Death threat made against former king

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The fragile nature of Afghanistan's peace was evident Saturday as French peacekeepers were shot at and a plot to assassinate the returned king was uncovered.

A French soldier suffered a slight leg injury Friday night when gunmen opened fire on his patrol near the Kabul airport, said Capt. Serge Khun, spokesman for the 18-nation, 4,500-member international peacekeeping force responsible for security in Kabul, the capital.

The French patrol fired back but the four alleged attackers escaped, Khun said. The wounded peacekeeper resumed his duties Saturday, Maj. Can Oz said.

At Bagram air base, 40 miles north of Kabul, British Royal Marines said Saturday they received reports that assassins posing as journalists might try to kill former Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah, who returned Thursday from 29 years of exile in Rome.

"There is a threat against the king," Lt. Col. Paul Harradine said.

Zahir Shah, overthrown by a 1973 palace coup, was stabbed several times in Rome 11 years ago by a man posing as a journalist. Also, two men posing as journalists killed popular Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massood in September, only two days before the terrorist attacks in the United States.

Also Saturday, leaflets threatening death to parents who send their children to school were found in Kandahar, once the spiritual headquarters of the deposed Taliban regime, which restricted education, an Afghan official said.

Bodies of four soldiers returned to Canada

TRENTON, Ontario -- The bodies of four Canadian soldiers killed by a U.S. bomb in Afghanistan were welcomed home with a solemn ceremony Saturday, as Canadians expressed grief and anger over the accidental deaths.

A gunmetal-gray Airbus carrying their remains touched down at the Canadian forces base on Lake Ontario's shore, met by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, the country's top military officials and grieving relatives.

A lone bagpiper played as four coffins, each draped with Canada's red-and-white maple leaf flag, were lifted from the plane one by one and carried by grim-faced pallbearers to waiting hearses. They were driven under police escort to Toronto for examination by a coroner.

"This is a very difficult day for all of us ... a very difficult day for all Canadians," Gen. Ray Henault, head of Canada's armed forces, said before the ceremony.

The soldiers -- Sgt. Marc Leger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Private Richard Green and Private Nathan Smith -- came from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, which is based north of Edmonton, Alberta, and provides the bulk of the troop commitment to Afghanistan.

Military chaplain Capt. Larry Wright said the Canadian Army's chaplain general ordered special prayers for the four today at all military chapels across Canada.

A memorial ceremony is scheduled next Sunday in Edmonton, said Col. David Barr, chief of staff for the Canadian army's western area.

NEW GUANTANAMO PRISONER: A lone captive of the war on terrorism arrived in Cuba on Saturday but U.S. military officials refused to say whether it was Abu Zubaydah, the most senior al-Qaida figure in U.S. custody.

U.S. TEAM IN YEMEN: A U.S. team is in Yemen to install a monitoring system at airports and border crossings in an effort to catch members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror group, an Interior Ministry official said. The system, which includes computers and cameras, will link Yemeni air and sea ports and land crossings to a central office in the capital, San"a, the official said.

CERTIFICATES STOLEN: Two-thousand birth certificates and more than 300 death certificates were stolen from Denver's vital records office, and officials fear the documents could be used to create false identities or by terrorists. The blank certificates and an electronic seal were taken sometime overnight on April 9 or 10, detective John Costigan said Friday. Authorities had no suspects.

POPPY FIELDS DESTROYED: Ten days into its ambitious program to cut off supplies of opium, the interim Afghan government said it had destroyed poppy fields that might produce more than 100 tons of the drug. Authorities used tractors and sticks to destroy just more than 5,000 acres of poppies, and paid farmers almost $3-million in compensation.

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