BONN - Rival Afghan groups meeting in Germany last night took a historic first step to bringing peace to Afghanistan by agreeing to share power in a post-Taleban interim government.
After more than a week of negotiations, they approved a United Nations blueprint providing for a six-month interim administration, followed by
an 18-month transitional government, as well as an international security force.
The accord also gives a symbolic role to 87-year-old former king Mohammed Zahir Shah, who would preside over a Loya Jirga, or traditional grand assembly of elders, six months after the deal is put into effect.
"There was jubilation when the meeting was adjourned," said Ahmad Fawzi, the spokesman of UN special representative for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi.
He said all four Afghan groups - including the Northern Alliance and exiled royalists - had proposed nominees for government jobs, removing a key hurdle to the formation of an administration.
The alliance has put forward ethnic Pashtun royalist and tribal leader Hamid Karzai as interim prime minister to head a planned 29-member cabinet. Diplomats said Karzai was likely to be chosen in preference to the ethnic Uzbek royalist Abdul Sattar Sirat, proposed by the ex-king's delegation.
The alliance's three ethnic Tajik leaders - Yunus Qanooni, Abdullah Abdullah and General Mohammad Qasim Fahim - have been nominated to hold the interior, defence, and foreign ministries.
Fawzi said the groups had agreed to a UN-mandated international security force in Kabul and its surroundings "in whatever form it might take".
The accord also stipulates the demilitarisation of Kabul if a UN-mandated security force is deployed.
It also provides for a supreme court to exercise judicial power under Afghanistan's 1964 constitution, and independent human rights and civil service commissions.
The interim authority will not be able to grant amnesty "to persons who have committed serious violations" of human rights, which the UN reserves the right to investigate.
After the alliance's old-guard president, Burhanuddin Rabbani hands over power, the interim authority will take Afghanistan's seat at the UN.
Within a month of the power transfer, a 21-member independent commission for the convening of an emergency Loya Jirga will be formed. The Loya Jirga will represent settled and nomadic populations, religious and ethnic groups, refugees, civil society activists, scholars and traders.
It will decide on the composition of a transitional authority to rule Afghanistan for a further 18 months.
Then a constitutional Loya Jirga will be held, to agree on a new constitution. On this, the draft accord describes the interim arrangements as a "first step towards the establishment of a broad-based, gender-sensitive, multi-ethnic and fully representative government".
For security, the accord states that Afghanistan's military factions will come under the command of the interim authority. The parties to the accord would "request the UN Security Council to consider authorising the early deployment of a UN-mandated force."
It also calls for help from the international community to establish and train new Afghan security and armed forces.
The UN would act as a guarantor to prevent outside interference in the country, and would begin a census to register voters for a general election to take place after the adoption of a constitution.
The UN also committed itself to ensure the delivery of reconstruction aid, and the setting up of assistance funds for war victims and their families, and a fund to help stop farmers growing illicit drugs.
In other developments yesterday:
* The United States issued a fresh warning of possible, unspecified attacks and put the US population on a state of high alert for the third time since the September 11 assaults on New York and Washington.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said US intelligence and law enforcement agencies had picked up a higher quantity of threats, leading to the new warning to 18,000 law-enforcement agencies.
The Washington Post reported that fear al Qaeda might be close to developing a "dirty bomb" was a factor in the decision to issue a new warning.
The newspaper said the alert was raised after interrogations of captured al Qaeda members and evidence gathered in the past month at al Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan by CIA officers and US special forces.
* US aircraft bombed targets near the last Taleban stronghold in Afghanistan and a suspected mountain lair of Osama bin Laden.
In a sign of worsening security in northern Afghanistan, a UN spokesman said factional fighting made it unsafe for UN international staff to return to Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Afghan Islamic Press said US jets also struck around a suspected bin Laden mountain hideout in the eastern Tora Bora region, killing 58 people.
It said about 20 US special forces had arrived in eastern Jalalabad, possibly to plot a ground operation in Tora Bora.
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Afghan rivals sign deal to share power
BONN - Rival Afghan groups meeting in Germany last night took a historic first step to bringing peace to Afghanistan by agreeing to share power in a post-Taleban interim government.
After more than a week of negotiations, they approved a United Nations blueprint providing for a six-month interim administration, followed by
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