February 11, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 27, 1422

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TEHRAN, Feb 10: Iranian authorities have closed offices of exiled Afghan warlord Gulbadin Hekmatyar, sources said on Sunday.

A spokesman for the interior ministry also said the government envisaged his expulsion from the country.

An aide to Mr Hekmatyar confirmed to AFP a report in Daily Iran that the office in north Tehran had closed.

The newspaper also quoted Hossein Zareh-Safat, a deputy governor of Khorassan province responsible for security, as saying the office in Mashhad had been shuttered “on the orders of the government.”

Afghan sources in Tehran said on Sunday he could remain and receive visits, but must refrain from political activities against the Kabul administration.

But the ministry spokesman told AFP, “the expulsion of Mr Hekmatyar is envisaged, and is currently being considered,” without indicating where he might be sent.

Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mussavi-Lari had warned on Wednesday that measures would be taken against Mr Hekmatyar, while intelligence sources said he could be expelled from Iran.

Mr Mussavi-Lari said that opponents of the government of Hamid Karzai “who take advantage of the security they enjoy in Iran to say what they like, could create tension between Iran and Afghanistan”.

Mr Hekmatyar, head of Hizb-i-Islami and a former prime minister, fought against the occupying Soviet forces in the 1980s, but in the civil war that followed Moscow’s pullout was vilified for reducing much of Kabul to ruins in a siege of the capital.

An opponent of both the former ruling Taliban and the opposition Northern Alliance, his calls for national unity after US attacks began against the Taliban and the al Qaeda network on Oct 7, were disregarded.

He considered the Karzai government set up after the US-backed victory of the Northern Alliance to have no legitimacy.

The closure of his offices follows accusations by the United States that Iran, though an ally of the Northern Alliance, was trying to destabilize the Karzai government.—AFP