Three men arrested in the killing of Afghanistan's aviation minister have confessed to the attack, saying they fired upon him with rocket-launched grenades and assault rifles, security officials said Thursday.
| "We dunnit! We dunnit and we're glad! GLAD, y'hear!" |
Mirwais Sadiq was killed Sunday in the western city of Herat, where his father, Ismail Khan, is both the officially appointed governor and a warlord at the head of a powerful private army. Sadiq's killing sparked hours of tank and gun battles between Khan's forces and those of a local government militia commander, Zaher Naib Zada. Clashes ended early Monday, when Khan's forces took Naib Zada's division barracks and Naib Zada fled Herat with his supporters, on foot, horseback and in vehicles.
| "Get the hosses, Mahmoud! We gotta run for it!" |
Herat authorities arrested 21 of Naib Zada's men immediately after the clash, Herat deputy intelligence director Abdul Wahid Tawakuli said by telephone from Herat. Three of them confessed to direct involvement in the aviation minister's killing — one said he opened fire with a grenade launcher, and the two others said they fired on the minister with assault rifles, Tawakuli said. Tawakuli did not identify the men, other than to say they were toast loyalists of Naib Zada. Naib Zada and local officials said the fighting that followed killed between 50 to 100 people. President Hamid Karzai, in a statement late Wednesday, said an initial investigation showed the death toll at only 16.
| "Somebody else bumped off the other 34-84..." |
Combatants and others have given widely varying accounts of what sparked the killing and clashes, which highlighted the difficulties Karzai's government faces in reining in local commanders and controlling their power struggles.
"There I wuz, with commies to the left o' me, commies to the right o' me..."
"Wait a minute! Last time it was aviation ministry employees?"
"Well, they wuz commies, too! Lemme finish..." |
Sadiq, largely seen as his father's emissary in Karzai's administration, became the third top official in Karzai's administration, and second aviation minister, to die violently. |