KABUL, Dec 24: Powerful warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum said on Monday he supports Afghanistan’s new leader Hamid Karzai, but wants his tens of thousands of fighters incorporated into a future national army.

The ethnic Uzbek leader was speaking to AFP before a meeting with Karzai and with Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim.

Karzai later told reporters he has appointed Dostum as deputy defence minister.

Dostum commands a powerful military force — which he says numbers 50,000 — from his headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif.

He has voiced dissatisfaction with the Bonn agreement which set up Karzai’s six-month interim government but promises not to try to derail it.

“My meeting with Mr Karzai is to give him an assurance from the people of northern Afghanistan and the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (the political party he leads) to support the interim government,” Dostum said.

Dostum also warned that while Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda fighters and the Taliban had been “crushed” in the north of the country, thousands remained free in the south.

“In northern Afghanistan armed Al Qaeda and the Taliban forces have been captured, arrested, they are prisoners” Dostum said.

“In northern Afghanistan they are crushed but in other parts of Afghanistan they have changed their shape.

“In other parts of the country, in Kabul, in Kandahar, in Jalalabad, there were thousands of Al Qaeda and Taliban — there is still a great danger there,” he said.

“None of them has been arrested and they have not been killed. We still have a lot of work to do.”

He said he was prepared to deploy his six Northern Alliance-affiliated divisions — which helped drive the Taliban from Kabul on the night of Nov 12 — as part of a fledgling national army.

“In the northern part of Afghanistan it is my wish that my people be part of the country but my people should be part of the national army.

“In the northern provinces of Afghanistan there are many divisions.”

Dostum said his own personal military experience, and that of the troops who follow him, meant he could contribute a battle-hardened standing force to a national army.

“Including myself we have experience of military activities,” he said.

“It is requested from the central government that we play a role in the government. We would appreciate this. This is my wish — that we be a part of the future national army.”

“We have more than 50,000 men in the northern divisions. My army has great experience,” he said.

Dostum said his political future would depend on a Loya Jirga, or traditional assembly of tribal elders. This will be held within six months to appoint a transitional authority to succeed Karzai’a interim administration.

“After six months there will be a Loya Jirga — I will listen to the wishes of my people but there will be a constitution and law in Afghanistan.”

If a lasting peace was finally established after 23 years of bloody conflict, he said he would embark upon a political career.

Dostum said his party is the most powerful and best organized.

“A great number of people support this party,” he said. “If peace comes to Afghanistan, I want to enter the political movement.”

Dostum was interviewed at the former Kabul guest house occupied by assassinated Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Massood between 1992 and 1996.

Outside in the courtyard, a guard detail was dressed in American-patterned combat fatigues and armed with 5.45 mm AK-74 Kalikov rifles, a Russian special forces weapon, instead of the standard 7.62mm AK-47 so common here. —AFP