Karzai's predicament

The murder of an Afghan minister has cast a long shadow of doubt on the interim administration in Afghanistan. From Islamabad, Iffat Malik asks who killed the minister and why
Last Thursday evening at Kabul airport, Dr Abdul Rehman, civil aviation and tourism minister in Afghanistan's interim administration, was brutally murdered.
The killing shocked the world, and raised worrying doubts about the security situation within the country and the unity of Hamid Karzai's government. But it is still far from clear who was responsible for the gruesome assassination.
Initial reports indicated that Abdul Rehman was killed by a mob lynching. For two days before he died, hundreds of Afghan pilgrims had been stranded at Kabul airport because of a shortage of planes. When they found out that Abdul Rehman had skipped the queue and boarded a plane destined for New Delhi, they apparently went crazy, stormed the plane, dragged or threw the minister out and beat him to death.
The lynching account would appear to be corroborated by the fact that Ruhullah Aman, chief of Ariana Airlines, was also attacked by the frustrated pilgrims (unlike the unfortunate Abdul Rehman, Aman was rescued by members of the International Security Assistance Force and is now in hospital).
Lynching was the explanation reporters got from eyewitness accounts, and it was the version initially put out by the Foreign Ministry. Since then, however, at least two other explanations have been put forward.
The first comes from Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In a statement read out on his behalf, he made the astonishing claim that Abdul Rehman had been assassinated by senior security officials within his own administration.
Karzai announced that some arrests had been made, and a request for extradition to the Saudi authorities has been made for further suspects who had flown to Jeddah. The killing was motivated by personal differences, he said. Karzai remained adamant that Abdul Rehman's murder had nothing to do with the pilgrims.
But Karzai's frank admission of personal rivalry between members of the interim administration has led to speculation that the killing was, in fact, a sign of deep political divisions within it. Abdul Rehman was once a member of the Northern Alliance, specifically of Burhanuddin Rabbani's Jamiat-i Islami faction. But he left after a falling-out with the late Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masood, and joined ex-King Zahir Shah's Rome group. The act may have cost him his life, because the generals named by Karzai as suspects in his murder also belong to the Jamiat-i Islami faction of the Northern Alliance. Hence a strong suspicion that the murder motive was political.
Karzai has strongly rebutted any such suggestions, however, insisting that Abdul Rehman's murder was a personal vendetta. He attempted to dispel speculation about disunity in his government by attending Abdul Rehman's funeral on Saturday, flanked by Defence Minister Mohamed Fahim and Interior Minister Younas Qanooni -- both of whom belong to Jamiat-i Islami.
On Sunday, Karzai announced that it was Fahim and Qanooni who had first accused the security officials currently being hunted. This fact, he said, ought to be seen as proof that his cabinet was united: "Every member of the cabinet exactly acted as an Afghan minister and not as a party minister."
But the wildest theory to be put forward comes from Defence Minister Fahim's secretary, a man named Gulbuddin. He alleged -- apparently without any evidence -- that the killing was the work of Al-Qa'eda terrorists, "To sabotage the interim government and the peace process."
Irrespective of the motive behind the minister's killing, his death raises serious questions about the role and effectiveness of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stationed in Afghanistan. Abdul Rehman was, of course, a minister of the interim administration, something which ought to merit extra security. Furthermore, he met his end on the tarmac of Kabul airport, supposedly one of the most secure areas of the capital. One would have thought that, if anyone anywhere was going to be safe in Afghanistan, it would be a government minister at Kabul airport.
An ISAF spokesman claimed its troops at the airport had not been aware of what was happening when Abdul Rehman was attacked, and that no Afghans had sought their help. That explanation has done little to alleviate growing concerns about security in post-Taliban Afghanistan. A number of incidents after the murder -- firing on an ISAF post on Friday night, for example, and violence at a football match between Afghans and members of the ISAF -- have aggravated those concerns.
Providing peace and stability is essential to the credibility of the interim administration and, by extension, the Bonn Accord and the history of the last decade bear witness to the disastrous consequences of anarchy in Afghanistan. Which is why, even before the demise of Abdul Rehman, Hamid Karzai was pleading with the international community for a bigger and longer-term security presence.
Following the murder, Karzai repeated those calls: "We will make sure that the international security forces will be asked, together with the Afghan forces, to take a stronger role -- I will ask for every measure to bring security to the Afghan people."
The ISAF is scheduled to have 4,700 troops in Afghanistan by the end of the month. Almost half the current force of 3,000 are British, but Britain is due to hand over leadership of the ISAF to Turkey in April. As yet there has been little indication that Karzai's pleas for a stronger ISAF presence are being heeded.
The ISAF is only deployed in Kabul and has no presence at all in the rest of the country.
Growing fears about security and renewed factional fighting or anarchy are causing many expatriate Afghans to think twice about returning to their homeland. Ex-King Zahir Shah had earlier announced that he would be coming to Afghanistan soon, to live there permanently. Since Abdul Rehman's murder, however, that plan appears to have been shelved. Indeed, based on the theory that Rehman's killing was politically motivated, other ministers belonging to the Rome group have threatened to leave the country.
If Hamid Karzai can secure the conviction and punishment of the generals he is accusing of Rehman's murder without provoking a reaction from other powerful members of Jamiat-i Islami in his administration, he should be able to quell any internal disunity. But providing long-term security and peace in Afghanistan remains a much more difficult task.
Despite the new-found political edge to the murder, it is still quite likely that eyewitness accounts of Abdul Rehman's death -- that he was lynched by angry pilgrims -- were correct. Just in case, and to prevent a repetition of such brutality, Pakistan's national airline, PIA, offered Ariana the use of two planes to transport Afghans to Mecca for the pilgrimage. Had that offer been made earlier, Abdul Rehman could still be alive.
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