Afghanistan timeline March 16-31, 2003

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1 March 31, 2003 2 March 30, 2003 3 March 29, 2003 4 March 28, 2003 5 March 27, 2003 6 March 26, 2003 7 March 25, 2003 8 March 24, 2003 9 March 23, 2003 10 March 22, 2003 11 March 21, 2003 12 March 20, 2003 13 March 19, 2003 14 March 18, 2003 15 March 17, 2003 16 March 16, 2003

March 31, 2003

• 50 reservists of the 321st Civil Affairs Brigade from Fort Sam Houston in Texas were deployed to Afghanistan to participate in Operation Enduring Freedom.
• After fierce fighting during an joint operation with U.S-led coalition forces in central Afghanistan's Oruzgan province, Afghan government troops captured Mulla Ahdul Razaq, minister of commerce of the former Taliban regime.
• About 80 suspected Taliban members were arrested in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
• The participation by Norwegian F-16 fighters in the U.S-led military operations in Afghanistan came to its scheduled end.
• At 9:30 a.m., five men armed with AK-47s attacked a car of Afghan border commander Najibullah who was on his way from Kang district to the center of Nimroz. The commander and two of his men were killed. The car was stolen and later found in the neighboring Farah province, but the attackers had fled.

• U.S forces called in air support that smashed a cluster of suspected rebel vehicles and killed at least two attackers in the eastern border town of Shkin in Afghanistan.
• Six Afghan civilians were killed and six were injured when their taxi hit a landmine 12 kilometers (7 miles) north of Lashkargah. It was alleged that the mine had been laid during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The taxi had left a rutted dirt road apparently to avoid potholes.
• Assailants fired about a dozen 82 mm mortar rounds toward a U.S base near Shkin, Afghanistan, triggering an attack by a U.S Marine AV-8 Harrier II jet that dropped a 1,000-pound (454-kilo), laser-guided bomb on three vehicles spotted trying to leave the area. Two AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships were also called in, but they did not fire.
• A 122 mm rocket struck the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul. The explosion sprayed shrapnel across trees and buildings and damaged two ISAF vehicles inside the compound, but no one was hurt.
• Attackers fired two rockets at a U.S base in the eastern town of Gardez, Afghanistan, but there were no casualties.

• A four-vehicle reconnaissance patrol was attacked near Geresk in Helmand province, Afghanistan, killing two U.S special forces soldiers and wounding another. Killed were Army Special Forces Sgt. Orlando Morales of Manati, Puerto Rico, and Staff Sgt. Jacob L. Frazier, a member of the Illinois Air National Guard from St. Charles, Illinois. Three Afghan soldiers were also wounded in the attack.
• An earthquake of 5.5 magnitude rattled parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The quake, which was centered about 60 miles north of Peshawar, was felt in Kabul for about 30 seconds.
• While on a routine surveillance mission, two Norwegian F-16 fighters were called in to provide air support for U.S-led alliance forces which were under attack from enemy soldiers in a mountainous area north east of Kandahar. The F-16s dropped four laser guided bombs.
• Fighters launched rockets at an air base housing U.S and Afghan forces near Jalalabad, but there were no casualties.
• Afghanistan's government set up a special bank account to channel money for humanitarian aid to Iraq and urged wealthy Afghans to contribute to it. Money from the account, which was opened at the central bank in Kabul, would be delivered to the Iraqi people later by the U.N special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi.
• Some 600 Afghan soldiers were sent to Sangisakh Shaila, 75 kilometers (50 miles) north of Kandahar, to take on the suspected Taliban fighters. U.S helicopters and an aircraft were used in the operation.

• The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend the U.N. assistance mission in Afghanistan for another year, enough time to see the country through to general elections.
• Four suspected Taliban were killed and six captured as U.S special forces and hundreds of Afghan soldiers fought in Sangisakh Shaila against about 100 suspected Taliban holdouts.
• Claiming to be somewhere in Afghanistan, senior Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah told the BBC that the Taliban hoped to regain power in Afghanistan, utilizing popular support. Dadullah said that the Taliban had regrouped under the leadership of Mullah Mohammed Omar and were attacking U.S-led coalition troops with renewed vigour and ferocity. He added that the Taliban would fight until "Jews and Christians, all foreign crusaders" were expelled from Afghanistan. According to Dadullah, al-Qaeda no longer existed in Afghanistan and that he did not know the fate or whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
• The Asian Development Bank forwarded a draft proposal to Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan regarding India's participation in a proposed 1,300 km Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan natural gas pipeline project. The draft was subject to approval of all parties.

