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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Embattled Afghan Governor Scents Treachery |
| 2004-08-20 |
| Plans for Afghanistan's first democratic election in October mean little to Ismail Khan as he strides across a hill top, satellite phone in hand, flanked by commanders and a battle tank at his back. The governor of the western province of Herat is bristling with anger that the Afghan National Army supported by U.S. airpower is playing peacemaker rather than destroying an enemy whose forces, Khan says, are drawn from remnants of the Taliban. President Hamid Karzai's new army and 18,000 U.S. led troops are hunting Taliban and members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in the south and east. But the crisis in the west, has come right before an election in which security will be a central issue. "Three weeks ago I went to Kabul ... and at that time I told President Karzai that our enemies were making plans to do something," Ismail Khan told Reuters in a roadside interview, as his troops passed through the village of Shahbet in Adraskan district, 75 km (47 miles) south of Herat city. "I also told Karzai some of his cabinet members were involved," says the self-styled "Amir of Herat," his white robes and turban flecked with dust kicked up by tanks and trucks laden with ammunition. His fears were well placed. Last week, a renegade militia commander, Amanullah Khan, launched an offensive that swept toward Herat, Afghanistan's second largest city and capital of the province bordering Iran. The governor says fifty people were killed in the fighting and he fears his enemy will kill fifty more held captive. Karzai responded by rushing two battalions to restore order. Dread that the conflict could stir ethnic tensions -- Ismail Khan is a Tajik and ethnic Pashtuns and Hazaras in Herat complain they are discriminated against -- finally made Karzai and Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Ambassador in Kabul, act. |
| Posted by:Zenster |