KABUL, June 20: Kabul’s police force was in a state of high alert on Thursday over the removal of powerful Northern Alliance figure Yunus Qanooni from the interior ministry in transitional president Hamid Karzai’s unfinished cabinet.

Residents said many roundabouts leading to the interior ministry in downtown Kabul were closed for several hours in the morning.

Ministry staff said their offices were almost empty and at least a dozen police officers were seen wandering around the building surrounded by heavily armed guards.

“The interior ministry is on high alert because the people say why Qanooni Saheb has been transferred. He should come back,” officer Mohammad Halim, who was standing guard at the ministry’s entrance, said.

“It is a state of high alert and strike.

“We do not like (new Interior Minister Taj Mohammad) Wardak, because we do not know him and we want the return of Qanooni,” he said.

Another guard said the atmosphere inside the ministry was tense.

“The situation is not normal, the personnel are panicked and the offices are empty,” he said.

“Some predict skirmishes might break out,” he added.

Qanooni, a political heavyweight of the Northern Alliance, was named as Karzai’s new education minister on Wednesday.

He was replaced at the interior ministry by Wardak, an ethnic Pakhtoon who is governor of southern Paktia province, in the part-cabinet announced by Karzai at the closing session of the Loya Jirga.

Qanooni had earlier resigned his interior ministry post in front of the Loya Jirga in what he described as a move aimed at “strengthening the national unity”.

However, many observers suspected that he was stepping down to prepare a leadership challenge for Afghanistan’s first full elections in 2004.

Karzai told reporters on Thursday that the interior ministry staff had to obey their new boss, Wardak.

“Police in Afghanistan have to be disciplined. They have to take orders. The interior minister is the interior minister, period,” Karzai said.

Karzai’s 14 major cabinet posts were approved by a show of hands at the assembly and he is due to announce a complete line-up in the next few days.—AFP