2003 in Afghanistan – Sludge Pump EZG – Slurry Pump EMM
official in Kunar before he was arrested in December 2002.
U.S. troops took part in operations to destroy 800 “bomblets” from a cluster bomb, discovered near Mazari Sharif.
An explosion in the Baghrami District of Afghanistan about 15 kilometres (9 mile) south of Kabul killed an interpreter working for international peacekeepers and lightly injured a Dutch soldier. Both were airlifted from the scene asInternational Security Assistance Force troops blocked off the scene of the incident on a street lined by shops and mud houses. The injured man was a 23-year-old corporal with the 11th Air Mobile Brigade. The explosion was detonated by remote control.
Several people were killed or wounded in a fresh outbreak of fighting between supporters of Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Tajik commander Ustad Atta Mohammad.
Intensifying efforts to capture al-Qaeda members, a patch of some 400 square kilometers around the town of Rabat, Afghanistan was the focus of air and ground operations by Pakistani army and paramilitary forces backed by U.S. CIA communications and tracking experts.
Six medics and three other volunteers in charge of logistics, all from Hungary departed for Kabul, Afghanistan, where they will work at a German military hospital and a Dutch surgery unit as part of International Security Assistance Force.
The first Afghan radio station programmed solely for women began broadcasting in Kabul. The first broadcast was called “The Voice of Afghan Women.” Director Jamila Mujahed said one-hour radio programs would be broadcast every afternoon in the local Pashtu andDari languages in Kabul on 91.6 FM.
March 9: Pakistani security forces carried out raids in Jalozai and Shamshatoo, Afghan refugee camps near Peshawar. No one was detained.
Masood, an Iraqi national and two Afghan men were picked up in Hayatabad, Pakistan. They were questioned for involvement in the slaying of a Pakistani intelligence officer (was shot and killed on March 4 in Wana) and suspectedal-Qaida links. Computer discs and other unspecified documents were recovered from their possession.
President Karzai said that he hoped war in Iraq could be avoided. But he also said the Iraqi people deserved to choose their own government.
The 22nd suicide attempt by a detainee took place at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. To date, about 650 detainees from 43 countries were being held there on suspicion of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban. To date, the men had not been charged and were not allowed lawyers. To date, five detainees had been released, including three Pakistanis and two Afghans.
One U.S. airman suffered multiple fractures to his right foot after he was struck by a fork lift truck during aircraft-loading operations at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.
A 45-year-old Afghan man to the hospital at Bagram Air Base after he was shot in the leg in a hunting accident near Orgun.
March 10: Afghanistan officially activated its .af Internet domain name on for Afghan e-mail addresses and Web sites.
The National Democratic Front was officially launched during a ceremony at a Kabul hotel. Its purpose was to foster Western-style democracy and act as a counterweight to Islamic fundamentalism.
The U.S. military denied reports it had stepped up its presence along Afghanistan’s northeastern border with Pakistan in its ongoing hunt for al-Qaeda fugitives. Some sources in Pakistan, however, claimed that Osama bin Laden had been in the Siakoh mountain range near Nimroz Province.
Three members of a local council were killed and five wounded in an explosion in the province in the Zale Dasht district ofKandahar in Afghanistan. The bomb appeared to be operated by remote control. Among the surviving casualties were Ziaul Haq and Sher Ali Aqa.
U.S. forces in Spin Boldak, Afghanistan detained a man after finding a cache of anti-personnel mines.
Seeking help in the capture of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar, U.S. aircraft dropped leaflets in the region of and broadcast radio messages in Spin Boldak.
March 11: President George W. Bush apologized to President Karzai for the way Karzai was treated by a U.S. Senate committee on February 26. Some senators said they feared Karzai, by highlighting facts like millions of children returning to school and the government’s smooth introduction of a new currency, had put too positive a spin on Afghanistan’s problems. One senator said stressing the positive could hurt Karzai’s credibility.
A delegation of Afghan legal officials and experts gathered in Washington, DC, completed a four-day conference managed byInternational Resources Group and hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace. The participants worked by consensus to lay out the future of the justice system in Afghanistan.
Three judges on a U.S. appeals court unanimously dismissed a challenge by Afghan war detainees at the U.S.