Suicide Bomber Infiltrates Police Station, Kills Kandahar Police Chief
15 April 2011
A suicide bomber killed the police chief of Afghanistan's Kandahar province on Friday, the second assassination this year of a top official in an area that is the Taliban's heartland and the focus of a U.S. military surge. Khan Mohammad Mujahid, one of the most prominent government targets in one of Afghanistan's most dangerous provinces, was killed in his office in tightly-protected police headquarters, said Zalmay Ayoubi, a spokesman for the provincial...
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Afghanistan Struggles to Educate Girls
15 April 2011
There are clear signs of progress: According to United Nations statistics, some 7 million Afghan children now attend school. When Taliban rule ended about a decade ago, that number was only about 900,000. [...] About 2.5 million girls now attend school, but most of them are only allowed to complete a primary education. [...] Afghan girls traditionally marry very young, and only 10 percent attend secondary school, compared to 21 percent of boys. In...
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Pakistan Army to Build Road Link to Afghanistan
15 April 2011
Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani launched a major road project Thursday that will be a vital trade route between the nation’s lawless tribal region and Afghanistan, the military said. General Kayani visited the tribal North Waziristan region to inaugurate the 80-kilometre (50-mile) road project, being undertaken by the Pakistan army. The road from the northwestern Pakistani town of Bannu to Ghulam Khan on the Afghan border will cost...
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Iran's Cash Payments to Karzai Started in 2003: Former Afghan Official
15 April 2011
Iran began delivering money to Afghan President Hamid Karzai as early as 2003, a former Afghan official says. “It started in a sort of transparent manner when I was the foreign minister,” Abdullah Abdullah, now Afghanistan’s top opposition leader, said in an interview with editors and reporters of The Washington Times. “So it was during [Iranian] President [Mohammed] Khatami’s time, and President Khatami mentioned it...
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Seven Million Afghans Will Go Hungry without Aid: UN
15 April 2011
The United Nations warned on Friday of a looming food aid shortage in Afghanistan that could leave more than 7 million people hungry unless it received urgent cash donations of over $250 million to buy more supplies. Most of those who will go short of food are women and children, but overall those at risk make up nearly a quarter of the country's population of around 30 million, said the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP). Only half of the stockpiles...
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