Kabul, Afghanistan — Afghanistan's civil servants were paid for the first time in six months Tuesday an $8 million total payout that will virtually wipe out money earmarked for a U.N. start-up fund.
Pressing ahead with its anti-terror struggle, U.S military officials flew American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh out of Kandahar, escorting him home to face charges he conspired with Islamic radicals to kill fellow countrymen while in Afghanistan.
As Afghan officials turned to the work of rebuilding their country, interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai urged the quick arrival of $4.5 billion in assistance that was pledged over the next several years at a conference of nearly 60 donor nations in Tokyo.
"We are happy with the results of the conference," Karzai said. In a nod to concerns that the money would not reach Afghanistan's poor, Karzai pledged to be "a samurai against corruption."
Not all were upbeat, however. The money promised was less than half the $10 billion over five years that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had hoped for.
European Union representative Klaus-Peter Klaiber said the money pledged was a "rather miserable amount," compared with Afghanistan's needs.
Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, acting governor of Afghanistan's central bank, said the pledges were "not enough to reconstruct Afghanistan."
In Kabul, for civil servants owed months of back pay, the billions pledged in Tokyo were less a cause for rejoicing than Tuesday's wage payments, which were less than $30 each.
"I am very, very happy," said Finance Ministry employee Abdel Jami, clutching a thick stack of afghanis, the Afghan currency his pay for the second half of December and the first half of January. The pay packet, disbursed from a start-up fund to help begin basic government operations, was 1.4 million afghanis, or $28, an average monthly government salary.
The government has no money to pay back salaries yet, officials said.
Lindh, the 20-year-old Californian who fought alongside the Taliban and met Osama bin Laden, was taken from the warship USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea, where he has spent the past two months in custody, to the U.S. military base in Kandahar and put aboard a C-17 transport bound for his homeland, U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity.
Lindh faces charges in a federal court in suburban Washington that he conspired with Islamic radicals to kill fellow countrymen while in Afghanistan. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
War detainees being held at a U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba continued to attract the attention of human rights groups concerned about their treatment. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday the United States is treating the 158 war detainees "humanely" and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
U.S. special forces and Afghan anti-Taliban fighters staged a fruitless hunt for the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, in house-to-house searches during six hours through four villages in the southern province of Helmand, Afghan sources said Tuesday. U.S. officials refuse to comment on special forces operations.
No strong leads on Omar's whereabouts had been reported since he disappeared two weeks ago in the mountainous Baghran area in Helmand province. At the time, he was said to be surrounded by hundreds of anti-Taliban fighters who were negotiating his surrender.
The one-eyed Omar is the most wanted man in Afghanistan after bin Laden but still has many supporters in southern Afghanistan, where the extreme Islamic militia he led was strongest.
With an eye to keeping the Afghan government running and ensuring stability, Karzai urged international donors to deliver the first installments of their pledged money "immediately in the coming days so we can begin the process of reconstruction."
The theft of 32 tons of food from a World Food Program warehouse in the town of Qaiser on Thursday underlined concerns about accountability and security. The incident was the second time in three days that armed men had seized aid supplies.
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