KHOST, Afghanistan, 23 April 2004 — Thousands of supporters of ethnic Pushtun warlord Padsha Khan staged a demonstration in southeastern Afghan city of Khost yesterday to press President Hamid Karzai for a role in government. More than 6,000 people, mostly from Khan’s Zadran tribe, threatened to cut off the road link to Kabul if the tribe were not given a share in the administration, witnesses said.
Padsha, leader of the Zadran which is considered the largest clan in the region, has in the past made several attempts to take control of Khost and the neighboring province of Paktia. He staged a rebellion against Karzai-appointed governor of Khost following the ouster of the Taleban regime in 2002 after tribal elders prevented him from taking power.
Karzai pardoned him in February after he was arrested by Pakistani police and handed over the Afghan security forces. The demonstration by his tribe yesterday indicated Padsha was reviving his claim to power.
“Karzai had promised us that he will appoint my brother Amanullah Khan Zadran as Khost governor,” Padsha told AFP. “But Karzai did not full fill his promises.”
Padsha and his brothers helped the US-led forces in ousting Taleban from southeastern Afghanistan in 2001, but became Karzai’s opponents after they were denied senior government positions.
The protesters warned that if the government did not take their demands seriously they would block the road linking Khost and the nearby province of Paktia which connects the region with Kabul. The tribe’s renewed demand follows a recent announcement by Karzai that he would reshuffle his transitional administration.
Karzai, meanwhile, ordered the information and law ministries to prevent publication of materials and screening of films which run contrary to Islamic and Afghan traditions, a news report said.
He urged them to prevent the spread of “morally obscene and subversive” materials, Afghan Islamic Press said.
Since the fall of the Taliban, two cinemas in Kabul have been screening modern Indian movies featuring music and tantalizing dances which most Afghan conservatives consider “obscene”.
Karzai appealed to Afghans to help the government in the enforcement of the order and directed the courts to take “strict” action against the violators. The order comes two weeks after the country’s Chief Justice Maulvi Fazal Hadi Shinwari warned that un-Islamic activities including obscenity, prostitution and drinking liquor were on the rise in the country.
In another development, Afghan and international security forces have arrested 17 people suspected of planning attacks in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, the International Assistance Security Force here said yesterday.
Three were caught near Kabul’s Olympic Stadium late Wednesday and another was found at a different location with an improvised explosive device and three detonators in his waistcoat, ISAF said in a statement.
The 13 others were arrested after an ISAF and Afghan National Directorate for Security raid on a suspected “terrorist cell” in Kabul on Wednesday, it said.
They were all allegedly involved in a plot to carry out attacks in Kabul, including by supplying explosive material to militants planning attacks on US-led coalition forces and Afghan government targets, the ISAF said.
