Kabul, Afghanistan — In a bid to disarm a capital city rife with automatic rifles and rocket launchers, the new Afghan government said Wednesday it has ordered all armed men off the streets of Kabul within 72 hours.
However, the order may not go as far as the United Nations wants. U.N. officials say all Afghan soldiers should leave Kabul, something Interior Minister Younus Qanooni says isn't going to happen.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Qanooni said soldiers now in Kabul were ordered to their barracks. But at least three large military complexes are within the city limits.
Under the U.N.-brokered agreement that resulted in creation of Afghanistan's interim government, all Afghan soldiers were to be out of Kabul when international peacekeeping forces arrived in the capital. The first peacekeepers came to Kabul in December.
The pact was meant to avoid a return of the factional fighting that killed thousands of Afghans in the early 1990s.
According to the agreement, signed by Afghan leaders in Germany, "The participants in the U.N. talks on Afghanistan pledge to withdraw all military units from Kabul and other urban centers or other areas in which the U.N.-mandated force is deployed."
However, since the Taliban regime fled on Nov. 13, Kabul has been full of men bearing weapons. Crime has been on the rise.
U.N. spokesman Ahmed Fawzi refused to comment on whether the interim administration has violated the agreement and if so, what the consequences would be.
Hamid Karzai, the interim prime minister, said his government's priority is security, and the first order of business was to get armed men out of Kabul.
On Tuesday night, Karzai gave them three days to get off the streets.
There will be exceptions made for government ministers, who will be allowed a maximum of four bodyguards, Qanooni said.
"We think two at their office and two at their homes should be enough," Qanooni said. Bodyguards will be issued identification cards that they will have to produce on demand or risk arrest.
In Kabul, a city of 1 million people, there have been growing fears about the number of armed men in the streets.
Entire neighborhoods of Kabul were ruined during fighting the last time some of the same people ruled in 1992-96. About 50,000 people died, mostly civilians.
The chaos led to the rise of the Taliban militia, which took over Kabul in 1996. The Taliban were ousted by the U.S.-led bombing campaign aimed at forcing it to hand over Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network.
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