Afghan mission starts despite attack

South Korea‘s team tasked with helping rebuild war-torn Afghanistan has begun its mission despite a rocket attack on its future headquarters, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The Provincial Reconstruction Team went to work after a formal launching ceremony on Thursday, a day after the construction site of its headquarters came under a grenade attack. 

Ministry officials said they have to yet to uncover who was culpable, saying no individual or group has come forward.

The government suspects the Taliban as a possible culprit. 

The assailants fired two rounds of rocket-propelled grenades toward the base construction site on Wednesday, a Foreign Ministry official said. 

Col. Park Sung-woo, spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that both assailants and security guards used Russian-made RPG-7s in the exchange of fire. 

Troops of the “Ashena” unit dispatched to Afghanistan to protect Korean civilian workers salute during a ceremony to see them off on Thursday. Yonhap News