• On the dirt road to Kandahar, Ricardo Munguia, an International Committee of the Red Cross water engineer, was fatally shot by gunmen, prompting the humanitarian aid agency to suspend operations across Afghanistan. After intercepting two Red Cross vehicles, the gunmen shot Muguia in the head, burned one car and warned two Afghans accompanying him not to work for foreigners. Abdul Salam, a witness, alleged that Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah gave the gunmen their orders via mobile phone.
• In Khowri Khorah, Afghanistan, a company 60 U.S soldiers working in Operation Desert Lion discivered hundreds of mortar and recoilless rifle rounds, rockets and more than 120 cases of ammunition.
• Thailand?s government, working with the Asian Foundation for Wheelchair Users and the Thai Foundation for the Disabled, sent 100 wheelchairs to the people of Afghanistan.
• Amnesty International expressed concern for the health of Kuchi elder Haji Naim Kuchai, who was detained by U.S troops in Afghanistan on January 1. Kuchai, whom had had a kidney removed 4 years prior and whom suffered from diabetes, was being detained at an unknown location.
• At least 11 people were killed and 2,000 affected by floods which damaged hundreds of homes in the Kunduz province, Afghanistan. The district of Khanabad and the major city of Mazar-i-Sharif were affected the greatest. U.N aid agencies, along with local and national governments mobilized to provide food, plastic sheeting, blankets and other emergency assistance.
• U.S warplanes conducted an air assault in the Kohe Safi mountains of Afghanistan, in the first strike of Operation Desert Lion.
• The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Afghan Ministry for Refugees and Repatriation began a joint registration exercise in the northern provinces of Takhar, Jowzjan, Sar-e Pol, Faryab, Balkh, Samangan, Baghlan, Konduz and Badakhshan. An estimated 45,000 internally displaced persons were to be registered by 76 registration teams.
• In Washington, DC, Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Dana Rohrabacher introduced the Access for Afghan Women Act into Congress. The intention of the bill was to lay out a roadmap for incorporating women into Afghanistan's development process. Such incorporation would be achieved through funding organizations such as the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) and the National Human Rights Commission.
• Despite Afghan president Hamid Karzai previously ordered that there would be no zones in Afghanistan, deputy defence minister General Abdul Rashid Dostum created an office for the North Zone of Afghanistan. Disobeying Karzai's order, Dostum appointed the following officials to the North Zone: Lt-Gen Mohammad Daud Azizi and Lt-Gen Majid Rozi as deputies of the Control and Management; Lt-Gen Mohammad Shahzada as head of the departments of the Control and Management; Lt-Gen Esmatollah as general head of operations of the Control and Management.

• Two kilometers from the Kandahar airport, a bomb blew up a tanker carrying 45,000 liters (11,885 gallons) of fuel to a U.S military base in southern Afghanistan, but there were no casualties.
• BearingPoint announced it had been awarded a three-year, $39.9 million contract from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to help Afghanistan implement policy and institutional reform measures that will lead to an improved environment for economic development. The agreement includes an option for another two years, for a total award of $64.1 million.
• In Afghanistan, Ammanullah Khan said that Ismail Khan's forces captured Atashan and burned scores of houses before advancing toward nearby Mangan.
• U.S soldiers near Jalalabad, Afghanistan found a cache of 800 BM-12 rockets.
• The Afghan government trained 20 finance officers to ensure revenues across the country were collected transparently. The officers completed one-month training courses sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development and the World Bank.
• Japan donated about US$20 million to Afghanistan. One source claimed the money was meant to help rebuild its transportation infrastructure, including buying new ambulances and buses. The Japan Times claimed the money was meant to create jobs, to promote education, and to create a constitution.
• U.S forces detained one person with suspected Taliban ties during Operation Valiant Strike in the Sami Ghar mountains in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan.
• U.S troops treated a 20-year-old Afghan man who was shot in the leg in Deh Rawood. The man was flown to Kandahar, where part of his left leg was amputated. It was unclear how the gunshot was inflicted.

