July 2003 in Afghanistan

2003 in Afghanistan. A list of notable incidents in Afghanistan during 2003

July

July 1: Phase one of the Afghan Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Program was scheduled to begin, but was delayed because Afghan authorities were slow to make crucial defense ministry reforms. The goal of phase one was to disarm 100,000 former combatants and integrate them into civilian live.

• An Indian consulate opened in Herat province, Afghanistan.
• In a video message on a compact disc received by the Associated Press, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar urged his followers to rally together and drive all U.S. and foreign troops from Afghanistan.
• British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw visited Kandahar and met with governor Gul Agha Sherzai.
• Fifteen (9 miles) east of Kabul, an unknown man was killed because a bomb he was carrying went off prematurely. The blast left a 2 m (7 ft) wide crater.
• In Zabul Province along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, three rebel fighters and six Afghan government soldiers were killed in fighting.

July 2: About 700 Afghan government reinforcements were the Ata Ghar Mountains where about 60 rebel fighters have been battling government forces for four days.

• An Afghan military officer, Commander Basir, was shot dead by two unknown gunmen in Herat.
• Some 800 U.S. soldiers backed by more than 500 Italian paratroopers launched Operation Haven Denial into Khost Province and Paktika Province. The operation was aimed at preventing the re-emergence of terrorism and denying sanctuary to anti-coalition fighters in the region.

July 3: In Mazar, four civilians and two fighters were killed in a battle between Uzbek and Tajik forces.

• At the Kabul Military Training Center, two U.S. special forces soldiers were wounded in an accidental grenade blast. They were successfully treated at Bagram.
• Near Kabul, U.S. special forces seized three weapons caches that included dozens of anti-tank rockets, grenades, mortars and land mines.
• About 60 rebel fighters managed to slip out of the Ata Ghar Mountains in Zabul Province, and moved into neighbouring Kandahar Province. Ten rebels were killed and 16 wounded in the fighting.

July 4: Rockets were fired at a road construction crew in southern Afghanistan.

• South of Ghazni, three rebels carjacked a vehicle of an NGO.
• Afghan police arrested a person in connection with the bombing of a mosque in Kandahar on June 30.
• Turkmenistan assured Pakistan and Afghanistan that Daulatabad, the fifth largest gas field in the world, would remain exclusively available for the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline.
• Near Mazar-i-Sharif, two people were killed and one wounded in a battle between Uzbek and Tajik forces.
• Three Dutch peacekeepers were wounded in Kabul when their vehicle was hit by an explosion while they were on patrol.

July 5: The Japanese ambassador to Afghanistan, Kinichi Komano, announced that Japan would provide $150 million in aid for reconstruction purposes, such as roads, health centers, radio and TV.

• Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for the United Arab Emirates received Zalamy Rasoul, Afghan National Security Advisor.

July 6: An advance team of NATO troops arrived in Kabul to prepare for its takeover of the International Security Assistance Force in August.

• In the Dara-i-Suf District of Samangan Province, three people were killed in fighting between Uzbek and Tajik forces. A multi-party peace commission and U.N. officials brokered a ceasefire.
• President Karzai sent a high level delegation to eastern Afghanistan to investigate alleged border violations by the Pakistani military. The Mohmand tribe were worried about Pakistan's military operations in the Nangarhar and Kunar districts.

July 7: The Afghan government announced that it had collected $56 million in revenue from provincial governors and warlords since the end of March.

• John Abizaid replaced Tommy Franks as head of the US Central Command.
• About 100 people took part in a demonstration in Kabul, in protest against reported Pakistani military incursions into Afghan territory.
• New Zealand Minister of Defense Mark Burton announced the deployment of New Zealand service men and women on a twelve-month mission to Afghanistan. Their responsibilities would focus on enhancing the security environment and promoting reconstruction efforts.
• The Afghanistan Literature House opened in Tehran, Iran in the Honar Cultural Center.

July 8: In a second day of demonstrations against reported Pakistani military incursions into Afghan territory, a group of nearly 500 people attacked Pakistan's embassy in Kabul. The windows of eight embassy cars were smashed while televisions, computers and windows were also smashed, including those in the ambassador's upstairs office.

