KABUL, Dec 16: In a move seen as the first major attempt to rein in Afghanistan’s powerful warlords, President Hamid Karzai has issued a decree banning political leaders from engaging in military pursuits.

The decree, released as the president arrived in Oslo to attend a conference on Afghan reconstruction, aims to separate military and civilian affairs in a country where the two have become deeply entwined.

It will come as a heavy blow to Afghanistan’s regional strongmen, several of whom continue to defy central government authority, running virtual fiefdoms backed by their own massive armies.

“In order to ensure affairs are carried out better, job separation of civil and military administration should be acted upon,” the presidential decree said, adding that the new legislation would come into force immediately.

“From the date of this verdict, all organizing directorships, operative groups and military zone directorates are scrapped,” it said.

The so-called military zone directorates are a hangover from Afghanistan’s era of communist rule during the 1980s, when the country was divided into four main areas of martial jurisdiction.

“The ministries of defence and interior order their organs and divisions not to interfere in civil affairs. No military or civil staff can have multiple jobs.”

Dominant regional warlords, including Ismail Khan in western Afghanistan, Abdul Rashid Dostum in the north and Gul Agha in the south, represent the biggest challenges to Karzai’s rule and are thought to be the principal targets of the decree.

Ismail Khan, the governor and self-styled amir of Herat province, has allowed his forces to engage in frequent clashes with rival ethnic groups in his area of control, despite government attempts to mediate peace.

In the latest outbreak earlier this month, US forces were drawn into a clash which left at least 31 people dead or injured, prompting the deployment of a B-52 warplane which dropped seven bombs on the area.—AFP