AFGHANISTAN: Nato peacekeepers sent F-16 fighter jets to a northeastern Afghanistan province yesterday to disperse thousands of protesters, police said.
At least six people were injured when supporters and opponents 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 in the province's Rusted district, while the other opposed the move, provincial police chief Akram Khan said.
"The jets came and managed to scatter the protesters," Mr Khan said. "Six of the protesters, I know, were injured." A spokeswoman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed that the two 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 a campaign to eradicate opium poppy fields in the main opium producing region, but they were apparently not connected to this, Mr 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 a roadside bomb wounded two Nato soldiers from Holland in Baghlan province, adjacent to Takhar.
Yesterday a roadside bomb aimed at an ISAF vehicle exploded in Kabul, wounding seven Afghans. No peacekeepers were hurt. Officials blamed the attack on "enemies of Afghanistan", a term used to describe Taliban guerrillas and their allies.
On Sunday videotape of the aid worker, Clementina Cantoni, was broadcast by an Afghan television station. It showed her flanked by two men pointing assault rifles at her. Officials have said they believe her kidnappers are criminals, not Taliban or allied Islamic militants, but they have declined to reveal their demands or say who they are.