Afghanistan timeline April 1-15, 2003

Table of contents

1 April 15, 2003 2 April 14, 2003 3 April 13, 2003 4 April 12, 2003 5 April 11, 2003 6 April 10, 2003 7 April 9, 2003 8 April 8, 2003 9 April 7, 2003 10 April 6, 2003 11 April 5, 2003 12 April 4, 2003 13 April 3, 2003 14 April 2, 2003 15 April 1, 2003

April 15, 2003

• While driving to Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghan Commander Shahi and two of his bodyguards were killed in an ambush in the Char Bolak area. Shahi had served for more than 15 years as a commander for General Abdul Rashid Dostum. The assailants were not caught, but it was alleged that they were members of the Jamiat-e-Islami group led by Ustad Atta Mohammad.
• UNICEF began a three-day polio immunization campaign aimed at reaching every child in under 5 years old Afghanistan. An estimated 30,000 vaccinators and volunteers from the Afghan Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization and UNICEF were expected to administer two drops of oral polio vaccine to more than 6 million children.
• Unidentified assailants have attacked two Afghan military checkpoints outside the U.S Gereshk base west of Kandahar, killing one Afghan soldier. The assailants were not apprehended.
• The International Organization for Migration announced that, due to factional fighting in the region that began in March, it was delaying the return of hundreds of internally displaced persons to Faryab province in Afghanistan.
• The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that the pace of repatriating Afghan refugees slowed due to the security situation.

• Pamphlets distributed in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan urged Afghans to revolt against the United States and the government of President Hamid Karzai.

• Mohammed Sharif Sherzai, a brother of Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of Kandahar province, escaped unhurt from an assault by gunmen on motorcycles near the Pakistani border town of Chaman, Afghanistan. However, a cousin and another relative, Qasim Khan, were killed and two Afghan guards were wounded. The gunmen escaped. Afghan border officials accused Pakistan of involvement.
• Two Afghan soldiers allied to U.S-coalition troops were shot and killed near Spinboldak. It was unclear in what circumstances the deaths occurred.
• A blast caused by a device containing around five kilograms of explosives left a two-meter crater at the side of the main Kabul-Jalalabad road in Afghanistan.
• A rocket was fired toward a U.S-coalition base in Orgun in Paktika province, Afghanistan. No damage or casualties were reported.
• Afghan authorities brokered a cease-fire between the Hezb-e-Wahadat and Harakat-e-Islami parties in the town of Surk Deh in Samangan province, Afghanistan. The fighting began April 10 and resulted in at least five deaths, including four civilians, one of which was a 6-year-old child.

• A taxi packed with explosives exploded in Karwan Sarui, four miles east of Khost, Afghanistan, killing four people who apparently were planning a terrorist attack. Two of the killed were unidentified Pakistani nationals and one man was from Yemen. The fourth, the driver, was identified as Bacha Malkhui in one report and Zarat Khan in another report, a former intelligence officer for the deposed Taliban government. The blast destroyed a two-story home and injured a nearby woman.
• The International Committee of the Red Cross announced it had resumed most of its operations in Afghanistan after a two-week suspension following the murder of Ricardo Munguia. However, travel for ICRC employees outside many major cities remained off-limits, and, in remote areas considered insecure, some programs were postponed indefinitely or canceled. As a consequence of the heightened dangers, the ICRC also announced that it would its permanent expatriate staff in Afghanistan by about 25 people, to around 120. To date, the ICRC employed 1,500 Afghans.
• Zabul province officials announced that Orfeo Bartolini, an Italian tourist, had been shot to death, Afghanistan by suspected Taliban gunmen.
• Unidentified attackers threw hand-grenades at Italian troops on patrol near Khost, Afghanistan. No Italians were injured. Italian troops detained one person after the incident.

• On a one day visit from Doha, Qatar, Head of the U.S Central Command General Tommy Franks visited the U.S. military headquarters at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Franks then traveled to Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S ambassador to Afghanistan.
• Authorities and humanitarian organizations began an emergency relief operation to assist over 200 vulnerable families affected by the April 10 earthquake in Yaka Baghi and Sag Baghi. Organizations participating in the relief operations included the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan, the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Relief International, Mercy Corps and the World Food Program. Kabul Radio reported that the quake-hit families in the two villages were in poor condition. It quoted a local source as saying the villagers lacked shelter and needed urgent assistance from the government and international organisations working in Afghanistan.

