ISLAMABAD, July 9: Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in his slain vice president Haji Abdul Qadir’s eastern stronghold of Jalalabad Tuesday and with tears in his eyes vowed to catch the killers.
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said Karzai accompanied by defence minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim and another eputy president Karim Khalili flew in a helicopter from Kabul.
Karzai, participating in the Islamic religious ceremony of “Fateha” or reading of the Koran for Qadir, told the gathering that a hectic search was underway to track down the killers of the slain Pashtun leader.
Expressing his confidence the assassins would be arrested he said “I have officially asked the head of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul to help us in this matter.”
“If even ISAF failed, I will seek the United Nations help in hunting down the killers.”
Qadir was gunned down by two men in Kabul on Saturday. The killers made good their escape after the daylight murder.
The killing sent a wave of shock and grief through Afghanistan and Karzai announced a day of nationwide mourning on Tuesday.
ISAF chief Turkish army Major General Akin Zorlu in a statement in Kabul Tuesday assured the force’s full cooperation with Afghanistan’s transitional government in its hunt for the culprits.
“It is vital to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice as soon as possible and ISAF will give every resource required to achieve this,” Zorlu said.
Emotion overwhelmed Karzai who started weeping when he paid tribute to Qadir, a former chief of the Eastern Shura, or council, administering several eastern Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan, AIP said.
General Fahim in an address to the gathering described the killing as “an act of terrorism” and said he had come to represent the Northern Alliance and his own community, the Pakistan-based news agency said.
The ceremony was attended by thousands of people including an ailing mujahedin leader, Maulawi Yunus Khalis, who was brought on a wheelchair, AIP said.
PEACEKEEPERS: Peacekeepers in the Afghan capital agreed on Monday to help the government investigate the assassination of one of the country’s ministers and vice presidents and said it would step up security in the city.
“The government requested ISAF to assist in the investigation of the assassination,” ISAF spokesman Col. Samet Oz told reporters. “We have accepted this request and we have already started work on this issue.”
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States had not received a request for assistance with the investigation. If it received one, it would consult with its “international partners” on how to help, Boucher said.—AFP/Reuters