U.S. troops using Afghanistan maps riddled with errors

By Seattle Times news services

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The maps cover Afghanistan and portions of Pakistan, and are being used by ground troops, as well as combat commanders and engineers.

Fighting has continued in Afghanistan and some border areas of Pakistan as U.S. forces press their search for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida and Taliban leaders. The troops also are contending with an increasingly violent insurgency that has made travel in Afghanistan extremely dangerous.

Agency officials said they have received no reports from the military that the errors have jeopardized operations.

The mapping mistakes involved omitting place names, as well as putting place names in the wrong locations, according to agency spokesman Howard Cohen.

The same agency also was involved in the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, capital of the former Yugoslavia, by a high-flying U.S. B-2 stealth bomber during the 1999 Kosovo war.

In related developments:

Two bombs hidden in crates of fruit exploded at security checkpoints in downtown Jalalabad, Afghanistan, yesterday, killing a man and wounding 26 other people.

The blasts follow Friday's bombing of a bus carrying female election workers in Jalalabad. Two were killed, and 13 others were wounded. The Taliban, which has vowed to disrupt the September vote, claimed responsibility for that attack.

Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud , a firebrand Saudi cleric who issued religious decrees for an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group, was killed yesterday during a car chase and shootout with police that also killed a policeman in eastern Riyadh, a security official told The Associated Press.

A court in Qatar convicted two Russian intelligence officers of assassinating Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, a rebel leader and former Chechen president, and ordered both to serve 25 years in prison for a car bombing the judge said Russia's government approved. The decision was regarded by some as a major embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin, whose government has waged a fierce crackdown on rebels in the breakaway Chechen republic.

Jordan's parliament rejected a bill yesterday that would enable the government to prevent parents from naming their children Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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