Karzai has no plans to increase security
Friday, 6 September 2002 22:43
The President of Afghanistan has said he has no plans to take additional personal security measures, despite yesterday's assassination attempt in the southern city of Kandahar.
Hamid Karzai said he thought either members of the ousted Taliban regime or Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network were responsible.
Mr Karzai had been in Kandahar to attend his brother's wedding.
US special forces troops who protect Mr Karzai shot dead at least one of the attackers outside the residence of Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai.
Mr Karzai said that Afghanistan is not slipping into chaos, despite the assassination attempt and a car bomb explosion in central Kabul hours earlier which killed up to 26 people.
When asked whether he needed additional protection, he replied: "No, no way. It has always been dangerous. I have been through this before. I have been hit three times when we were fighting the Soviets."
Eighteen people have been arrested in connection with the assassination attempt.
- Morning Ireland: Margaret Ward, Foreign Editor, and Robert Templar, Asia Director of the International Crisis Group, discuss the tensions in Afghanistan
- 1.00 News: Mary Calpin reports
- 6.01 News: Mary Calpin reports on Hamid Karzai's response to the assassination attempt
- 6.01 News: Margaret Ward, Foreign Editor, reports from Kabul on the security situation in the Afghan capital
- 6.01 News: Margaret Ward, Foreign Editor, looks at why there has been little appetite for an investigation into a mass grave containing the bodies of Taliban prisoners recently discovered in the North of Afghanistan
- 9.00 News: Mary Calpin reports the attempt on Hamid Karzai's life in Kandahar yesterday
- 9.00 News: Margaret Ward, Foreign Editor, reports on the discovery of a mass grave in the North of the country, containing the bodies of Taliban prisoners
