December 19, 2003	Friday	Shawwal 24, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

KABUL, Dec 18: Militants are trying to disrupt Afghanistan’s grand council with a campaign of propaganda and violence backed up by rocket and bomb attacks, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said on Thursday.

A bomb was defused on Wednesday night outside Kabul’s Chinese restaurant, which is popular with foreigners, and police have found 80 rockets around the city over the past week, he said.

Three rockets hit Kabul on Tuesday but no one was hurt.

“Terrorists are trying to destabilize the situation by firing rockets, planting bombs, distributing pamphlets and terrorizing people,” Mr Jalali told reporters.

Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks and warned of more violence to come as delegates prepared to debate the new constitution.

“We warn of more attacks on Kabul city specially aimed to disturb the loya jirga (grand assembly) ,” a Taliban spokesman said.

In neighbouring Laghman province, Taliban had also circulated letters threatening loya jirga delegates with death, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.

“The history of the jirga members, their future and life after death was maligned and they face our death blow,” the AIP quoted the letter as saying.

Streets around the jirga site had already been sealed off while foreign peacekeepers, newly-trained Afghan soldiers, police and secret service agents provided tight security.

The 502 delegates have been divided into 10 groups to discuss the controversial document and debate the country’s future form of government.

The deep rifts within Afghan society were seen on Wednesday when Malalai Joya, a female delegate from western Farah province, inflamed the gathering by criticizing the mujahideen (former anti-Soviet fighters) and calling for them to be put on trial.

Afghan soldiers had to mount the stage to keep order as dozens of angry mujahideen delegates rushed it, demanding she be expelled.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International and the United Nations condemned threats against her by fellow delegates.

“Some present were heard to say that they would kill the woman while others intervened to protect her,” Amnesty said in a statement.

“If delegates are threatened or otherwise prevented from expressing their views, this process of building a new future for Afghanistan will be severely threatened,” it said.

The UN said it deplored the incident and was paying particular attention to security arrangements for Joya.

Her intervention exacerbated the sharp differences that have emerged over key issues, such as the power of the president since Sunday’s opening by former king Mohammad Zahir Shah.

Delegates are divided between those who support the strong presidential system laid down in the draft and those, including some mujahideen factions, who would prefer some form of prime minister or at least a parliament with real teeth to counterbalance sweeping presidential powers.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly said he will only stand in next year’s presidential polls if the loya jirga approves the system laid down in the draft document.

Mr Karzai on Wednesday said it was up to delegates to decide now that the draft constitution was in their hands. “It’s none of our business,” he told reporters.

With Afghanistan slowly emerging from decades of conflict, several delegates have backed Mr Karzai’s view that a strong presidential system was needed as the country lacked mature political parties for a successful parliamentary democracy.

POOREST AFGHANS: Attacks by militants are hurting Afghanistan’s most vulnerable people by hampering food distribution to the poor, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday.

“Insecurity is the main constraint to WFP’s large-scale recovery and reconstruction activities, and thus hampers Afghanistan’s reconstruction process,” Maarten Roest told reporters.

“The most insecure areas are generally also the most poverty-stricken and food insecure,” he said.

In southeast Afghanistan’s troubled Ghazni and Paktika provinces, 39 percent of planned food distributions could not be delivered in November.

The WFP was unable to reach more than 103,000 people, or 52 percent of the targeted population, in eastern Afghanistan, especially in districts bordering Pakistan, Roest said.

Attacks by suspected Taliban and their allies have forced UN agencies and aid organisations to scale back or suspend operations across much of the south, east and southeast.

A guard was shot dead on Wednesday night during an arson attack on a primary school for boys and girls in Sagi village, southern Kandahar province, Kandahar city police chief Mohammad Hashim said.—AFP