July 22, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 21, 1424

KABUL, July 21: Afghan authorities have seized an edition of a weekly newspaper that published an article calling on President Hamid Karzai to resign after he apologized to Pakistan over an attack on its embassy, officials said on Monday.

The article in the Payam-i-Mujahed weekly, owned by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance faction, accused the president of apologizing to Islamabad under pressure from Washington and called his actions dishonourable.

“One who brawls at night and apologizes the next day after chastisement by the American ambassador and can’t defend the territorial integrity of his country, should kneel before the people and hand back the affairs of government to them,” it said.

Pakistan on Monday reopened its embassy in Kabul nearly two weeks after it was ransacked by an Afghan mob protesting alleged border incursions by Pakistani troops. Karzai apologized for the attack and Kabul has paid compensation to Islamabad for the damage to the embassy and its vehicles.

Afghan Defence Minister Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the military muscle of the Northern Alliance in Karzai’s government, ordered the confiscation of all copies of the paper from news vendors and the its offices, defence ministry and newspaper officials said.

The article called Karzai a puppet of foreigners who were attempting to weaken the anti-Soviet Mujahideen, who still wield considerable power.—AFP