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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gordon A. Langston who wrote (554432)	3/21/2004 4:47:30 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769670

Bush's nightmare continues.... ahhhhh...the success of invasion.... news.bbc.co.uk and THEN.....more bad news Gunbattle Erupts After Afghan Minister Is Killed Mirwais Sadiq is the third leading figure -- and the second aviation minister -- from the U.S.-backed government to be assassinated. Times Headlines Taiwan's Election Results Disputed Ties Run Deep in Probe of Spain Blast Green Zone Colors View of Occupation Video Sullies Party's Clean Image in Brazil Palestinians' Target Was an Israeli -- but Also an Arab more > From Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan — Soldiers loyal to a local commander shot and killed Afghanistan's aviation minister Sunday in the western city of Herat, setting off vicious factional fighting in which as many as 100 people died, the commander told The Associated Press. In Kabul, President Hamid Karzai's Cabinet held an emergency session following Mirwais Sadiq's killing, and ordered extra troops sent from the capital to try to calm the city. Sadiq is the third leading figure of Karzai's government, and the second aviation minister, to be slain. Presidential spokesman Khaleeq Ahmed said only that Sadiq -- son of Herat's powerful governor, Ismail Khan -- had been shot in his car in unclear circumstances. However, a top Herat military commander, Zaher Naib Zada, told AP by telephone Sunday night that his forces had killed Sadiq in a confrontation after the minister went to Zada's home to fire him. Afterward, Zada's forces and soldiers loyal to Sadiq began fighting with machine guns, tanks and rockets for control of the city's main military barracks. Zada said between 50 and 100 soldiers were killed in the first hours of the ongoing battle. 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. A police officer, Fahim, reached by telephone at the main police station, gave a different account from Zada's, saying Sadiq had gone to the residence to ask Zada about the killing of three civilians by his forces two days earlier. Karzai's defense and interior ministers were preparing to travel to Herat to try to determine the circumstances of the killing, and the battles that followed, Ahmed said. 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. Hilferty called the fighting an "internal" matter and said he knew of no American plans to intervene. The post holds fewer than 100 Americans, he said. The president, who himself escaped a 2002 attempt on his life, said in a brief statement from Kabul that he was "deeply shocked" by the killing and offered condolences to Ismail Khan. Sadiq was widely viewed as his father's representative in Karzai's government. Khan is a former anti-Soviet commander who runs a large private army and has had firm control over Herat since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. But there have been persistent tensions -- and occasional factional fighting -- between his men and those loyal to rival warlords. State television reported that Khan had escaped a separate attack Sunday without injury. Ahmed and other officials said there had been no attack on Khan, however. 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. Karzai's government includes an uneasy alliance of former warlords who had joined forces to help the United States rout the former Taliban government. His government still is trying to assert control nationwide, including over Herat and its customs revenue as a major port of entry on the Iranian border. CC