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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan government orders private armies to disband |
| 2002-07-16 |
| Following a visit Monday from a key U.S. defense official, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's Cabinet issued an order to disband all private armies, according to a presidential spokesman. "Armed sections of all parties are proclaimed illegal and ordered disbanded," Syed Fazl Akbar told The Associated Press. "A high-level commission was formed to oversee the disarming." Hand Ismael Khan a tissue, wouldja? He just squirted coffee out his nose... Akbar's statement came after Karzai met with U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who told key northern warlords to stop their feuding and encouraged efforts to build a multiethnic Afghan national army. Wolfowitz, who paid a one-day visit to Afghanistan, flew Monday to the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, telling Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum and Shiite leader Mohammed Mohaqeq that they must curb violence in the north. Armed clashes involving Uzbek, Shiite and Tajik militias have raised tensions in the north and prompted warnings by international aid agencies that they may cease operations in the region. "It is very important to try to control the level of violence in northern Afghanistan because it is causing some serious problems and is getting in the way of delivering the kind of aid and assistance that we have been delivering," Wolfowitz told the warlords. "Besides which, there's enough lunacy going on in the southeast, and you wouldn't want people to think you were that sort of riff-raff..." The fighters of the disbanded armies must come under the central command of the Afghan Defense Ministry, state television said. Good idea. They should be nice, too. The order to disband includes all prominent warlords and their groups, including Jamiat-e-Islami, led by former president Burhannudin Rabbani; Dostum's Uzbek militia and armed groups led by Vice President Karim Khalili and Agriculture Minister Hussain Anwari. It was not clear how Karzai's government would enforce the order. One day it'll happen. Not yet, but someday. If they don't kill him first. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |