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N. Alliance Sets Up Shop In Capital
By William Branigin and Keith B. Richburg
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 16 – Three days after capturing this capital from the Taliban, the Northern Alliance is increasingly assuming the functions of a new administration, to the alarm of Western powers seeking to promote a broad-based government to end the country's recent history of civil war and factional feuding. The alliance has taken over the former Taliban radio station and has begun to broadcast its own announcements on Radio Kabul. The alliance has also taken over key offices, moving staff into the defense, interior and foreign ministries and attempting to run the government. By seizing the levers of power, the Northern Alliance risks establishing a fait accompli. That would present problems for international diplomats as they seek to create an authority that includes all of Afghanistan's political and ethnic groups, avoiding a repetition of the civil war that killed 50,000 people in the early 1990s. In the latest example, the alliance's interior minister, Yonus Qanooni, today personally oversaw the efforts of his police force to enforce a new regulation barring fighters from carrying weapons in the capital. The intent is to clear the streets of armed alliance fighters and restrict security duties to uniformed police and designated military personnel. "As soon as we took control of Kabul, a lot of different divisions entered the city," said Amin Siddiqi, a spokesman for the Northern Alliance foreign ministry. Now, he said, it is the job of a newly formed security commission to "clean up the city of these troops not involved in the security of the city. These troops will be sent back to the front. The city will be guarded only by the police and security forces." Western leaders, who have struggled to put together a new government for Afghanistan, were growing increasingly frustrated. The Northern Alliance is led by many of the same men who ruled Afghanistan before the Taliban drove them from Kabul in 1996, and most countries still recognize the alliance's political leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, as the legitimate Afghan president. But the United States, Pakistan and other supporters of the U.S.-led military campaign have said the alliance cannot simply reclaim power, but rather must become part of a broad-based, multi-ethnic government that would replace the Taliban. The U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said the Northern Alliance was obstructing urgent efforts to arrange a meeting on the country's political future. He said the alliance and other Afghan parties "while directing the fighting, are very busy in Kabul." He added, "We will go only as fast as the Afghans are willing to go. Unless we have answers and expressions of readiness to meet from the Afghans, obviously we cannot meet." A planned U.N. flight to Kabul carrying Brahimi's deputy was postponed because of what a spokesman described as "difficulties in insuring the United Nations aircraft." In another sign of discord, aides to former king Mohammed Zahir Shah in Rome expressed concern that the Northern Alliance appeared unwilling to take part in a U.N.-sponsored meeting and suggested the meeting might not happen. Also, Russia, which has supported the Northern Alliance with military gear, announced it was sending officials to Kabul to make contact with the alliance, which Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov called the "lawful government" of Afghanistan. The result is a political vacuum in the country, a military void in the capital and mounting pressure by different militia and ethnic groups to step in and lay claims. Many outsiders have expressed fear that the country could slip back to the situation that existed in the early 1990s, when warring militia groups laid siege to the capital. "We should not rewind the film back to that era and relive this movie again," said a senior government official in Turkey who is familiar with the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition's military and political debates on Afghanistan. He said many countries are willing to donate humanitarian assistance, participate in military peacekeeping and help Afghanistan craft a diverse, representative and stable government. But the decision-making process among the players is "disorganized" and "a mess," he said. For instance, while Turkey, the only Muslim country in NATO, has pledged to play a leadership role in peacekeeping, the size of the force, which countries will contribute troops, who will command it and pay for it, and when and where troops will be deployed are all open questions, he said, with no deadline for answering them. "Nobody has their act together," he said. "There's no sync between the military and political aspects. We're just improvising." Officially, the Northern Alliance says it is committed to a transfer of power. But with top alliance officials setting up shop in key ministries, there are concerns that a new government might become entrenched. "People are talking about a broad-based government, but it is not set up yet," Siddiqi, the alliance foreign ministry spokesman, said. "We are waiting for a broad-based government and a total solution for the country." At the same time, he noted, the Islamic State of Afghanistan, as the 1992-96 government was known, is still recognized by the United Nations as the country's legitimate government and continues to maintain embassies in various countries. But while a number of ministers and other top officials have moved into their former offices in Kabul, Rabbani has stayed away, reportedly under pressure from alliance leaders who fear his presence in the capital could signal a formal resumption of power. In part to help ensure a balance of power in the parts of the country the alliance now controls, the international coalition against terrorism is deploying troops from Britain, France and Turkey in Afghanistan. Some alliance leaders have said they oppose a foreign military presence in Afghanistan, arguing that the alliance can ensure security on its own. But they have expressed willingness to work with the United Nations.
Correspondent John Ward Anderson in Istanbul contributed to this report.
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America at War
