February 12, 2003	Wednesday	Zul Hijjah 10, 1423

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KABUL, Feb 11: Afghanistan has received cash from five countries to help pay off international debts, Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani said on Monday.

Ghani said Britain, Italy, Japan, Norway and Sweden had chipped in to the tune of $47.3 million to clear outstanding payments to worldwide financial institutions including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

“According to the laws of these institutions, Afghanistan hasn’t been able to either receive grants or credit unless these arrears were cleared,” Ghani told a press conference.

“At the completion of clearance of these arrears we are in a position to become full members of these organizations.”

Ghani stressed that poverty-stricken Afghanistan was still deeply in debt to the financial institutions but said that these debts would be cleared through long-term annual payments.

Ghani said Afghanistan still owed more than $90 million, much of it borrowed long before the 1980s Soviet invasion of the country.

He said a further $100 million had been borrowed from the Asian Development Bank.

The minister said the war-ravaged country’s current expenses amounted to $500m, 200m of which was covered by internally-generated revenues and the rest from international assistance.—AFP

FIGHTING: F-16 fighter jets dropped laser-guided bombs to help US special forces after they came under attack by armed men in mountainous central Afghanistan, the US military said on Tuesday.

The planes targeted three caves and at least five armed men after the soldiers were fired on with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades in the Baghran valley on Monday morning, US spokesman Colonel Roger King said.

“It was just around dawn, the troops came under fire from ridgelines on either side,” King told a news briefing at US headquarters at Bagram air base, north of Kabul.

“Close air support was requested and coalition F-16s dropped 5 GBU-12s (bombs) and fired more than 100 rounds of ammunition.”

Mr King said no US soldiers were hurt and he had no information on casualties among the opposing forces. He said the US soldiers had been attacked from about two kilometres away. “It wasn’t close contact,” he said.

The Dutch defence ministry said the attackers fled after a pair of Dutch F-16s bombed the area.

In recent months, there has been an increase in attacks on coalition forces.—Reuters