November 15, 2001	Thursday	Shaba’an 28, 1422

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KABUL, Nov 14: Northern Alliance leaders seized the reins of government in Kabul on Wednesday despite Western calls for broad consultation on a post-Taliban regime.

They took charge at the foreign ministry where Abdullah Abdullah, the foreign minister of the Northern Alliance, was expected shortly to set up operations.

Across town at the interior ministry, the alliance’s interior minister Younis Qanooni held meetings in the office he had vacated over five years ago when the Taliban ousted the government in which he held the same post.

The alliance coalition is committed to an interim government before elections in two years, Mr Qanooni told AFP. “We are backing an interim government in Kabul, after the collapse of the Taliban.”

He said: “We want this interim government to be a broad-based government that all ethnic parties in Afghanistan are involved in. And after two years, the general elections will be held in our country.”

Since the Northern Alliance — a disparate grouping of ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and other minorities — arrived in the capital on Tuesday, Kabul has been under the control of a military and security committee headed by Mr Qanooni and Mohammad Qassim Fahim, defence minister in the Northern Alliance government.

The United States has appealed for the alliance not to do anything hasty but it has already ignored Washington’s calls to stay out of Kabul.

Asked whether his presence at the ministry meant he had already become de facto interior minister, Mr Qanooni replied: “No, I just found this place suitable for myself because there is furniture and carpets and everything here.”

RABBANI: N. Alliance pressure on the international community is expected to increase on Thursday with the return to Kabul of deposed president Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Prof Rabbani would pronounce himself head of territories now under the control of the anti-Taliban opposition, a senior Afghan envoy in the Tajik capital Dushanbe said.

“He will lead the provinces freed from the Taliban and also head the task of freeing provinces now under the control of the Islamist militia,” said the ambassador for the Afghan government-in-exile, Said Ibragim Khikmat.

Deposed by the Taliban in 1996, Prof Rabbani is still recognized as Afghanistan’s president by the United Nations and most countries.

Prof Rabbani said on Tuesday the former king, a member of the dominant Pakhtoon community, was welcome to return from Rome to Afghanistan, but only as a “private citizen”.

OSAMA WAR CRIMINAL: Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar would be put on trial if they were captured, Foreign Minister Abdullah told Abu Dhabi satellite television on Wednesday.

“They both have committed many crimes against the Afghan people and massacred innocent civilians in Afghanistan,” he said.

“We consider them war criminals, and they must be brought to court and tried,” Mr Abdullah said.

“They carried out massacres in Kabul and other regions of the country, and I myself saw houses and villages destroyed and civilians chased out of their homes,” he said.

Mr Abdullah said on Iran’s state television on Wednesday that the Taliban had lost control of Kandahar and the city was in “total chaos”.

He said that in certain areas of Mazar-i-Sharif Taliban were putting up resistance and clashes were continuing, “but we have put a complete siege around them, and since they are positioned in residential areas our forces are taking care not to harm civilians.”

The minister went on to say “the United Nations has a crucial role to play in the framework of negotiations and the process of reconstructing the country.”

“The United Nations will have to play the most important role to restore peace in the country and to guarantee, as an observer, the staffing of general elections in Afghanistan.”

But, he added, following “the defeat of the Taliban and terrorists, there will no more war and, consequently, there will be no need of an international peace force.” —Agencies