Icy Winter Kills Afghan Children

At least 180 children have died in Afghanistan's coldest winter in years, the health minister said Tuesday, amid warnings that the final toll from the subzero temperatures and heavy snow could run into the thousands.

Also on Tuesday, Senator John McCain, who is visiting Afghanistan as part of a Senate delegation, called for permanent U.S. bases in the country to safeguard American security interests in the region.

McCain said he was committed to a strategic partnership with Afghanistan that would entail economic and technical assistance, cultural exchanges and "joint military permanent bases."

The Afghan government has yet to give an estimate of nationwide casualties from the freeze that has left many remote regions snowbound, though the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that 260 people have perished.

In Zabul, a southeastern province haunted by Taliban militants, Gov. Khan Mohammed Husseini told The Associated Press on Monday that 135 people had died, mostly of cold, hunger and disease, but that two of them had been attacked by wolves.

Health Minister Mohammed Amin Fatemi told AP that in other parts of Afghanistan, the toll among children alone has risen to 180, almost half of them in the Hindu Kush province of Ghor where scores of villages have been cut off by snow.

Another 29 people have been killed in avalanches this year, Fatemi said.

But Fatemi has decried as alarmist forecasts by relief groups that the death toll could top 1,000.

On Monday, Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, Christopher Alexander, said several thousand could have died in the cold snap, highlighting the continued poverty of Afghans and the weakness of their government three years after the fall of the Taliban.

The U.S. military as well as the United Nations and aid groups have supported efforts to bring relief to isolated communities.

On Monday, three military helicopters dropped eight tons of wheat, cooking oil and beans next to a village in Zabul called Khaki Afghan.

An Associated Press reporter saw hundreds of villagers cowered in the swirling snow for the badly needed supplies as about 20 U.S. troops jumped from the hovering helicopters to stand guard as they were unloaded.