KABUL, 31 July 2003 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday announced that urgent reforms at the Defense Ministry would start in the next few days, paving the way for a long-awaited program to demobilize and disarm some 100,000 militiamen.
“I have good news for you and that is that basic reforms for betterment of affairs in the Ministry of Defense are going to start soon,” Karzai said in an address to a symposium on national security sector reform organized by the United States Office of Military Cooperation.
“This will result in a structure that will make Afghanistan’s future army more experienced and more powerful. In the coming few days the defense minister of Afghanistan will announce some changes and appointments. After that the process of gathering weapons and demobilization will start,” he told the audience of provincial governors, ministers and representatives of the international community.
The United Nations has called for the urgent implementation of reforms to make the Defense Ministry and army more representative of the country’s ethnic and regional mix. Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim has been accused of packing the ministry and new national army with fellow Tajiks.
US military chief Gen, Richard Myers was due to meet with Fahim later yesterday to discuss reform efforts. The United States is leading efforts to train and rebuild the new national army, which currently numbers 5,000, against an expected eventual strength of 70,000.
“In the past two years there has been a lot of progress in different sectors, but there is a lot more to be done, especially in the security sector which deals with defense of the country, and has a direct impact on the daily lives of families.
“We appreciate what has been done up to now but is it enough? We have to do more,” Karzai said. The Japanese-led program to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate some 100,000 militiamen across the country is seen as an important step toward improving security and extending the reach of Karzai’s government beyond Kabul to the provinces, which remain largely under the sway of warlords and militias with nominal allegiance to the president.
Meanwhile, US-led troops are facing a new and potentially deadly threat — exploding pens carried by children, a spokesman said yesterday.
Two Afghan boys wounded by an exploding pen were brought to a coalition medical post in Uruzgan province last Thursday, US military spokesman Col. Rodney Davis told a news conference, referring to pens rigged with explosives.
“The pen exploded when one of the boys removed the cap,” he said. Davis said the following day a boy approached a coalition patrol to offer a pen, but was turned away. “There are reports of anti-coalition forces using typically non-threatening children, women and handicapped people to approach coalition forces with exploding pens as a method of attack,” he said. “I can only characterize the use of children to behave in such a manner as despicable.”
