18 April 2005	Monday	08 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

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MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, April 17: Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum on Sunday resigned as head of his feared northern militia to take up a post in President Hamid Karzai’s government, his deputy said. Dostum, one of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords, was appointed by President Karzai as chief of staff of the high command of the country’s armed forces, a largely symbolic post that removes the faction leader from his Shiberghan powerbase.

“Yes, general Dostum has resigned as leader of party,” deputy party leader, Abdul Majid Rozi, told AFP, referring to the ‘Jinbish Mili Islami Party’, drawn mostly from ethnic Uzbeks.

Mr Rozi said Dostum would take his new post in “few days.”

Sayed Noorullah, formerly serving as deputy leader of the party, had been appointed as interim leader of the faction, he said.

The faction on Sunday was registered with the Ministry of Justice as a formal political party under which it can run for the war-torn country’s first parliamentary elections due later this year, Mr Rozi added.

President Karzai has been trying to bring local warlords under control by offering them government posts in the capital Kabul.—AFP