Afghan Minister, 50 to 100 Others Killed

KABUL, Afghanistan - Attackers killed Afghanistan's aviation minister in the western city of Herat on Sunday, and factional fighting that followed left between 50 and 100 people dead, Herat's senior military commander said.




In Kabul, President Hamid Karzai's Cabinet convened an emergency session following Mirwais Sadiq's killing, and ordered extra troops sent from the capital to try to calm the city.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20040321/ap_on_re_as/afghan_assassination_8

Ismail Khan runs Western Afghanistan with his own army, if you haven't heard of him before. His son was considered his representitive in the Kabul government.

Here is a link to what looks like a longer version of the same story:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040321/ap_on_re_as/afghan_assassination&e=1&ncid=

...for the forgotten in Afghanistan.

There sure seems to be a lot of fighting and dying going on for a war that was over a year or more ago..

Someone needs to tell * that it's not over :shrug:

another bush* mess....for over two and a half years, OUR soldiers KILLED in another bush* war that gets no media coverage...bush* is the KILLING pResident...the war pResident....

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040321_875.html

The commander said between 50 and 100 soldiers were killed in the first hours of the ongoing battle, and that by early Monday, he was holding out with 700 men at the barracks against what he claimed were 3,000 fighters loyal to Sadiq.

"We are fighting at close range, with AK-47s and grenades," the militia commander said. Aid workers, also reached by telephone, reported gunfire and heavy explosions and said they had been ordered to stay indoors. U.N. workers scrambled into a bunker at their headquarters.

U.S. forces at an American base in the city manned defensive positions within their post, military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said in Kabul.

Karzai's first civil aviation minister, Abdul Rahman, was assassinated Feb. 14, 2002, at Kabul's airport, in circumstances that remain unclear. Gunmen shot and killed Vice President Abdul Qadir in the capital on July 6, 2002. Both of those killings remain unsolved.

Karzai has been constantly shadowed by Afghan and American bodyguards armed with automatic weapons since a September 2002 assassination attempt in the southern city of Kandahar. Three people, including the gunman, died in that attack.

Dupe - continue here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=435663