• In Afghanistan, a group of U.S-led forces (dubbed Task Force Devil) participating in Operation Valiant Strike captured four suspected rebels and seizing a major weapons cache. The cache included electronic detonators, timers, dozens of mortar and rocket-propelled grenade rounds and land mines.
• In Afghanistan, Ammanullah Khan, a Pashtun, said forces loyal to Tajik warlord Ismail Khan, the governor of the Herat province, began attacking the Pashtun village of Atashan in Badghis province.
• In Jalalabad, more than 2,000 university students protesting the U.S-led war on Iraq clashed with the security forces. Seven students were lightly injured. The confrontation began when students tried to remove barricades set up to prevent them from blocking the main Jalalabad-Kabul highway. Some students threw stones on two vehicles carrying U.S. special forces on the highway.
• A rocket was fired toward the coalition-controlled airport in Khost, Afghanistan.
• Three rockets were fired near a U.S base in Gardez, Afghanistan in Paktia province and 11 were fired at another base in the province, near the Pakistan border.
• Around 20 Canadian troops left for Afghanistan to pave the way for Canadian troops to join the U.N peacekeeping force International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
• The Perini Corporation was awarded a contract by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction of facilities to support the First Brigade of the Afghan National Army, located near Kabul.
• About 400 gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Tora Shaikh in Badghis province, Afghanistan near the border with Turkmenistan. Seven attackers and six government soldiers were killed.

• A patrol of U.S forces from the Shkin base in the Paktika province of Afghanistan came under gunfire and grenade attack by as many as five militants. There were no injuries. A Humvee, containing three soldiers, was damaged after tumbling into a ditch to evade the fire. A grenade landed underneath the vehicle, but did not detonate.
• In Afghanistan, U.S-led forces participating in Operation Valiant Strike found more than 170 rocket-propelled grenades and scores of land mines and mortar rounds.
• In reaction to questions raised by Ahmed Shah Behzad at the opening ceremonies of human rights commission on March 19, the governor Herat, Ismail Khan, expelled the Behzad from the province. Most journalists in Herat protested the move and went on strike to also demand more press freedom in the province.
• Afghanistan marked World Tuberculosis Day with a ceremony in Kabul. To date, Afghanistan had one of the highest incidences of the disease in the world, killing 23,000 a year. The disease was mainly the result of poverty and malnutrition.
• On a train between the Belorussian capital Minsk and Moscow, Maj. Gen. Viktor Karpukhin died of heart failure. Karpukhin had been a commander of an elite Soviet commando unit that took part in one of the riskier operations of the Soviet Union's 10-year war in Afghanistan.

• A U.S Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter crashed while on a on a medical evacuation mission in Afghanistan, killing all six people on board. The accident occurred about 18 miles north of Ghazni. The accident brought the number of US military personnel killed in Afghanistan to almost 60, more than half of whom died in noncombat operations.
• About 30 new prisoners were taken to Camp X-Ray in Cuba, bringing to about 660 the number of inmates there.
• About 1,000 people in Mehtar Lam, Afghanistan demonstrated against the U.S-led war in Iraq.
• In Sato Kandow, Afghanistan, U.S Special Forces, patrolling a stretch of road from Gardez to Khost, clashed with militiamen loyal to Bacha Khan Zardran, prompting the special forces to call in Apache helicopter gunships. Up to 10 rebels were killed and seven were wounded.
• A mediation team, consisting of United Nations officials and military officials from key northern factions, was dispatched to Latti, Afghanistan to stem fighting between Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Mohammed.

