KABUL, Dec 21: Around 2,000 people will attend the swearing-in ceremony of Afghanistan’s interim government on Saturday, with advance troops from the multinational force providing security, a senior UN spokesman said.

Ahmed Fawzi, a spokesman for the United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said on Friday British marines would be “cooperating with and assisting the Afghans in the security of the capital and the ceremony”.

At least 12 sniffer dogs will sweep the interior ministry building for explosives where the inauguration will take place, he said.

Fawzi confirmed that Pakistan would send an envoy to the ceremony, but did not specify what level of diplomatic representation Islamabad would choose.

Among the foreign dignitaries who will witness the inauguration are US special envoy James Dobbins; General Tommy Franks, the US Central Command chief who heads the coalition forces; and Washington’s new charge d’affaires in Kabul, Jeanine Jackson.

Afghanistan’s prime minister-designate, Hamid Karzai, will be sworn in by the country’s acting chief justice of the supreme court and will then accept the oath of his 30-strong cabinet.

The swearing-in of the new administration will be preceded by readings from the holy Quran, speeches from the incoming prime minister, the outgoing president Burhanuddin Rabbani, and Brahimi, Fawzi said.

Following the ceremony and a luncheon at the presidential palace, Karzai would escort Rabbani from the building to a waiting car — marking the formal end of the outgoing president’s tenure in power.

“At the end of the luncheon, the chairman of the new administration will then walk to a car outside... and bid him farewell,” Fawzi said.—AFP