July 8, 2002	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 26,1423

KABUL, July 7: An Afghan soldier on Sunday slapped a Japanese woman photographer who was trying to get close to a helicopter carrying the coffin of assassinated Vice-President Haji Abdul Qadir and raised his rifle against a colleague who tried to protect her, witnesses said.

The photographer, dressed conservatively in a headscarf and who works for Japan’s Kyodo news agency, started crying after the attack, which prompted a Japanese colleague to wrap his arm round the soldier’s neck to pull him away.

The soldier pulled back and raised his rifle at the Japanese man before other soldiers arrived to cool tempers and push the Japanese journalist away.

Security was tight on all roads leading to Kabul’s giant Eid Gah Central Mosque as thousands of Afghans converged for the funeral of Qadir, one of the country’s most powerful warlords, a day after he was gunned down in broad daylight.

The helicopter flew the body from Kabul airport back to his eastern power base of Jalalabad.—Reuters