2003 in Afghanistan – Sludge Pump EZG – Slurry Pump EMM
Pakistan.
Three Afghan soldiers were wounded when their pickup truck ran over a landmine during a routine patrol at Panjwai district, 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Kandahar.
March 2: The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Afghan poverty-stricken families earning money by selling their daughters was on the rise.
Germany pulled out its elite KSK anti-terror forces from Afghanistan. The German defense ministry refused to comment on the report.
Afghan border guards arrested a Pakistani man, Sayed Wali, in eastern Afghanistan on charges of illegally entering Afghanistan. They accusing him of spying for his Pakistan. He was arrested in the Shinwar district near Torkham.
March 3: At 6 a.m., a rocket hit a house in Kandahar, Afghanistan, injuring a man and his wife and causing panic in the area. The wife, Bibi Koh, was in serious condition.
U.S. military aircraft scattered leaflets over southern Afghanistan, according to residents in Spin Boldak, Afghanistan. The pamphlets offered cash rewards for help in arresting Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. The leaflets did not say how to collect the money or who to contact to inform on bin Laden.
The U.S. military pushed into a new valley in southern Afghanistan in search of fugitive leaders of the ousted Taliban regime. 12 people had been detained over the past three days and more than 60 rifles from two weapons caches were discovered in Baghni valley. One of the weapon caches was found down a well, wrapped in plastic and tied to a rope.
March 4: U.S. special forces found 96 rocket-propelled grenades, five rifles and ammunition after searching a compound in the southeastern border town of Spin Boldak, Afghanistan.
A U.S. military vehicle struck a four-year-old Afghan boy just west of the southern city of Kandahar, Afghanistan. The boy sustained a severe head injury and was medically evacuated to Bagram Air Base for evaluation. By March 7 he was in stable condition.
In Copenhagen, Denmark, two Danish officers faced preliminary charges of negligence in connection with an April 6, 2002 explosion that killed five bomb squad members in Afghanistan.
President Karzai arrived in Qatar to participate in the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to discuss the crisis in the Middle East.
A U.S. soldier was brought to a hospital facility at Bagram, Afghanistan after being injured when his vehicle rolled over inBamyan Province. The soldier was in stable condition.
Gunmen killed Sher Nawaz Khan, a Pakistani intelligence official, in a border area near Afghanistan. Kahn was riding a motorbike to work in the border town of Wana, 180 miles (290 km) south of Peshawar. The gunmen followed Khan in a car then shot him repeatedly after knocking him off the motorbike.
Qari Abdul Wali, a military commander in the hard-line Islamic Taliban regime said from a hideout near the southern Afghan town of Spin Boldak the that arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would not weaken the al Qaeda network.
The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) pledged a million line of credit in support of U.S. private sector investment in Afghanistan. This was in addition to the million OPIC line of credit that the Bush administration announced January 2002. One project will be the construction of a five-star international hotel in Kabul to be managed by Hyatt International, to which OPIC anticipates providing million in financing and political risk insurance. OPIC will also provide political risk insurance to enable a U.S. manufacturer to donate a compressed earth block machine for the construction of three schools, at least one of which will be for girls.
March 5: U.S. and Italian military officials announced that about 500 Italian troops would soon replace a similar number of U.S. soldiers deployed in eastern Afghanistan’s Khost region. About 1,000 Italian soldiers from Task Force Nibbio had already arrived at Bagram Air Base. Officials said that 500 Italians will stay at Bagram and the remaining 500 were to take over in mid-March from Americans at Camp Salerno, a coalition base near the eastern town of Khost. To date 8,000 of the 13,000 coalition forces were from the U.S..
President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai arrived in India for a four-day visit. Karzai’s agenda included boosting bilateral trade and investment and seeking aid for his war-ravaged country.
Near Bagram, Afghanistan, paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division seized 132 82mm mortar rounds, 34 pieces of unexploded ordnance and “numerous” anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.
One civilian was killed and three were wounded their jeep struck a landmine in Zer-e-Koh, Afghanistan, just south of Shindand Air Base in western Herat Province, said warlord Ammanullah Khan.
Fighting broke out in Gosfandi, Afghanistan in Sar-e Pol Province between two local