KABUL, Feb 15: Kabul’s international airport was closed to civilians on Friday after a crowd of angry Haj pilgrims pulled an Afghan minister off an aeroplane and allegedly stomped him to death on Thursday.

Dozens of soldiers armed with machineguns lined the road leading to the airport, preventing passengers and journalists from entering the front gate.

The heightened security followed the beating death of Abdul Rahman, the minister of air transport and tourism in Afghanistan’s interim government, on Thursday.

“The security measures you see now were put in place early this morning,” an interior ministry official said while talking to reporters outside the airport on Friday morning. “We haven’t gotten enough information yet about the incident.”

Airport officials told journalists that Rahman was attacked after boarding a commercial flight to New Delhi on Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan’s national carrier, allegedly by enraged pilgrims who had been waiting since Wednesday for flights to Makkah.

A crowd of about 1,000 pilgrims surrounded the plane on the airport tarmac, preventing it from leaving. One group boarded the plane and forced the minister off. He was beaten and stomped by a group of men.

The president of Ariana was also aboard the plane, but escaped with minor injuries, according to Western journalists who drove him home from the airport late on Thursday.—dpa