• In Mazar-i-Sharif around 500 people held a protest outside the United Nations offices and burned a Pakistani flag and an effigy of Pervez Musharraf.
• In reaction to attack on Pakistan's embassy in Kabul early in the day, Pakistan lodged a formal protest with the Afghan Government. The protest prompted President Karzai to telephone Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf directly.
• Amnesty International secretary general Irene Khan met with president Hamid Karzai in Kabul to press for widespread prison reform and improved security. A new Amnesty International report found that warlords were still operating private prisons, with many civilians held in shackles and detained for months without trial.

July 9: German Defense Minister Peter Struck told the Berliner Zeitung that Germany would extend its troops' mandate in Afghanistan until at least the end of 2004.

• The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that 243,396 Afghan refugees had returned to their homeland from various parts of the world since January 2003.
• Heavy rains over the last three days triggered floods in Paktia Province, Paktika Province, Khost Province and Logar Province, killing as many as 24 people and washing away sunbaked mud homes.
• In Kabul, local police in riot gear protected the Pakistan Embassy and blocked off nearby streets.
• The Asian Development Bank announced that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan needed more studies carried out before proceeding with their $2.5 billion- Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project.

July 10: Afghan authorities in Kandahar Province arrested a man and seized a large quantity of bomb-making material. The man was reported to be a brother and aide of former Taliban defense minister Mullah Obaidullah.

• William B. Taylor, Jr. was named by the Bush administration to oversee U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.

July 11: Pakistan declined to accept a U.N. offer to mediate any differences between them and Afghanistan after their embassy was attacked by protesters earlier in the week. Security around the Afghan consulate in Peshawar was tightened.

• A U.S. Special Operation Forces convoy north of Bari Kott in Khost Province received small-arms fire. One soldier was slightly injured from bumping his head in a vehicle.
• U.S. Special Operation Forces came under small-arms fire from unknown gunmen in Kunduz.

July 12: Four attackers ambushed a police patrol south of Kandahar.

• Two Afghan soldiers were wounded in a skirmish with Pakistani troops along Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan. Residents of two nearby villages were prompted to flee their homes.
• A bomb exploded near a movie theater in south-eastern Afghanistan. There were no casualties.
• Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Putin reaffirmed the need for stability in Afghanistan and pledged further aid to Kabul.
• A rocket landed near the perimeter of Bagram Air Base, but there were no casualties or damage.
• A blast hit a United Nations refugee transit center in Jalalabad, but there were injuries.

July 13: A blast damaged a building operated by a non-governmental organization (NGO) for the U.N..

• An improvised explosive device left a large hole in the wall of a warehouse run by the German Technical Cooperation, an NGO, in the northern section of Jalalabad.
• In a raid near the Pakistan border, Afghan forces seized about 300 rocket-propelled grenades, dozens of anti-tank mines and 20 AK-47 rifles.

July 14: Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah met with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington, D.C.

• Insurgents in four pickup trucks attacked a police station to the northwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan. Five officers were killed in the 30-minute clash.
• An improvised explosive device disabled a coalition vehicle near the U.S. embassy in Kabul. No one was injured.
• Near a border post in Yegobi District of Nangarhar Province, armed clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan lasted for about one hour.
• Following an investigation by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, Zardad Khan was arrested in London.

July 15: The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reported that about 8,000 Afghans had been moved to other camps in Pakistan, while about 11,000 had been sent to a camp near Kandhar. The refugees had been living in a makeshift camp in the south-western Pakistani border town of Chaman since February 2002.

• Afghan police officer Sayed Nabi Siddiqui was detained by U.S. forces after he reported police corruption and was then accused of being a member of the Taliban.

July 16: In the Ghorak District of Kandahar, more than 400 Afghan soldiers and police searched houses for Taliban suspected of killing five policemen earlier in the week. Twelve villagers were picked up on suspicion of helping the Taliban.

• Indian Oil Corporation and GAIL submitted bids for construction of a $2.5 billionTurkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline, which will move natural gas (Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline) from Turkmenistan's Dauletabad gas field via Afghanistan to Pakistan's Multan.
• Lorne Craner, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights, began a three-day visit to Afghanistan.

