A Newsday report has brought another atrocity of war to light.

Women and children in Afghanistan are in serious danger. Nor from gunfire or bombs. Not landmines. From lamp oil. Given the task of lighting the lamps in Afghan households, what would have normal kerosene is now jet fuel sold in local markets.

There are no schools and no nation media - thusly no way to communicate the danger. The jet fuel is a particularly volatile Russian grade used by U.S. forces.

These same forces are doing what ever they can to help but hospitals in Afghanistan are ill equipped to deal with the problem.

"Health care is better than under the Taliban," said Said Amir Said, a surgeon. That seems only because under the Taliban it was nonexistent. "For the burn patients, we have no antiseptic baths to clean the wounds, no dressings to cover them, and we lack antibiotics to prevent infection," Said said.

Unprotected against infections, many burn victims die. "Even those who survive are going to need continuous ... skin grafts" to repair deformities from scar tissue, "and we don't have the capacity to do this," said Dr. Abdurrahim Saidi.

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