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CIAO DATE: 7/5/2006
Afghan Update: April 1 - April 30, 2006
Francis Rheinheimer
May 2006
Coalition forces
A senior U.S. State Department official said on April 3 that more violence was expected in the coming months. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher reaffirmed the opinion of some U.S. military leaders that the warmer months and the increased presence of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops would signal a stepped up effort by insurgents to disrupt peacebuilding and reconstruction efforts. Boucher also cited the battle against narcotics traffickers as cause for increased fighting.
On April 12, coalition and Afghan forces backed by military aircraft killed six insurgents a day after a missile attack killed seven students on April 11. The operation took place in the Pech River Valley in the Kunar province southeast of the capital.
A suicide bomber wounded three coalition soldiers and an Afghan guard on April 14. The attacker detonated a car full of explosives near a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) convoy in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern Helmand province. The wounds sustained by the soldiers were minimal.
On April 14, American investigators armed with a "box full" of cash paid thousands of dollars to buy back stolen computer drives outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan. The drives were said to contain classified military secrets. But dozens are still on sale, including memory sticks with information ranging from U.S. troop resumes to photographs of Air Force One during President Bush’s visit in March.
Coalition forces and warplanes attacked a small group of rebels in eastern Afghanistan on April 16. Seven Afghan civilians were killed and three wounded when soldiers retaliated against militants who had launched missiles and grenades against coalition forces. The previous week, U.S. and Afghan forces launched Operation Mountain Lion to flush out Taliban soldiers and militants from Kunar province. The deaths of the civilians prompted a military investigation the following day.
On April 18, U.S. and coalition forces killed five militants in the volatile Kunar province near Pakistan. The fighting came amid increased stepped-up attacks against coalition and Afghan forces stationed in the region. Pakistani forces deployed in remote villages to prevent militants from fleeing across the border.
One U.S. soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan when his patrol came under attack on April 21. Fourteen U.S. troops have been killed in 2006.
General Afghan Security
On April 3, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann said it was difficult to say when the ISAF would completely take over responsibility for Afghan security from coalition forces. NATO’s top commander said recently the transfer could come as soon as the end of August, but Neumann said it could be as late as November.
On April 11, seven children were killed and 34 wounded in a rocket attack on a primary school in the city of Asadabad, the capital city of the Kunar province. Police officials blamed the “enemies of Afghanistan,” a term used to describe Taliban fighters living in the mountains. A Taliban spokesman denied involvement, despite a spate of similar attacks against schools in recent months.
One policeman was killed and two injured when a roadside bomb destroyed their vehicle in the Helmand province on April 12. Police officials blamed the “enemies of Afghanistan.”
Taliban fighters attacked three police posts on April 16, leaving 14 rebels dead or wounded. Four more rebels were killed in separate battles. Police said they suffered no casualties, while a Taliban spokesman said only two rebel fighters were killed, alongside nine policemen.
A massive rocket explosion shook the Afghan capital April 19 near the U.S. Embassy compound, wounding an Afghan security contractor. U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said the blast did not occur on embassy property, and no Americans were injured.
The former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan said on April 21 that the violent resistance to U.S. and Afghan military forces will continue as long as “opposition groups” are denied access to the political process. Abdul Salam Zaeef returned to Afghanistan in late 2005 after spending more than three years held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also called for fair trials to be afforded to the roughly 500 people being held at the facility.
Also on April 21, militants ambushed a police post in Kandahar province and killed six security personnel. The attackers then burned the bodies and fled.
A senior Afghan police official narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on April 28. His two guards were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in southern Afghanistan. The official blamed Taliban insurgents for the attack, but offered no proof.
A kidnapped Indian worker was found headless in the southern Zabul province on April 30. Police blamed Taliban fighters.
Pakistan
Militants in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous region of North Waziristan attacked a Pakistani military fort on April 2. One soldier was killed and 10 people, including three children, were wounded.
Pro-Taliban militants beheaded two tribesmen suspected of collaborating with U.S. troops in Afghanistan on April 17.
International Security Assistance Force
Three British soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously, by a roadside explosion in the province of Helmand on April 11. It was unknown whether the cause of the blast was a landmine or an improvised explosive device.
On April 22, four Canadian soldiers traveling in an armored jeep in southern Kandahar province were killed when a roadside bomb exploded underneath their vehicle. The loss came as troops were pouring in from around the world to assist in security and peacekeeping operations as part of the ISAF, especially in southern Afghanistan. The attack raised the death toll for Canadian forces to 15.
NATO leaders reaffirmed on April 28 their commitment to nearly doubling the size of the ISAF in Afghanistan’s unstable south. Beginning in July, NATO will expand its presence to 17,000, allowing U.S. and coalition forces to draw down.
Other News in Brief
The governor of the Afghan Central Bank, Noorullah Delawari, said on April 2 that the nation’s per capita income was expected to increase by 14 percent in 2006, to $335. He said that Afghanistan’s GDP would rise from 8 percent in 2005 to 14 percent in 2006.
A $9.67 million children’s hospital was opened by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and French first lady Bernadette Chirac on April 9. The French Medical Institute for the Child brings cutting-edge expertise and equipment to one of the world's poorest countries, still battling to recover from 25 years of war. At the opening, Chirac said the hospital “is a symbol of the reconstruction of your country.”
U.S., Afghan and Pakistani military leaders met on April 19 to discuss cooperation in the fight against armed rebels in South Asia. The meeting, which took place in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, was the 16th gathering of the Tripartite Commission established after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
The Afghan parliament approved President Hamid Karzai’s key cabinet nominations on April 20, including new Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, a former Kabul University professor who went into exile during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Five nominees, including one woman, were rejected.
On April 21, Japan’s parliament agreed to a six-month extension of its support for the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan. Although Japan’s constitution prohibits engaging in combat overseas, laws passed after Sept. 11, 2001, allowed the Japanese military to provide material aid and humanitarian assistance. The extension will continue through the end of October.
A cargo plane carrying U.S. anti-narcotics agents crashed into houses in a southern Afghan town on April 24, killing five people, including two foreigners. Eight people aboard the plane were injured.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced on April 28 that 224 military personnel have been killed as a result of the war in Afghanistan. Hostile action reportedly killed 140.
On April 28, Afghan president Hamid Karzai celebrated the 14th anniversary of the defeat of the Soviet Union by calling on all insurgents and rebels to lay down their arms and join the country’s reconstruction. He pleaded with the rebels “not to cause killing, bloodshed and insecurity under the orders of others.”
An American man was freed from an Afghan jail April 30, two months before his two-year sentence was set to end. Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker Edward Caraballo, from New York, was one of three Americans convicted in 2004 of running a private jail and torturing some Afghan men. The Americans claimed they acted under sanction from U.S. military officials, but the military has denied the claim. Upon release, Caraballo was whisked out of the country under heavy security. The other two remained in prison.