July 17: President Karzai issued a decree to convene a 500-member loya jirga on October 1, 2003 that would approve a draft of the country's new constitution. Karzai said that 450 members would be elected and 50 would be appointed.

• The Afghan government paid Pakistan 2.8 million Afghanis (the equivalent of three millionrupees) in compensation for the armed attack on the Pakistan embassy in Kabul July 8. The payment was delivered in cash.
• Canadian troops took control of the Kabul Multinational Brigade (KMNB) of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. Brig. Gen. Peter Devlin assumed command from Germany's Brig. Gen. Werner Freers during a ceremony in eastern Kabul. At the time, the KMNB was made up of around 3,000 soldiers.
• The United Nations Population Fund and the government of Italy inaugurated the rebuilt Khair Khana hospital in Kabul, that would provide pregnant women clean and safe conditions for childbirth.
• Pakistani border security forces arrested 48 Afghans for illegally crossing into Pakistan near Chaman. The Afghans were then turned over to the Afghan government.
• Sixteen Afghan prisoners from Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay arrived by plane at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The released Afghan prisoners were not allowed to talk to journalists.

July 18: Eight Afghan government soldiers, in a car travelling about 25 kilometers east of Khost, were killed by a remote-control mine. The soldiers were part of a special unit working with the U.S.-led coalition forces to monitor the regions that border Pakistan.

• Afghanistan was officially reinstated as a full member of the International Association of Athletics Federations. Afghanistan had originally joined the IAAF in 1930. Following the lead of the International Olympic Committee, the IAAF suspended Afghanistan in 1999 because of the Taliban ban on the participation of women athletes. The IOC lifted its suspension on June 29.
• Three U.S. soldiers were wounded when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device detonated in the middle of their convoy approximately eight kilometers south of Asadabad.

July 19: North of Orgun, two soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition forces were wounded when their patrol was ambushed by automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

• One man was killed and another wounded when they set off a land mine while digging a well near a police station in Chilstoon, Kabul. The mine was likely left over from factional fighting in the 1990s.
• Sixteen Afghans who arrived in Kabul from Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo Bay on July 17 were freed and handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
• Afghan authorities confiscated hundreds of copies of the weekly newspaper Payam-e-Mujahid, owned by the Afghan Northern Alliance, after it published an article accusing President Karzai of making the apology under pressure from a U.S. ambassador and described it as a dishonor for Afghans. The article demanded that Karzai resign. The confiscation was ordered by Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim.
• U.S.-led coalition forces killed up to two dozen insurgents in a clash near Spin Boldak.
• Several Afghan troops were killed as dozens of heavily armed rebel fighters attacked a border post near Spin Boldak. After the five-hour battle, the insurgents escaped across the border into Pakistan.

July 21: The Pakistani embassy in Kabul reopened after having been ransacked by angry crowds on July 8.

• The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement announced that the network of 50 health clinics in Afghanistan were in danger of severe cutbacks due to a lack of money. To date, the Red Cross had only received about one-fourth of the $10 million which it had requested.
• About 100 Canadian troops (the first of 1,800) arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan to serve with the ISAF.

July 22: A fire (which started in a timber shop after a wood-sawing machine overheated) in Jalalabad, destroyed more than a hundred shops and other buildings.

• Rockets landed near U.S.-coalition bases in Kandahar Province and Paktika Province. There were no coalition casualties.
• A patrol of U.S. soldiers was ambushed in Asadabad Province. There were no casualties.

July 23: In the Zormat Valley region of the southern Paktia Province in Afghanistan, about 1,000 soldiers of the Afghan National Army, together with U.S.-led coalition troops, were deployed in Operation Warrior Sweep. It marked first major combat operation for the Afghan troops.

• In Islamabad, Pakistan, Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali met Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali on the first day of a two-day visit. The visit was aimed at developing cooperation in the fight against terrorism and to remove recent strains in relations. An agreement was made for Pakistan to train Afghan border security agencies and members of the Afghan police force.
• After two rockets landed near a U.S. base at Asadabad, Afghanistan, coalition troops called in air strikes by a B-52 Stratofortress (which dropped Joint Direct Attack Munitions) and two AV-8 Harrier IIs (which dropped Precision-guided munitions.)

