamic State group.

The latest attack comes at a time when Afghanistan is in dire need of humanitarian assistance, with more than 100 people killed in recent avalanches and tens of thousands displaced by the wrenching conflict.

But it also underscores how aid workers in Afghanistan have increasingly become casualties of a surge in militant violence in recent years, prompting the ICRC, which has been working in Afghanistan for three decades, announcing a hold to nationwide operations.

The Taliban, the largest militant group in Afghanistan which promptly distanced itself from the attack, has assured ICRC of security in areas under their control.

"The (Taliban) calls on the officials of ICRC to refrain from suspending their services as the Afghan nation is (in) need of humanitarian aid and health services more than ever before," the group said on their official website on Thursday.