Karzai attends Zardari’s swearing-in-ceremony; Afghan Provincial Governor killed in roadside bomb; Attack against WHO officials; Civilian casualties result due to NATO raid
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    • In a gesture indicating the improved relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the resignation of Gen, Musharraf, Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended the swearing-in-ceremony of Asif Ali Zardari as the President of Pakistan. Karzai was the only foreign leader who attended the ceremony1. Addressing the press later, both the leaders promised to tackle the threat of terrorism jointly2.

    The governor of Logar province, Abdullah Wardak was killed by a roadside bomb near Kabul. Mr Wardak was a former minister in President Karzai's cabinet. He is the second Afghan provincial governor killed by the Taliban. The province, at the south of Kabul, is a major centre of Taliban insurgency3.

    In other continuing attacks, a suicide bomber rammed a car into a UN convoy on September 14 in southern Afghanistan, killing a driver and two local doctors and wounding 16 people. The doctors were working for the World Health Organization on a polio vaccination campaign in the region. In another incident, 6 children were killed and 12 wounded due to a roadside bomb in Ghazni Province, south of Kabul. A British soldier was also killed on September 13 in an explosion in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. The incident raised the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan to 120 since 20014.

    NATO air raids meanwhile continued to result in collateral damages when a bomb missed its target in eastern Afghanistan on September 9 and struck a house, killing two civilians and wounding 10. Coalition officials on their part stated that the weapon was aimed at an insurgent rocket position in the eastern province of Khost, but that it had malfunctioned and landed more than a mile and a half from the target5.

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