KABUL, 12 June 2005 — Afghanistan yesterday launched a new drive to disarm militiamen, ordering more than 1,000 illegal armed groups to hand over their guns as the country prepares for a parliamentary election. US and NATO troops will be involved in the latest phase of a disarmament drive that has so far seen about 60,000 members of militia forces give up their weapons.

“This process is unconditional and all armed forces that are not part of government organs should surrender their weapons,” Vice President Mohammad Karim Khalili told a news conference. After decades of conflict Afghanistan is awash with weapons. Armed groups have proliferated, ranging from well-organized militias loyal to political leaders to small bands of gunmen.

Most of the militia forces have now been disarmed but up to 1,800 small, so-called illegal armed groups remain. Most of the groups have between 100 and 200 men, another government official told the news conference.

Meanwhile, at least 12 Afghan passengers were killed when a minibus and a US military vehicle were in collision yesterday in southern Afghanistan, officials said. The accident occurred on the Kandahar-Spin Boldak highway near the Pakistani border and US troops immediately cordoned off the area, Spin Boldak’s police chief Abdul Wasay said. “Today, a minibus had an accident with a US military vehicle on the Kandahar-Spin Boldak highway, in which 12 civilians have died,” Wasay said.

In another development, police have arrested five people over the abduction of a freed Italian aid worker, the Afghan government said yesterday, dismissing speculation her release was secured through a deal with the kidnappers. Clementina Cantoni’s release Thursday after more than three weeks in captivity followed a decision by the Afghan authorities to free the mother of one the alleged kidnappers, a government spokesman said.

Suspected kidnapper Timor Shah’s mother had been detained for questioning in connection with a separate abduction case ahead of Cantoni’s disappearance last month, Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP. Mashal said the government had declined to accept Shah’s demand that three other convicts be released in return for Cantoni, but said “we released Shah’s mother who was innocent and three others who were detained for questioning”.

The government made no deal to trade Cantoni for Shah’s mother, he said, insisting that the Afghan authorities could have released the woman earlier but delayed it after Cantoni’s kidnapping. Cantoni, 32, was snatched from her car at gunpoint in the center of the Afghan capital on May 16 in an incident that spread fear among the Afghan and foreign communities in Kabul.

Afghan police arrested five people in connection with Cantoni’s kidnapping prior to her release, Mashal said. The suspects were either relatives or friends of Shah, who was still at large. “Police have arrested five people in relation to Cantoni’s abduction and are still in the police custody,” he said.