KABUL, Dec 22: Warlords buried the hatchet for Afghanistan’s first peaceful change of government in decades, but it seems new leader Hamid Karzai will always have late mujahideen legend Ahmad Shah Masood looking over his shoulder.

A giant stylised portrait of the anti-Soviet resistance hero stared down at the 2,000 faction chiefs, tribal elders and new government leaders gathered for the inauguration of Karzai on Saturday.

Another picture of Masood, who was assassinated by suicide bombers two days before the Sept 11 attacks on New York and Washington, was also placed in an empty seat in the middle of the front row of the main podium.

Many were in tears as they watched the ceremony and thought of Masood who led the campaign against the Soviets and again defended Kabul from 1992 against rival warlords, until the Taliban forced him out in 1996.

Each time the ethnic Tajik commander’s name was mentioned in speeches, shouts of “Allah-u-Akbar” and “Masood” broke the solemn silence of the gathering in the interior ministry hall.

Outgoing president Burhanuddin Rabbani described Masood as a “great son”. He added: “We are proud of Masood, for his war against the Taliban. From the beginning until the end, he fought for the freedom and future of Afghanistan.”

Karzai and Afghanistan’s various factions and ethnic leaders have seized upon Masood’s status as one of the few genuinely national heroes to highlight their desire for peace in the future.

Nearly every key figure in the new government has made a pilgrimage to Masood’s tomb in his Panjshir Valley stronghold.

And rarely can so many former rivals have been together in Kabul.

Also in the front row was Abdul Rashid Dostam, the ethnic Uzbek warlord whose fiefdom lies around the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, and who had expressed opposition to the makeup of the power-sharing government.

Ismail Khan arrived late in the middle of Karzai’s speech calling for national unity.

Karzai broke off briefly to say “welcome my brother” in another sign of the new mood.

“It is indescribable, unbearable, what has happened” in Afghanistan, said the new leader referring to death of Masood and hundreds of thousands of other Afghans over the past two decades.

Much will depend on Masood’s younger followers in the new administration to turn lawless Afghanistan into a new nation.

But Masood’s followers will be particularly anxious to see Karzai carry out a promise to end “terrorism” in Afghanistan.—AFP