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KABUL - Assassinated Afghan minister Abdul Rahman was buried today as fresh violence in the capital raised new fears about the country's fragile security.
Several hundred troops, their rifles fitted with bayonets, escorted the coffin carrying the body of the interim government's air transport and tourism minister, whose killing the country's leadership said was plotted by senior government officials.
Interim leader Hamid Karzai, who led a sombre funeral procession, said: "This event again proves that we need to save ourselves from the oppression of the gun and the force of the knife."
The murder, an attack on international peacekeepers on Saturday and chaos outside a soccer match in Kabul on Friday, underscored the problems facing Afghanistan's UN-backed interim government as it struggles to reconcile rival factions and rebuild a volatile nation recovering from years of war.
The interim government took power in December after an American-led military campaign succeeded in overthrowing the hard-line Islamic Taleban regime that harboured the al Qaeda militant network of Osama bin Laden, blamed for the September 11 attacks on America.
In the capital, Kabul, an observation post of the International Security Assistance Force manned by British soldiers came under fire from unidentified gunmen early on Saturday.
The British paratroopers returned fire and the gunmen sped away in a vehicle, international security force chief of staff Colonel Richard Barons told reporters. No paratroopers were wounded and they evacuated the post.
The attack was the first against the 17-nation force of around 4000 deployed in late December to help maintain security in Kabul. The first contingent of Turkish troops arrived on Saturday to join the force.
Three government officials are suspected of involvement in the death of Rahman, the aviation minister who was once a senior figure in the Northern Alliance which now dominates the interim government, but who later switched his allegiance to Afghanistan's former king, Zahir Shah.
The government did not say how Rahman was killed but earlier reports and witnesses said he was pulled off an airliner and beaten to death by a mob -- at first thought to be Muslim pilgrims angry at being unable to make a pilgrimage to Mecca.
"This tragic incident was the result of a personal vendetta and private hostilities of a group of people. It has no political roots," Information Minister Raheen Makhdoom said.
However, others described the killing as a warning to supporters of the ex-king.
Makhdoom said the three officials suspected of involvement in the killing flew to Saudi Arabia late on Thursday on a plane taking people to perform the haj.
He identified the three as the head of political affairs of the national security department, Gen. Abdullah Jan Tawhidi, deputy defence minister for technical affairs, Gen. Qalandar Beg and an attorney called Halim.
The US special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, told US television Saudi Arabia had agreed to return the suspects. But an official in Karzai's office said Saturday that Riyadh had yet to reply. And the Gulf kingdom itself said it had not received an official request for their extradition.
- REUTERS
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Peacekeepers under fire as Afghan minister buried
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