Kabul, Afghanistan ? Afghan authorities said Thursday they have uncovered a plot against the fledgling government, arresting hundreds for allegedly planning “terrorism, abductions and sabotage,” and seizing weapons and documents in sweeps throughout the capital.

The government said the operations against men linked to former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar thwarted the greatest threat yet to Hamid Karzai’s interim administration. But the arrests are also likely to inflame tension between Hekmatyar’s largely Pashtun followers and the northern alliance, which is dominated by ethnic Tajiks and controls key ministries.

“They wanted to launch a coup d’t against the government,” said Mohammed Naseer, security director at the Kabul governor’s office. He said the plotters also wanted to disrupt the loya jirga, a political gathering planned for June to select a new government.

Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni said most of those arrested were members of Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami party. Whether the suspects actually hoped to overthrow the government was under investigation, he said, but “it was a plot including terrorism, abductions and sabotage.” He said authorities had seized explosives and remote control devices and found “written documents indicating that they would carry out these acts.” He did not elaborate.

Ethnic, militant ties

“There were a series of attacks planned against a number of prominent Afghan individuals, including Chairman Karzai and the former king,” Mohammad Zaher Shah, who is due to return to Afghanistan from Italy this month, Qanooni said. He added that authorities had evidence the men planned to attack foreigners.

In Pakistan, a senior leader of Hezb-e-Islami, Qutbuddin Hilal, said those arrested were former not current members of the group.

Pashtun leaders may interpret the arrests as an attempt to stifle their moves toward Pashtun unity in advance of the loya jirga, but Qanooni said nobody was arrested “on the basis of political disagreement.”

When asked if the majority of those arrested were Pashtuns, Qanooni said only: “Let’s not turn it into an ethnic issue.”

Qanooni said more than 300 people had been arrested, and that 160 were still being held Thursday. A Western official in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity, said only 10 were being held on suspicion of serious offenses, including terrorism.

Lt. Col. Neal Peckham, spokesman for the international peacekeeping force, said weapons had been found and that those arrested also included Pakistani members of another militant group, the Jamaat-e-Islami, a Pakistan Islamic organization with close ties to Hekmatyar. He said the peacekeepers were not involved in the operations, but had been tipped off beforehand.

Power struggles

Afghan police on Monday raided the home of Hekmatyar’s one-time aide, Wahidullah Sabaoon, but there was confusion Thursday over his whereabouts. Jurat and Naseer said Sabaoon was among those arrested in the sweep, but Peckham said he was still at large.

Sabaoon was once the military chief of Hezb-e-Islami and served as Afghanistan’s defense minister in 1995, when Hekmatyar became prime minister under President Burhanuddin Rabbani. When the Taliban took over in 1996, Sabaoon allied himself with the northern alliance, becoming finance minister for the government-in-exile.

Hekmatyar has been a vocal opponent of Prime Minister Karzai and of U.S. presence on Afghan soil, but last month his deputy, Jumma Khan Hamdard, said the party was ready to cooperate with the interim administration.

Power struggles among Hekmatyar’s forces and northern alliance factions devastated much of Kabul in the early 1990s, with 50,000 people, mostly civilians, killed, according to the International Red Cross.

Hekmatyar fled to Iran after the Taliban took the capital in 1996, although the Iranian government recently closed his offices in Tehran and his whereabouts are unknown.

Other developments

The government vowed to eradicate Afghanistan’s opium poppy crop in a move that could wipe out as much as 70 percent of the world’s supply of opium. Farmers will be paid to destroy their crops. Authorities would destroy the crops of those who don’t comply.

Afghan and U.S. troops received hostile rocket fire in the Shah-e-kot area the site of Operation Anaconda, Marine Capt. Steven O’Connor said. O’Connor told reporters at Bagram air base that no one was hurt in the Wednesday incident. However, it showed that al-Qaida and Taliban forces were still active.

Karzai, on a trip to Turkey, welcomed that country’s plans to take over command of the international peacekeeping force. Britain, the current lead country, wants to hand over command in April, but Turkey has asked for financial help and that other conditions be met.

One of the 300 prisoners from Afghanistan held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, apparently holds American citizenship and might be transferred to the United States to face federal charges. Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke identified the prisoner as Yasser Esam Hamdi. A birth certificate in Baton Rouge, La., says Hamdi was born 22 years ago to Saudi parents who worked there at the time. He moved to Saudi Arabia with them as a toddler, she said.