• A high school in Shahjoy, Afghanistan was burned down.
• An earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale rocked Takhar province in Afghanistan, causing some casualties and destroying 200 houses. Villagers of Yaka Baghi and Sag Baghi were without shelter and needed urgent assistance. The two affected villages had been hit by heavy rains in mid-March.
• Afghan Commerce Minister Sayeed Mustafa Kazimi applied to join Afghanistan to the World Trade Organization.
• In the town of Surk Deh in Samangan province, Afghanistan, fighting erupted between Hezb-e-Wahadat and Harakat-e-Islami (two minority Shiite Muslim parties). This incursion was to last four days.

• Eleven Afghans were killed and one wounded when a stray U.S laser-guided bomb hit a house on the outskirts of Shkin in Paktika province. The bomb was fired by U.S. Marine Corps AV-8 Harrier II air support that had been summoned by coalition forces in pursuit of two groups of five to 10 enemy personnel. The enemy attackers had attacked an Afghan military post checkpoint, wounding four government soldiers. Amnesty International promptly called for an investigation.

• U.S soldiers began a house-to-house for suspected Taliban in the Sangeen district of Helmand province in Afghanistan. The search focused on locating Mullah Dadullah and Mullah Akhtar Mohammed. Both had been reported in the area only a few weeks prior.
• Afghan security forces on found 50 BM-12 missiles in an abandoned house in Sarobi, just east of Kabul.
• Afghanistan's first computer networking class, consisting of six women and eleven men, graduated from the University of Kabul. The university's Networking Academy was jointly launched in October 2002 by the United Nations Development Program and Cisco Systems.
• A major new operation, Resolute Strike, was launched in Helmand province, Afghanistan, involving 500 soldiers as well as attack and assault helicopters.
• The fifth meeting of the Steering Committee on the Turkmen-Afghan-Pakistan gas pipeline project opened in Manila, Philippines, where the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank sits.
• A rocket landed about 500 meters from International Security Assistance Force Camp Warehouse in Kabul, Afghanistan.

• A U.S special forces soldier was slightly wounded when he was hit in the ribs by shrapnel during a military training exercise in in the town of Shkin in Paktika province, Afghanistan.

• Officials announced a U.N-sponsored program to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate an estimated 100,000 fighters across Afghanistan over the next three years, starting in July. Former fighters would be provided with vocational training, employment opportunities and access to credit. Others would be given the chance to apply for positions in the national army. Funded by Japan, Canada, Britain and the United States, the program has a three-year budget of $157 million.
• The United Nations removed a ban on the movement of U.N. personnel in southern Afghanistan, however the International Committee of the Red Cross, with 150 foreign workers in Afghanistan, suspended operations indefinitely. The U.N. ban had been imposed ten days earlier when Ricardo Munguia, of the International Committee of the Red Cross, was pulled out of his car and shot dead.
• The United Nations Children's Fund warned that millions of Afghan women and children continued to face major health and nutrition problems, with maternal and infant mortality in Afghanistan among the worst in the world. To day, Afghanistan's infant mortality rate was 165 per 1,000 live births, and its maternal mortality ratio was 1,600 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. In its report, UNICEF also said it had received 65 percent of its $35 million budget for Afghan programs in 2003 and called on donors to fill the shortage.
• Nearly 50 suspected Taliban fighters attacked an Afghan government checkpost in the Shingai district of Zabul province. Three Afghan government troops were wounded. The fighters fled after a brief gun battle, but government troops captured 20 of them a day later during raids on several villages in the region.

• Kandahar Governor Gul Agha Sherzai gave Taliban loyalists in his province 48 hours to leave Afghanistan. The warning came hours after his soldiers killed two Taliban fighters and captured seven others with bombs and ammunition near the town of Spinboldak.
• Two men were caught with remote control explosives near the U.S base in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
• Afghan officials announced their forces had killed more than 50 suspectd Taliban rebels in fighting in Badghis province, and captured Mullah Badar and Juma Khan.
• An explosion rocked an Afghan military headquarters in Jalalabad, wounding six people including a deputy military commander.

