Afghanistan's leader-in-waiting Hamid Karzai was in Kandahar Sunday in a bid to resolve a dispute between rival factions threatening to return the province to pre-Taliban chaos, a family source said.
Karzai had gone to the Islamic militia's former bastion to bring former Kandahar governor Gul Agha and the man handed control of the province after the Taliban surrender, Mullah Naqibullah, to the negotiating table and set up a power-sharing shura (council) to administer the province, the source said.
Karzai brokered a deal late last week to ensure a handover of the Taliban's headquarters to former mujahedin commander Naqibullah, but the agreement has angered Agha who has since occupied his former official residence in the city.
"Hamid arrived this morning. He is hoping to form a shura for the province after the warring groups agree to settle their differences," the Karzai family source said.
The talks began as evidence emerged that the situation in the city was deteriorating, with gunfire being heard during the night and armed men seen on the streets Sunday.
As Agha and Naqibullah squared up to each other, residents said there had been looting of private property.
"The offices of international aid groups and governmental premises were looted on the very first day (Friday) by armed and local people. Now they have started looting civilian houses," a Kandahar resident told AFP by telephone in Kabul.
The resident said that armed men were making up any excuse as a pretext to justify their crime spree.
"They have been stealing private cars. They just want to find a pretext, for example having links with the Taliban, then your house and car will be looted," the resident said.
Some shops were open Sunday but most remained close. Scattered gunfire could be heard during the day but the bombing of the city by US jets seemed to have been halted overnight although warplanes could still be heard flying at night.
The resident also reported seeing Westerners entering the governor's residence on Saturday afternoon after six cars arrived at the building.
"There were Americans and armed men of Gul Agha. They might have talked with Gul Agha himself and after a few hours they left towards the airport."
A CNN reporter in Kandahar reported that a group of US Special Forces troops had been seen in the city.
US Marines have set up a base south of Kandahar and have been searching the surrounding countryside for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and members of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Up to 150 tribal elders and religious leaders also arrived in Kandahar Sunday after travelling from this southwestern city where both Karzai and Agha have been based for much of the last seven years of Taliban rule.
A close aide of Agha's told AFP Sunday that the ball was in Naqibullah's court as his troops were outnumbered.
"Mullah Naqib is only in his military headquarters. We have encircled the city," said Qayyum Jan. "We sent some neutral people to see him and tell him to surrender or fight. We are waiting for his response."
The aide also acknowledged that five of Agha's men were killed in clashes with Naqibullah supporters on Friday.
Another Agha family source said the former governor was determined to regain control of the province which he lost to the Taliban in November 1994.
"He believes that he and his troops made many sacrifices in the fight against terrorism."
Kandahar was bedeviled by factional infighting between rival warlords in the early 1990s, one of the main factors behind the rise of the Taliban who took control of the province in November 1994 and rapidly imposed its hardline interpretation of Islamic law – Quetta (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
