The United Nations Environment Program reported that more than half of Kabul's water supply was going to waste. It found children working 12-hour shifts in dangerous factories, and sleeping at their machines. In Herat, only 10% of the 150 public taps were working. There, and in Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Kabul, the team found medical waste from hospitals in the streets and an abandoned well.
U.S. war planes, including B-1 bombers, F-16s and AC-130 gunships, bombed rebel fighters in the mountainous region near Spin Boldak, Afghanistan. Some 200 U.S. special forces troops were engaged in the mountain battle.
Gunmen attacked a convoy from the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, as it traveled through Nangarhar province, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Two policemen were killed, and another four men were believed to have died. One of the alleged attackers was later arrested.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend and improve efforts to control the remnants of Afghanistan's former Taliban government and the al-Qaeda network.
Around 5,000 Afghan police were sent to the southern town of Spin Boldak because of reports that some former Taliban activists weee trying to re-group in the region.
A statement from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said that security problems and poor living conditions meant it was still unsafe for many of the more than 4 million Afghanrefugees to return to their homes.
BearingPoint of McLean, Virginia announced that it had installed and was helping to operate a financial management information system for the government of Afghanistan. The work was part of a $3.95 million contract the company won to help the government upgrade its accounting system.
This marked the last day of a three-month transition period in Afghanistan to swap old Afghani banknotes for new currency, which retained the name but had three zeros knocked off.
On his way to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Kuchi elder Haji Naim Kuchai (also spelled Naeem Kochi) was detained by U.S. troops. Kuchai had stopped the car in which he was traveling some 25 kilometers south of Kabul when the incident occurred. He was then taken to an undisclosed location.
More than 300 rockets, mostly 107 mm, smuggled from neighboring Pakistan were seized by border police in the Durbaba region of the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
