- (AFP) - Afghanistan's new interim government has been
sworn in vowing to work together to unite a country wracked by drought,
ethnic tension and more than two decades of bloody conflict.
Taking the oath of office on Saturday, government leader Hamid Karzai declared:
"I will work hard for the unity of Afghanistan and peace and a better
life for our people and for the reconstruction of the country."
"We should put our hands together to forget the painful past; as brothers
and sisters we should go forward to a new Afghanistan together," he
said.
The inauguration of Karzai's power-sharing cabinet was applauded by 2,000
warlords, tribal chieftains, past and present officials, UN officials and
international envoys, but the ceremony was partly overshadowed by conflicting
reports of a US bombing error.
Just ahead of the inauguration General Tommy Franks, the commander of the
US forces hunting for Saudi radical Osama bin Laden and his allies, denied
reports his planes had killed 65 elders and tribal chiefs heading for the
ceremony.
"Friendly forces don't fire surface to air missiles at you,"
Franks told AFP. "Right now we have people on the ground investigating
but we are convinced it was a good target."
And a Pentagon spokesman was even more adamant. "There is no doubt,
they hit the bad guys," Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan said.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had on Friday cheerfully announced
the destruction of the convoy in the eastern Paktia province, claiming
that intelligence indicated it was carrying al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders.
But the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted officials and
residents in Paktia as saying it was carrying chiefs, mujahedin commanders
and other dignitaries to the government inauguration.
US forces last month helped Afghan opposition groups oust the Taliban regime,
laying the foundations for the new regime that on Saturday finally returned
the war-torn country to the international fold.
But America's main goal in Afghanistan remains to capture bin Laden, destroy
his al-Qaeda network and punish the Taliban leaders who protected him even
after he was accused of ordering the September 11 attacks on US cities.
To this end, a US-led coalition still has warplanes and troops scouring
Afghanistan for targets, Pakistani forces are trying to block cross-border
escape routes and allied ships are patrolling the region's sea-lanes.
In Kabul, however, talk was of peace.
United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who earlier this month brought rival
factions together at a summit in Bonn to prepare the new government, congratulated
the Afghan leaders on what he said was a "momentous day".
"After years of bitter war and conflict, power is being transferred
from one administration to another, not under the power of guns but peacefully
and in pursuance of a political agreement," he said.
Immediately after taking the oath of office Karzai, a 44-year-old Pashtun
tribal leader from a group symbolically headed by Afghanistan's exiled
former king, embraced the outgoing president, Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Rabbani, a Tajik, is the political leader of the Northern Alliance -- a
loose coalition of parties from the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities
-- and Karzai's key test will be over his ability to reunite the ethnic
groups.
His 29 member cabinet, which includes two women, is made up of 11 Pashtuns,
eight Tajiks, five Shiite Muslim Hazaras, three Uzbeks and three from other
minorities -- but Tajiks hold the key ministerial positions.
The defence, interior and foreign ministers -- Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Yunus
Qanooni and Abdullah Abdullah -- are all Tajiks from one area of the Panjshir
valley, the homeland of assassinated mujahedin chief Ahmad Shah Masood.
When the interim cabinet's six-month mandate expires, a transitional authority
selected by a Loya Jirga council of traditional tribal elders will take
over for 18 months and prepare for general elections.
The inauguration was welcomed around the world -- including by Italy, Germany,
China, Russia and Turkey -- and at the ceremony Iranian Foreign Minister
Kamal Kharazi hailed it as a great day for the Islamic world.
"The Taliban showed a bad face of Islam to the world. Today we want
to clean this face," he said.
Karzai was one of many speakers at the ceremony to pay tribute to Masood,
a legendary mujahedin commander who was assassinated shortly before the
September 11 attacks, and whose portrait looked down on the new government.
Assuring the security of foreign dignitaries travelling to the ceremony
was the first task of the British Royal Marines deployed to Kabul as the
vanguard of a UN-approved multinational security force.
The force is expected to grow to be around 3,000 strong, with large elements
from Britain and Germany backed by several European and other allied forces,
and is supposed to provide "security and assistance" to Karzai's
government.
Small numbers of the British commandos moved into Kabul overnight, their
officers said, but the vast bulk of the force has yet to arrive.
US forces and allied Afghan militia are still hunting for bin Laden in
the mountains near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, searching
the cave complexes of Tora Bora where he was thought to have been holed
up.
The American bombers who have been pounding his suspected hideouts are
to be equipped with a powerful new "thermobaric" bomb, the Pentagon
said, a napalm-style fuel air explosive that can suck the oxygen out of
caves.
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- Ten of the fearsome weapons, which ressemble arms used
by the Russians against Chechen rebels, are being shipped to the forces
attacking Afghanistan after a successful test last week in Nevada, officials
said.
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- The United States is also broadening its search for "terrorists"
to other countries, and coalition naval vessels have been stopping and
searching ships amid fears that al-Qaeda might use them to escape or mount
attacks.
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- British naval commandos and police stopped a merchant
ship in the English Channel on Friday, searching for possible terrorist
weapons, and on Thursday the Pentagon said its sailors had picked up three
suspects in the Gulf of Oman.
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- Washington has also been encouraging national governments
to pursue al-Qaeda sympathisers on their own territory, an encouragement
backed up by the threat of military action against regimes harbouring suspects.
Two of the countries cited as possible havens for fleeing al-Qaeda men
-- Yemen and Somalia -- have taken action. Yemen has launched a military
crackdown on armed tribesmen and Somalia announced the arrest of eight
suspects.
On Friday, US President George W. Bush invited nations battling terrorism
to seek US military aid ranging from logistical support to deploying US
special forces troops.
"If a nation comes to us and says 'we need your help, we'd like some
of your special forces teams, we'd like something other than logistical
support, to help get it done,' we'll help," he said.
Bush's comments came a day after US officials gave the Philippines five
military trucks, as well as hundreds of mortars, grenade launchers and
sniper rifles to fight local allies of bin Laden.
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