• A large weapons cache was found inside several buildings in a walled compound near the southern Sami Ghar mountains, Afghanistan, where hundreds of U.S-led troops were hunting for terror suspects as part of Operation Valiant Strike. Two suspected rebels were captured. The cache included 170 107mm rockets, two 82mm mortars and 400 mortar rounds, two heavy machine guns, two antiaircraft cannons, thousands of rocket-propelled grenades with eight launchers, and thousands of machine gun rounds.
• In the Wath army post, about 20 miles south of Spinboldak, attackers opened fire, killing three Afghan soldiers.
• Three Afghan soldiers were killed and four kidnapped in two separate pre-dawn attacks on security checkposts near Spin Boldak.
• Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Pakistan for a four-day visit with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali.
• The school year in most of Afghanistan officially started, but schools were closed because of a holiday for the Afghan New Year. Education Minister Yunus Qanooni said 5.8 million students would go to school, up from 3.3 million the year before. The United Nations had a more conservative estimate of about 4.5 million. Many villages set up informal schools in mosque courtyards, tents and private homes because they never had schools in the first place or the buildings were destroyed.

• In Khost, twelve Afghan policemen were arrested and police chief Mohammad Mustafa was dismissed for alleged involvement in corruption, drug trafficking or having links with the Taliban and al-Qaida. The arrests were made by about 50 U.S and 20 Afghan troops. About 60 police officers were believed to be involved, but when the arrests were made, several fled. Mustafa was replaced by Mohammed Zaman Khan. About 800 officers remain in the force.
• A new strategy to disarm militias in Afghanistan will be given to President Hamid Karzai by a team of United Nations and Afghan government officials, when he will announce it to the nation.
• The U.S-backed Afghan government called for a quick end to the war in Iraq, saying President Saddam Hussein should leave Iraq. The statement read: "We want the people of Iraq to be free from despotism...It is in the interest of the Iraqi people for Saddam Hussein to leave power. The interests of the people of Iraq are higher than the interests of Saddam Hussein and his family...We want a united Iraq, with a government representing its people for peace and stability in the region and world."
• By the third day of Operation Valient Strike, U.S forces had arrested 12 people, including members of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime.
• 18 Afghan prisoners left Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to be released home.

• All U.N offices and embassies in Afghanistan were closed amid security concerns after the U.S initiated its war against Iraq. Domestic flights continued, but international flights into Afghanistan were canceled. In Kabul, police stopped and searched most vehicles at major intersections causing mile-long traffic tie-ups. Coalition soldiers maintained a heavy presence on Chicken Street, a popular tourist destination for Westerners.
• A bomb hidden in a drainage ditch exploded in Kandahar, Afghanistan and a second bomb was found and defused.
• U.S Special Forces observed missile fire in Khost, Afghanistan against a border post on the nearby frontier with Pakistan. Fire was returned and close air support from an A-10 aircraft dropped several bombs on the suspected positions of the attackers. There were no US casualties or damage reports.
• Attackers fired 11 rockets toward the U.S base in the eastern town of Orgun-E, Afghanistan, but none landed closer than 500 yards from the base.
• At Deh Rawood in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, U.S Special Forces reported a rocket fired at an observation tower near one of their outpost.
• As part of Operation Valiant Strike, U.S troops poured into the villages of Gari Kaloay and Sekandarzay, Afghanistan, around 140 kilometres (87 miles) east of Kandahar.

• About two-hundred U.S troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, led by a battalion of 800 known as the "White Devils," were ferried by helicopters into the Sami Ghar mountains, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Kandahar, initiating Operation Valiant Strike. The objective was to locate Osama Bin Laden and members of al Qaeda. The U.S. troops were accompanied by Romanian infantry.
• Afghan journalist Ahmed Shah Behzad, an employee of Radio Liberty, was detained, beaten and interrogated by local security forces in Herat. Governor Ismail Khan did not like the questions Mr. Behzad was putting to officials during opening ceremonies of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
• More than a dozen 107 mm rockets landed near the U.S Special Forces in Orgun (in Paktika), Afghanistan.
• Suspected Taliban fighters ambushed the Afghan government Sherabik post about 70 kilometers (40 miles) to the southwest of Kandahar, slitting the throats of three Afghan soldiers.
• Near Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, international explosives experts destroyed two weapons caches, including a dozen rockets and four homemade bombs, left behind by suspected enemy fighters. The bombs were originally found in Jalalabad in February near the home of a secretary of Din Mohammed, the governor of Nangarhar province.
• A 20-year-old Afghan militia soldier was flown from eastern Afghanistan to coalition headquarters in Bagram for medical treatment after being shot in the back and foot.
• A 12-year-old Afghan boy who stepped on a land mine was rushed to Bagram Air Base for medical treatment. The boy's left leg was amputated.
• The United States and Afghanistan asked Norway to organize and lead a border police along the Afghan border. Norway did not give an immediate reply.
• Pakistan approved transit facilities for Afghanistan, including deletion of eight items from the negative list of most controversial Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA), reduction in railways freight and new rail and road routes to facilitate the transportation of goods. The items deleted from the negative list are cotton yarn, polyester, metalised film, ball bearings, timers, tape recorders, glass ware/dinner sets, juicers/blenders and videocassette recorders.
• Australia announced it would shut down a second detention center on Christmas Island for asylum seekers just a week after it closed the doors of its controversial Woomera camp. The last four detainees were sent back to Afghanistan days earlier.
• Expected to replace the 1343 lunar year constitution, a tentative draft of a new Afghan constitution, called "the new constitution for the new Afghanistan", was completed. National unity, ensuring social justice and establishing democracy were stressed and any discrimination in ethnic, racial, religious and linguistic sensitivities would be banned.

