20 February 2005	Sunday	10 Muharram 1426

JEDDAH, Feb 19: President Hamid Karzai on Saturday appealed for foreign support to rebuild Afghanistan's war-battered infrastructure, insisting his country is as secure as others in the region.

"Today Afghanistan is moving with greater speed towards (achieving) security. The people (of Afghanistan) are as secure as our neighbours," Karzai told the opening of a three-day economic forum in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

"It (security) is not much of problem for us," he said. "It is the infrastructure that is a problem... which we are working on." He invited foreign businesses to channel investment into the central Asian country, insisting there were opportunities to make a profit.

"Come and invest in my country... Leave some money (profit) for us, and take the rest," he told the multinational audience in the Red Sea port city. "Three decades of war has left our infrastructure broken... but our spirit was not," said the Afghan leader in a speech titled "Rebirth of a nation: Motivating a broken soul."

Karzai also highlighted developments in education following the US-led war that toppled Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime in 2001. "Today, our schools are overflowing with students... Over five million children - boys and girls - learn with equal opportunities," he said.

One fifth of the state budget went on education in 2004, Karzai said, promising that such investment would continue. Millions of Afghans went to the polls in the country's first free elections on October 9 last year, handing Karzai a landslide victory. -AFP