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NATO sends F-16s to disperse Afghan protesters
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-30 22:20

NATO peacekeepers sent F-16fighter jets to a northeastern Afghanistan province on Monday in a show of force to disperse thousands of protesters, police said.

At least six people were injured when supporters andopponents of a provincial official in Takhar province clashed with stones and clubs, police said. NATO sent its jets after local officials failed to disperse the 6,000-strong crowd.

One group demanded the removal of the education chief inthe province's Rustaq district, while the other opposed the move, provincial police chief Akram Khan told Reuters.

"The jets came and managed to scatter the protesters," Khantold Reuters. "Six of the protesters, I know, were injured."

A spokeswoman for NATO's International Security AssistanceForce (ISAF) confirmed that two NATO F-16 jets had been sent from the capital Kabul at the government's request "as a form of deterrent".

The protests came as the government prepared to launch acampaign to eradicate opium poppy fields in the district of Afghanistan's main opium producing region, but they were apparently not connected to this, Khan said.

NATO leads more than 8,000 peacekeepers in Afghanistan,where ISAF has been since US-led forces overthrew the radical Taliban government in 2001.

Most of its troops are based in Kabul. Last week, aroadside bomb wounded two NATO soldiers from Holland in Baghlan province, adjacent to Takhar.

On Monday, a roadside bomb aimed at an ISAF vehicleexploded in Kabul, wounding seven Afghans.

No peacekeepers were hurt in the attack, which officialsblamed on "enemies of Afghanistan" a term used to describe Taliban guerrillas and their allies.



 
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