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Afghanistan
Peacekeepers clash with rogue cops
2002-04-13
  • International peacekeepers clashed with a 30-strong group of armed men in Kabul and captured some wearing the new Afghan police uniform, a spokesman for multinational force said Saturday. Gen. Deen Mohammad Joorat, the Interior Ministry security chief, said the seven men captured were members of the official security force and alleged their intention was to destabilize the interim Afghan administration.
    Fifth columnists? Now doesn't that come as a surprise? Oh. It doesn't. But it's pretty blatant.
    "Six of them belong to the police of the zone and the other one is from the 61st division of the armed forces. They are part of the government," he told Reuters.
    And it will be really interesting to see what the government does with them, and which part of the government steps forward to ask that they be treated lightly...
    "They are under investigation. They pretended they were chasing a group of thieves, but the reality is that they wanted to sabotage the security situation in Kabul. That was for sure their intention," Joorat charged.
    To what advantage? More important, to whose advantage?

  • Joorat said all seven men captured in Kabul after the clashes with British soldiers from the Royal Anglian regiment were Hazaras, a Shi'ite ethnic group which is a minority in largely Sunni Afghanistan. The clash occurred in an area of southwest Kabul which is largely populated by Hazaras and has been plagued by gangs of armed robbers believed to be unemployed soldiers of the Northern Alliance which helped oust the Taliban late last year.
    That's pretty interesting. The Hazaras took it harder than most under the Taliban. They have traditionally close ties with Iran, and the "Iranian delegation" attempting to sow discord in the Herat area turned out to be members of the Hezb-i-Wahdat, the Hazara party. The party's leader, Karim Khalili, has expressed support for the US and distanced himself from Iran. This being Afghanistan we're discussing, it's not unheard of for them to throw in with yesterday's enemy for an immediate tactical advantage. And Khalili probably also has asked himself (and his minions) many times what the status of the Hazaras is going to be under the post-Loya Jirga regime. And on top of that, Hezb-e-Wahdat isn't the only Hazara - or at least Shi'a party, and they have their own ambitions...
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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