2004 in Afghanistan - October

October

Friday, October 1 - In Pakistan, hundreds of Afghan refugees, including women, lined up at special voting registration centers near Quetta and Peshawar.

• Former Afghan Education Minister Yunus Qanooni held a rally in Herat that drew several hundred people.
• Near the city of Spin Boldak, Afghan National Army authorities arrested 60 rebels who were planning to derail the upcoming presidential election.

Saturday, October 2 - Afghan presidential candidate Yunus Qanuni held a rally in Kandahar.

• Karim Khalili, the running-mate of Afghan interim president Hamid Karzai, held a rally at the Herat Airport.
• In Policharki district, local intelligence agents backed by ISAF peacekeepers arrested 25 people allegedly linked to the Taliban.
• Rebels killed two guards at the home of a former senior official in Uruzgan Province.

Sunday, October 3 - Afghan interim president Hamid Karzai visited Germany, where he met Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and accepted a prize from the private organization Werkstatt Deutschland.

• Three members of a Japanese election monitoring team arrived in Kabul.

Tuesday, October 5 - Afghan interim president Hamid Karzai flew to Ghazni to speak to a crowd of about 5,000. While airborne, his helicopter was escorted by a U.S. AH-64 Apache and an A-10 Thunderbolt II.

• Yunus Qanuni held a presidential campaign rally before 2,000 people at a Kabul football stadium.
• In Mazari Sharif, Rashid Dostum held a presidential campaign rally.
• In Kandahar Province, seven policemen were killed when their vehicle drove over a landmine.

Wednesday, October 6 - In Badakhshan Province, an assassination attempt on vice-presidential candidate Ahmed Zia Massood killed one person and injured five others, including the former provincial governor.

Thursday, October 7 - In Moscow, Russia, Russia and France signed an agreement on military transits to Afghanistan via Russia. Signing for Russia was Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and for France, Jean Cadet, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Russia.

Friday, October 8 - In London, England, the trial began for former Afghan warlord Zardad Khan.

Saturday, October 9 - In Afghanistan's first-ever direct presidential election, Hamid Karzai was elected President of Afghanistan.

Monday, October 11 - The Czech Republic voted to donate surplus weaponry (including submachine gun ammunition, hand grenades and signal rockets) to the Afghan National Army.

Tuesday, October 12 - In Vienna, Austria, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime hosted a meeting of United Nations officials and international policy-makers to address the heroin problem arising from Afghanistan.