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Karzai : We Will Not Tolerate Chaos In Afghanistan

Karzai: More arrests made in the killing of Abdul Rahman

KABUL, Feb. 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai has said that he will not allow the country to go back to the days of looting, murder and gun-running.

In a carefully worded statement, Karzai said that, if necessary, he would ask for a change in the mandate of the international peacekeeping force in Kabul, BBC’s online news service reported. In addition, those responsible for the murder of Civil Aviation Minister Abdul Rahman on Thursday would be dealt with sternly and according to the justice system, he said.

Karzai insisted Sunday there was no political motive behind the alleged "assassination" of Rahman, as he trumpeted his cabinet's unity in pursuing security officials blamed for his death.

"It didn't have any political motives behind it," Karzai told a press conference in the Afghan capital of Kabul, echoing his earlier assertion that senior security defense and intelligence officials had acted out of "a personal vendetta".

Witnesses have said Rahman was dragged from a plane at Kabul's airport late Thursday by a mob of people dressed like hajj pilgrims, thrown to the tarmac and beaten to death by hundreds of other pilgrims.

Karzai has rejected their accounts, but still refused Sunday to elaborate on the security officials' alleged motive, or explain how Rahman was actually killed. However, Karzai revealed that the accusers of the security officials were Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni, both members of the same party of most of the alleged killers, and of which Rahman was once a member, AFP reported.

He said this proved his cabinet was united in tracking down the murderers. "They were fully, fully united. Every member of the cabinet exactly acted as an Afghan minister and not as a party minister," Karzai said. "The people that the minister of defence and minister of interior announced were people who were their friends of many years, so they brought those people forward; it was a very committed act of patriotism."

The three alleged killers are General Abdullah Jan Tawhidi, the intelligence agency's political affairs chief; General Qalanderbeg, deputy technical officer in the defense ministry; and a prosecutor from the justice ministry, Saranwal Haleem. The three had escaped to Mecca in a crowd of pilgrims, Karzai claimed.

Fahim, Qanooni and the three security officials they named are members of the Jamiat-i-Islami faction of the Northern Alliance, which had been fighting the Taliban since it seized Kabul in 1996.

Rahman had been a member of the faction, headed by ethnic Tajik former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, until he was booted out due to personal differences with late military commander Ahmad Shah Masood. He then joined a group headed by ousted king Mohammad Zahir Shah.

Karzai said the assassination allegations were based on "clear-cut eyewitness" accounts, "or we would not have taken such strong measures in the absence of proof".

Karzai also rejected suggestions that if the three security officials killed Rahman, as he claimed, this would indicate political divisions in the interim administration. "There is no political implications of that, the cabinet is very much united and in an Afghan straight way, I'm glad for that," he said.

Karzai has said that four other people were arrested in Kabul Friday concerning Rahman's murder, and on Sunday said more were being hunted.

Karzai began talks later Sunday with Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Pakistan Ali Assyri, which he expected to cover the extradition of the three security officials from Mecca. "The three that were in Saudi Arabia are the senior people and they will be brought here. The Saudi government has already been informed," he said. The Saudi press agency reported that Assyri was accompanied by a delegation of Saudi embassy officials when he landed in Kabul from Islamabad.

Karzai vowed "stern" punishment for those found guilty. "There will not be any lenient hand there. They've committed a murder, and let justice decide, let the courts decide."

Karzai’s statements followed an incident Saturday, in which British peacekeeping forces were shot at for the first time in Afghanistan. Troops returned fire after an unidentified gunman attacked an observation post. According to the CNN, international security forces patrolling Kabul and an Afghan civilian offered conflicting accounts Saturday over the outbreak of gunfire earlier in the day.

The incident was the first shooting involving the international security forces near Kabul since they arrived last December.

The incidents come hours after British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw left Kabul, following talks with Karzai on the possibility of extending the ISAF's UN Security Council mandate.

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