• Two explosions occurred in Spin Boldak, Afghanistan at a shop and a public baths, but no one was hurt.
• An Afghan agricultural department official Aibak announced that an international aid organization had sent experts to Samangan province to train hundreds of people in anti-locust measures and had supplied spraying equipment to eliminate the pest. Locusts were threatening the crops of the region for a second year running.

• The United Nations extended a ban on travel for its staff in southern Afghanistan to give local authorities time to improve security in the area where a foreign aid worker was murdered a weak earlier.
• The U.N special investigator for human rights in Afghanistan, Kamal Hossain, told the United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva that insufficient funding for Afghanistan could jeopardize the development of such groups as the army and police, which are important to ensure stability. He added that the absence of enough security forces would embolden warlords around the country to harass different ethnic tribes and to roll back educational opportunities for women and girls. To date, Afghanistan had received almost $2 billion out the $4.5 billion pledged by the international community.
• The humanitarian projects board of the U.S-led coalition approved 19 assistance and reconstruction projects valued at $722,000. The projects included water improvement and the construction of medical clinics and schools in 10 provinces.

• Afghan militia soldiers (number about 250) and U.S-led coalition plane-strikes killed eight suspected Taliban fighters in the Tor Ghar mountains near Spinboldak, Afghanistan. One Afghan militia member was killed and three others were injured. Fifteen suspects were taken into custody. In the cleanup the soldiers also found and confiscated light machine guns, bomb-making materials, improvised explosive devices, two trucks, two motorcycles and ammunition. More than 35,000 pounds of ordnance were dropped or fired from five types of aircraft — Harrier jets, B-1 bombers, A-10 Thunderbolts and helicopter gunships — on the rebel positions.
• Haji Gilani and his nephew were killed outside their home in Deh Rawood, Afghanistan by six gunmen. According to witnesses, one of the gunmen was Mardan Khan, whose brother was a Taliban commander, but no arrests were made.

• A deminer from U.S military contractor Ronco lost his right foot after stepping on a mine near the Bagram base in Afghanistan.
• U.S soldiers called in B-1 bombers and A-10 aircraft after three explosions apparently caused by rockets shook a U.S military post in the Asadabad, Afghanistan. The planes did not strike.
• A 9-year-old Afghan boy was evacuated from Deh Rahwood to a U.S-led base in Kandahar after suffering a bullet wound to the leg.
• Afghan forces mounted an operation near Spinboldak against 50 to 60 suspected terrorists. Two government soldiers were killed and one wounded in the fighting. Seven suspected terrorists were captured.

• Speaking on Afghan television, the Information and Culture Minister, Makhdum Rahin, said that the country was making progress in encouraging an independent media. He also encouraged Afghanistan's young journalists to criticize the government and himself personally, when mistakes were made.
• In Islamabad, Shaukat Aziz announced that Pakistan would actively participate in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and undertake various development projects for the welfare of its people. Aziz said that a Pakistani private construction company has obtained a 25 million U.S dollar contract to build a road link from Chaman to Kandahar and a 30 million US dollar sub-contract in other reconstruction projects.
• A U.S armored Humvee struck a landmine near Kandahar, Afghanistan. No one was injured. The mine caused major damage to the front end of the vehicle.
• Northeast of Kandahar, Afghanistan, two rockets were fired at a U.S base.
• A rocket was fired toward a U.S base at Orgun in Paktika province, Afghanistan.
• Afghan troops, following a trail in the Dara-e-Noor mountains north of Kandahar, stumbled on tents and mud huts that appeared to be a base for about 30 rebel fighters.
• A patrol of U.S soldiers investigating a rocket launch site near Gardez, Afghanistan came under small arms fire from a walled compound. An investigation of the compound "revealed a group of Afghan militia force soldiers had fired at the U.S. soldiers inadvertently."
• Afghan border guards and U.S special forces soldiers apprehended two men attempting to cross a checkpoint near Khost. The men were escorting a donkey carrying two anti-tank mines, 10 pressure plates for the mines, 10 rocket-propelled grenade rounds and high-explosive rounds.