---------------------- Forwarded Message: --------------------- From: william.markham@us.army.mil

Subject: G2 from Afghanistan
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 05:41:51 -0700

All:

G2 (Intel)

KABUL, Afghanistan April 13, 2002 - An overnight firefight involving international peacekeeping troops in Kabul. No one was hurt when as many as 30 armed men opened fire Friday night near two British patrols in southern Kabul.

April 14 -- U.S. military forces and their Afghan allies came under fire in three separate incidents reported today, further heightening security concerns as authorities moved forward with plans to bring home Afghanistan's former king.

Gunmen ambushed a small detachment of Special Forces accompanied by Afghan fighters on a nighttime patrol, triggering a shootout that ended only after the Americans called in an AC-130 gunship to drive off the advancing attackers. The skirmish was the first in weeks involving U.S. troops.

Two other attacks also appeared aimed at U.S. troops or their Afghan allies. In the southern city of Kandahar, rockets targeted the office of the local governor, who has worked closely with U.S. commanders of a major military base there. And in the eastern city of Khost, mortars were fired at an air base used by U.S. troops who were searching near the Pakistani border for remnants of Taliban and al Qaeda forces. No Americans were reported hurt during the three attacks.

The latest clash involving U.S. troops occurred Saturday night when about 10 Special Forces soldiers traveling with Afghan fighters in several vehicles were fired upon. The U.S. soldiers returned fire, but the attackers kept advancing. The AC-130 soon arrived and pummeled the enemy, leaving several dead as the rest disappeared into the night. Earthquakes have rattled Afghanistan and two people were killed in the northern district of Nahrin where hundreds of people have died in a series of tremors over the last three weeks.

Another tremor in the early hours of Monday morning shook wide areas of the country, but there were no immediate reports of deaths. It measured 5.3 on the Richter scale, only a little less intense than the series of shallow quakes which killed some 1,000 people in Nahrin district late last month. Tremors were even more destructive in a region where most houses are made of mud.

It has been raining here too and that will also cause houses to collapse quicker even by a small jolt. Earthquakes also triggered landslides and blocked some of the few roads.

About all the Intel I have at this time.

Bill