July 24: In Kabul, Afghanistan, U.S. General John Abizaid President Karzai.

• More than 200 Afghan refugees in Brussels began a hunger strike in Sainte-Croix Church (Brussels). They said they would rather die than go back to a country they considered too dangerous.

July 25: Six Afghan policemen were wounded, two seriously, when their vehicle hit a land mine about 50 km (31 mi) east of Kandahar.

• Near Kandahar, an Afghan soldier was wounded by a landmine while chasing rebels who fired a rocket at a government post.
• Zardad Khan made his first court appearance in London, England.

July 26: Under a pilot telekiosk project funded by France, the telekiosk.moc.gov.af website was launched in Afghanistan. In both Dari and English, the site provided links to government and health information, job listings and business information. The site also provided community forums, information on local hotels and restaurants, and a Dari-English phrasebook.

• Mullah Mohammed Omar approved Mullah Abdul Samad as the new deputy military commander for southern Afghanistan and ordered him to intensify guerrilla attacks on U.S. and coalition forces.

July 27: Telecom Development Company Afghanistan began offering wireless phone service to consumers in Afghanistan, breaking a year-long monopoly held by Afghan Wireless Communication.

• The Taliban named Mullah Abdul Jabar as the rival governor in Zabul Province, Afghanistan.^[1]
• In Spin Boldak, posters appeared that threatened death to twenty-five informers accused of collaborating with U.S. and government forces.
• A ground-breaking ceremony took place in Tehran, Iran to mark the start of construction of a four-kilometer Milak-Zaranj road. Iran allocated US$849,847 for the project. Iran's Hossein Amini and Afghanistan's Karim Barahouei attended the ceremony.

July 28: The United States State Department warned U.S. citizens in Afghanistan that the security environment in the country was "volatile and unpredictable."

July 29: The UNHCR announced that, with its support, more than 300,000 Afghan refugees had returned home in 2003.

• Human Rights Watch released a report that, in Afghanistan, U.S.-led coalition support for warlords was destabilizing the nation and could threaten the elections of 2004. Abuses carried out by the Afghan National Army and local police were also highlighted, including kidnappings, burglaries, rapes, intimidation, harassment of journalists, and extortions.
• During a United Nations Security Council debate, Indian Ambassador Vijay K. Nambiar expressed concern that, through charities and drug trade, al-Qaeda still had the ability to finance its own activities. He also voiced concerns that al Qaeda continued to procure weapons through the border with Pakistan. Nambiar demanded an inquiry.
• In Naish, 40 miles (64 km) north of Kandahar, about two dozen insurgents ambushed government troops, killing at least two soldiers and torching two NGO vehicles before fleeing.
• To sort out their border dispute along the tribal region dividing them, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to use, with the assistance of the U.S., GPS to work out the coordinates of the border.
• Britain deported to Afghanistan a group of forty-seven Afghans who failed to obtain political asylum in the UK.

July 30: U.S. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview that the largest threat to Afghanistan's new government comes from across the border of Pakistan.

• In Nakhohni, five miles (8 km) south of Kandahar, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Mullah Jinab, a member of the Ulema Shoora, as he was coming out of a local mosque after evening prayers.

July 31: The European Union announced that it would donate €79.5 million for reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. The money is meant to support de-mining, the building of a health system, and other public infrastructure projects.

• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicted that the 2003 wheat harvest in Afghanistan would be the largest in 20 years, due to increased rainfall, increased international aid, and continued success in dealing with locusts. Malnutrition remains a serious problem in the country, however.
• In Kabul, three Afghan National Army officers were wounded when U.S. forces fired on their taxi.
• U.S. forces killed at least three suspected insurgents in a firefight near the U.S. base in Asadabad, Afghanistan.
• The Pakistani army moved into parts of its northwest tribal areas to flush out Taliban remnants. This marked the first time Pakistan had taken such action.
• Floods in the Panjshir Valley triggered a landslide which killed 30 people and swept away 400 cattle.
• United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the United Nations Security Council to expand the mandate of the International Security Assistance Force to other key Afghan cities in order to create a better environment for the elections slated in the summer of 2004.
• After a gun battle south of Kandahar, Afghanistan, Afghan security forces killed one suspected Taliban member and arrested five others.

References