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Karzai Visits Town Captured from Taliban

   A spokesperson says the target was British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
   not President Hamid Karzai

   VOA News 07 March 2010

   Afghanistan's  President  Hamid Karzai made an unannounced trip Sunday
   to  Marjah,  the  former  Taliban  stronghold  recently  retaken in an
   offensive by U.S., British and Afghan forces.
   The  president  met  with about 300 local elders in a mosque and asked
   them   to   support   his   government  in  return  for  security  and
   reconstruction.
   The elders said they supported Mr. Karzai, but they also complained to
   him  about  their  living  conditions, including house searches by the
   military and civilian casualties.
   Mr.  Karzai was accompanied by the NATO commander in Afghanistan, U.S.
   General Stanley McChrystal.
   Earlier  in  the  day,  Afghan officials said a rocket or mortar shell
   landed,   but   did  not  explode,  about  four  kilometers  from  the
   presidential delegation.
   The  Taliban says it carried out the attack.  Officials say no one was
   hurt.
   Meanwhile,  Afghan  officials  say  fighting  between  rival militants
   groups in the country's northeast have killed at least 50 people.
   Authorities say the fighting between the Taliban and the Hezb-i-Islami
   erupted Saturday and was continuing Sunday.
   It  was  not  immediately  clear  what touched off the fighting in the
   Jangal Bagh area or if civilians are among the dead.
   In  another  development,  officials say a former prisoner at the U.S.
   military  detention  center  in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Abdul Qayyum, is
   now leading the Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan.
   Officials  say Qayyum was released from the Guantanamo prison in 2007,
   transferred to an Afghan jail and later freed.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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