Contents
Afghanistan timeline February 2002
Afghanistan timeline
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Table of contents |
1 February 27, 2002
2 February 26, 2002
3 February 25, 2002
4 February 24, 2002
5 February 19, 2002
6 February 16, 2002
7 February 15, 2002
8 February 14, 2002
9 February 13, 2002
10 February 12, 2002
11 February 11, 2002
12 February 10, 2002
13 February 9, 2002
14 February 8, 2002
15 February 7, 2002
16 February 6, 2002
17 February 5, 2002
18 February 4, 2002
19 February 3, 2002
20 February 2, 2002
21 February 1, 2002
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- The Pentagon ordered two U.S. bombing raids against Afghan militias opposed to the new administration led by Hamid Karzai. This marked a turn in strategy. Previously, all U.S. military operation had focused strictly on Taliban and al-Qaida forces.
- The first attack on International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers since their initial deployment in Afghanistanon December 22, 2001 occurred when a post in Kabul came under attack before dawn. Soldiers of the 2nd Parachute Battalion returned fire, and the gunmen fled in a car. Later, a car at a a nearby house was discovered riddled with bullets. One man was found dead and five hurt.
- Fighting broke out at a goodwill soccer game between an Afghan national team and international peacekeepers. Guards beat back overflowing crowds trying to enter the stadium. Play went on anyway despite the clash, and the international team won the game three to one. Afghanistan's former Taliban government had used the Kabul stadium for public executions and other harsh punishment to enforce its fundamentalist version of Islamic rules.
- Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai visited Jalalabad to attend a function being held there in memory of former mujahedin commander Abdul Haq[?]. Haq was brother of the Jalalabad governor, Haji Abdul Qadir[?].
- Afghanistan's aviation and tourism minister, Abdul Rahman[?], was killed in what appeared to be a mob attack on his plane at Kabul's airport by pilgrims angry that they had been unable to travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Witnesses and officials said pilgrims beat the minister to death and tossed his body to the tarmac. However, Prime Minister Hamid Karzai accused six senior government officials of the murder, saying that they were motivated by a long-standing feud. Three were arrested and the others were being sought in Saudi Arabia. Karzai said five ministers, including the head of the intelligence ministry, Gen. Abdullah Tawhedi[?]; the technical deputy of the Ministry of Defense, Gen. Qalander Big[?], and a Supreme Court justice, Haji Halim[?] -- and 15 other suspects have been linked to the assassination.
- Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai warned warlords to remove their check posts and chains on roads.
- Calling on his countrymen to "take each other's hands" to rebuild the nation, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai raised Afghanistan's new flag over the presidential palace. The flag had been originally approved by the 1964 constitution as Afghanistan's national emblem but had not flown over government offices in Kabul since the Taliban took over in the early 1990s. The ceremony, which lasted about 15 minutes, was attended by cabinet ministers, diplomats and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani.
- Interim leader Afghan Hamid Karzai met with visiting British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon. At their talks, Karzai requested that the British-led peacekeeping force expand beyond Kabul, but Hoon said he believed the current deployment level was adequate.
- Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai established a special committee to investigate factional violence threatening the stability of Afghanistan. The nine-member commission, headed by Border Affairs Minister Amanullah Zadran[?], flew by helicopter immediately to the eastern city of Gardez where violence had errupted days before.
- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 55,000 people at one Spinboldak[?] camp were Kochi.
- Ten truckloads of weapons and ammunition were sent to re-arm the men of Hamid Karzai's recently appointed governor for Paktia[?], Bacha Khan[?]. Forces loyal to warlord Padshah Khan[?] did not want Bacha Khan as governor and were dismayed that U.S. forces operating in the area would not come to their rescue.
- The U.S. military finished construction of Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The completion of the camp raised its capacity from 158 to 320, and included three air-conditioned, wooden huts where military intelligence officers and representatives of other U.S. agencies interrogated prisoners, one at a time in shifts that typically lasted about an hour.