• An agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR is scheduled to be signed in Geneva the repatriation of 600,000 Afghan refugees from Pakistan.
• The Italian Camp Salerno outside Khost, Afghanistan came under rocket-fire and gun-fire. Italian soldiers returned fire at the unidentified attackers, wounding at least one before the assailants fled.
• In Afghanistan, gunmen used rockets and machine guns to attack U.S Special Forces at a separate base about six kilometers (four miles) from Italy's Camp Salerno.
• Brigadier Ashfaq-ur-Rasheed Khan of Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force forcast that Afghanistan was heading for a record opium poppy crop in the coming summer.
• A bomb exploded on the roof of the home of Malik Mohammed Nazeer, the senior bureaucrat in the government of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. Three other bombs were found, but did not detonate. No one was injured.
• Afghanistan's government signed a repatriation agreement in The Hague with the Netherlands, which at the time hosted about 40,000 Afghan refugees.

• Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai told a meeting in Brussels he feared that a possible U.S-led war against Iraq could make donors shift their focus from Afghanistan, with future aid for the country going instead toward helping rebuild Iraq.
• The Wheat Disposal Committee announced that Pakistan Agricultural Supplies and Storages Corporation (PASSCO) would export around 300,000 tons of wheat to Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
• In Brussels, the European Union pledged 400 million euro (US$432 million) in financial aid to rebuild Afghanistan until the end of 2004. Canada pledged $250 million to Afghanistan for the same time frame.
• The U.S Trade Development Agency on granted $280,081 to Afghanistan's government to study a proposed national high-speed telecommunications backbone. To date, one out of 625 Afghan citizens had access to telephone services.
• International explosive ordinance teams near Kandahar, Afghanistan destroyed a weapons cache that included more than 4,000 mortar rounds, 500 artillery projectiles and about 6 million rounds of machine gun ammunition.
• In Gardez, a 6-year-old Afghan boy attempted to stab a U.S soldier with a syringe containing an unidentified liquid, but the needle was blocked by his protective vest. The boy fled the scene.
• In Brussels, Afghanistan signed a tripartite agreement with Pakistan and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees calling assistance in the voluntary return of Afghan refugees. Under the agreement, over 1.8 million Afghan displaced persons (DPs) would be voluntarily repatriated to Afghanistan by the end of 2006.
• In Kabul, Afghanistan, The Irish Club opened, serving only foreigners, specifically aid workers, diplomats and journalists.

• Afghanistan granted the release of all Pakistani prisoners (almost 1,000) held in its jails. No date was given for the release of the prisoners, mainly held in Sherberghan. Less than a week later, the number of prisoners to be released was reduced to 72.
• A U.S armored Humvee was hit by debris from an explosive device near the Afghan city of Kandahar. No one was injured.
• In Afghanistan, forces loyal to Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum clashed with those of his Tajik rival, Gen. Atta Mohammed in Latti village in Sar-e-Pol province. Five of Dostum's commanders were captured and one soldier was injured. Retreating soldiers loyal to Dostum stole 250 sheep.