Kabul, Afghanistan ? Gunmen kill Afghanistan’s vice president in daytime attack
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer
Kabul, Afghanistan (AP) – Gunmen firing assault rifles Saturday assassinated Afghan Vice President Abdul Qadir, a veteran Pashtun warlord and key figure in U.S.-backed efforts to bring stability to the war-fractured nation.

President Hamid Karzai summoned his Cabinet to an emergency session and police set up roadblocks throughout the city as the gunmen escaped. Uniformed troops armed with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers took up positions in front of government ministries.

A government statement issued after the meeting blamed the assassination on “terrorists.” Karzai appointed a commission headed by Interior Minister Taj Mohammad Wardak and another vice president, Karim Khalili, to investigate the assassination.

Karzai will send a senior government delegation to the funeral in Jalalabad on Sunday, the statement said. The government declared Tuesday a national day of mourning.

The attack occurred at about 12:40 p.m. as Qadir, one of three vice presidents, was leaving by car from the heavily guarded Ministry of Public Works, which he also headed. The gunmen sprayed nearly 40 rounds into his vehicle, killing Qadir and his driver.

The gunmen, dressed in traditional, shawal khameez garments and wearing white skull caps, then jumped into a white car and escaped, police official Abdul Raouf Dad said.

All 10 uniformed security guards on duty at the ministry were arrested because they failed to react properly, Kabul police chief Din Mohammed Jurat said.

Karzai rushed to the 400-bed military hospital where Qadir’s body was taken and afterward summoned his Cabinet into emergency session.

Agriculture Minister Syed Hussain Anwari told The Associated Press that, during the Cabinet meeting, Karzai “expressed his great sadness for the loss of a great patriot and the hero of the nation.”

No group claimed responsibility. Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad called the killing a “terrorist action” carried out by “enemies of the state who are against peace in the country.”

President Bush said his administration stands ready to assist in the Afghan investigation if Karzai asks for help.

“We are more resolved than ever to bring stability to the country so that the Afghan people can have peace and hope,” Bush said in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Apart from Karzai himself, Qadir was the most prominent ethnic Pashtun in the government. He was appointed a vice president during last month’s Afghan grand council, or loya jirga, to bring ethnic balance into a government which had been dominated by ethnic Tajiks.

Qadir also served as governor of Nangarhar province, one of the richest areas of the country because of its extensive opium poppy fields and proximity to Pakistan.

Residents of Nangarhar’s capital, Jalalabad, suggested the killing could have stemmed from manifold personal, political and economic rivalries in the province.

Qadir was a leading rebel commander during the war against the Soviets in the 1980s. Later, he became one of the few prominent Pashtuns to join the Tajik- and Uzbek-dominated northern alliance, which allied with the United States during last year’s war against the Taliban.

His brother, Abdul Haq, was a legendary anti-Soviet commander hanged by the Taliban in October when he slipped into Afghanistan to organize Pashtun resistance to the hardline Islamic militia.

The slaying of such a prominent and powerful figure threatened to stir unrest in the strategic eastern area as the Karzai government struggles to extend its authority beyond the capital.

Mindful of that possibility, a member of the U.S. National Security Council staff was in touch with Karzai immediately after the killing, U.S. officials said.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher condemned the assassination of “an Afghan patriot.” Boucher’s statement said the killing “should not be allowed to divert the government and people of Afghanistan from the path of reconstruction.”

In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the “whole of the international community will stand alongside the Afghan people in their determination to rebuild their country, and not to have their efforts sabotaged by terrorism.”

In Berlin, the president of the German parliament, Wolfgang Thierse, said the assassination was “an assault on the nascent process of peace and democratization in Afghanistan.”

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero condemned the assassination and said France “is determined more than ever to play our part in mobilizing the international community to promote Afghanistan’s development and stability.”

Qadir’s personal history was colorful and often controversial. During the war against the Soviets, he belonged to the conservative Hezb-e-Islami party, whose leader, Yunus Khalis, allowed al-Qaida fighters to live on his farm during the Taliban regime.

As governor of Nangarhar in 1996, before the Taliban took power, Qadir welcomed Osama bin Laden when he arrived in Jalalabad from Sudan at the invitation of Qadir’s lieutenant, Engineer Mahmood.

During his four years as governor before the Taliban, Qadir was often criticized by the U.N. Drug Control Program for failing to curb poppy production.

Qadir was the second Cabinet minister assassinated since the Taliban collapsed last year. On Feb. 14, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Abdul Rahman was killed at Kabul airport under mysterious circumstances.

Rahman initially was reported killed by a mob of Muslim pilgrims angered that they had been unable to travel to Mecca.

Later, Karzai blamed Rahman’s killing on a conspiracy involving members of his own police and intelligence services and said it sprang from a personal vendetta. However, no one has been charged with the death and some of those publicly named remain in power.