KABUL, 8 July — Security officials arrested a man with a bomb in the eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad yesterday, just before the body of the slain Afghan Vice President Haji Abdul Qadir arrived in the city for burial.
City security chief Ajab Shah was quoted by the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) agency as saying the man was arrested near the house of Qadir where the body was brought for the family to view.
Shah said the man was an Afghan from Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital.
He declined to give further details. AIP said Jalalabad city was closed but calm and security was tight.
Security was intense in the capital yesterday as a jittery Afghanistan buried its vice president who was gunned down outside his office in Kabul by unknown assailants on Saturday.
Helicopters buzzed overhead and white-helmeted police manned checkpoints on roads leading to the Eid Gah mosque. Marksmen watched from rooftops as the coffin, sprinkled with red and white roses, passed thousands of mourners gathered along the route of the cortege.
The assassination of Qadir has sparked fears of fresh instability in a country struggling to build peace after decades of war. Qadir was buried with full military honors.
Tempers frayed, however, and at one point in the morning an Afghan soldier slapped a Japanese woman photographer and raised his rifle at a colleague who tried to protect her.
Thousands of mourners thronged the route of the cortege, some weeping openly as the coffin passed.
After the brief ceremony was over, government officials accompanied the body for burial to the eastern city of Jalalabad where Qadir — a former anti-Soviet Mujahedeen leader — was once governor and still retained a power base. On reaching Jalalabad, the coffin was taken to the family home.
Male mourners made their way to Qadir’s home in the governor’s residence in Jalalabad, a one-time retreat for Afghanistan’s former King Mohammad Zahir Shah.
Seven shots were fired into the air as Qadir’s coffin was lowered in to a burial plot at the Baghi Amir Shahid mosque in central Jalalabad.
Qadir’s death represents a serious setback to Karzai’s efforts to build a stable government capable of leading the country out of 23 years of war toward elections in 18 months time.
Officials have still not named any suspects, but police have arrested 10 security guards who were supposed to have been keeping watch when Qadir was slain.
Qadir, like dozens of other Afghan warlords, had made many enemies over the years as he strengthened his position as a leading businessman, tribal elder of the majority Pashtun and politician.
His death touched a nerve among relatives, friends and ordinary Afghans.
In another incident unidentified attackers fired four missiles at Khost airport in eastern Afghanistan Saturday night but caused no damage, a news report said yesterday. (The Independent)
