Allies may hunt down vice president’s killers
President Hamid Karzai may turn to foreign experts for help if Afghan investigators cannot track down the killers of the country’s vice president and key Pashtun leader.
Abdul Qadir, an Afghan Cabinet minister and governor of the Nangarhar province, was shot dead on Saturday along with a son-in-law by two gunmen as he was leaving his office in the Afghan capital Kabul.
An estimated 10,000 people turned out yesterday for his funeral, held in the Nangarhar capital Jalalabad, after earlier services in Kabul. Qadir was the most prominent ethnic Pashtun in the government apart from Karzai himself and was considered a key player in efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan after more than 20 years of war.
‘‘If our investigation team fails because of the lack of professional skills and equipment, we will ask foreign friends and international organisations for help,’’ state-run Afghan television quoted Karzai as saying Sunday.
Karzai said the United States, Germany and the international peacekeeping force all offered help in the investigation. He said the assassination would have ‘‘no effect on the government’’ because Afghans were ‘‘determined to build peace and unity in the country’’.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack. State television said two people were detained yesterday at a checkpoint in southern Kabul while riding in the same type of car used by the assassins when they escaped.
They were handed over to a state commission formed by Karzai to investigate the murder, Afghan television said. Ten guards on duty at the ministry of works, where Qadir was killed, were arrested on Saturday for dereliction of duty, according to Kabul police chief Din Mohammed Jurat.
In Jalalabad, mourners wept as Qadir’s body, draped in the Afghan national flag, was transported on a gun carriage from the city’s White Mosque to Amir Shaheed Gardens in the city centre for burial. Uniformed Afghan troops marched in the procession.
As the body was lowered into the grave, a Pashto-language poem read over the loudspeaker hailed Qadir as ‘‘a hero of Afghanistan’’. Seven shots were fired into the air, and mourners wept and chanted his name.
Qadir’s death threatens to stir unrest in Nangarhar, a relatively wealthy trading and opium poppy-growing region that borders Pakistan.
Instability in the key province could complicate efforts by the Karzai government to extend its authority beyond Kabul. Qadir was one of five vice presidents appointed during last month’s grand council, or loya jirga, to bring ethnic balance into a government that had been dominated by ethnic Tajiks.
In Washington, politicians said Qadir’s assassination should compel the United States to consider an active role in providing security. US operations have been directed at pursuing Taliban and al Qaida fugitives rather than peacekeeping.
‘‘This was definitely a throwback to the old Afghanistan and a setback to the establishment of the new Afghanistan,’’ said Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the senate intelligence committee.
Afghan Chief Justice Fazle Hadi Shinwari promised mourners that the government was doing everything possible to find the killers. He urged people to remain calm.
‘‘This is a test for the people of Afghanistan, of Nangarhar,’’ Shinwari said. ‘‘They should be aware of this and pass this test.’’
Throughout yesterday, armed police manned checkpoints on all approaches to Jalalabad and roamed the largely deserted streets. Most merchants closed their stores, although Sunday is a business day.
Dozens of armed security troops stood guard at the Qadir family home as mourners paid their respects. One man was arrested in front of the White Mosque carrying a small amount of explosives, security chief Ajab Shah said. The man was being questioned and the explosives were being analysed.
Qadir was a controversial figure in Afghan politics for nearly 25 years, and residents said a number of groups could have been responsible for his death. As Nangarhar’s governor before the Taliban took power, Qadir welcomed Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan in 1996. Later, he joined the opposition Northern Alliance, which overran Kabul in November after the Taliban fled intensive US bombing.
‘‘We are very upset over the killing of Haji Qadir,’’ said one of the mourners, Gul Badshas. ‘‘It’s a conspiracy against the Afghans because when we are closer to peace and stability in Afghanistan, this incident happened.’’
