Kabul warns northern warlords

Following a ceasefire signed on 9 October after serious fighting between two feuding warlords in Afghanistan's troubled north, the interior ministry told IRIN that Kabul had told Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum and Gen Ata Mohammad - the two warlords responsible for the violence - that they would be removed from their government posts if they violated the fragile peace agreement. "We have warned the two generals that if they fail to stick to the agreement and create any disturbance the government will seriously decide on their fate and they will be sacked from their current positions and will not have any role in the government now and in future," Helaluddin Helal, the Afghan deputy interior minister, said. Ata Mohammad heads the mainly Tajik Jamiat-e Eslami (JE) faction and is military commander of Mazar-e Sharif city, while Dostum, a former communist general and currently President Hamid Karzai's security adviser for northern Afghanistan, heads the mainly Uzbek Jonbesh-e Melli-ye Eslami (JME) group. Dostum and Ata Mohammad have been vying for control of northern Afghanistan, along with a third ethnic militia, the Hazaras' Hezb-e Wahdat-e Eslami (HWE). According to the ministry, both commanders have been summoned to be in Kabul next Saturday to reaffirm the ceasefire. But there appears to be official scepticism over whether the deal will stick. "All those armed groups are ignorant and illiterate people, they do not care to abide what is agreed," Helal pointed out. The United Nations in Kabul reported that conditions around Mazar-e Sharif had improved significantly and there was normal civilian traffic in the former troubled areas. "The situation in Mazar-e-Sharif, mainly in the west where the fighting took place, is reported to be calm with the agreements of 9 and 11 October," Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA), said on Thursday. He said gunmen loyal to the two faction leaders had withdrawn, while armoured vehicles from the JE and JME had returned to their respective bases at Marmol and Sheberghan As a result of the ceasefire, the UN announced that it had lifted its ban on road travel to the area. "On Tuesday, all suspensions on UN road missions from Mazar-e Sharif on roads going west to Sheberghan were lifted," the spokesman said, noting that verification of the situation in villages of Asya-ye Sharaf, Sara-ye-Asya and Shakazin in Chemtal District were still ongoing. "UN road missions to these particular locations are yet to be reviewed." Mazar-e Sharif-based British Provincial Reconstruction Teams and UNAMA are continuing to verify the regional security picture. "UN road missions and activities in Meymaneh and Faryab have also resumed, following suspensions which were put in place after the fighting on 7 October," de Almeida e Silva underlined. The recent fighting between the two factions was the worst in six months, and reportedly claimed over 80 lives. The interior ministry put the death toll at much lower figure. The Afghan government also announced on 9 October that 300 Kabul-based police would be deployed to Mazar-e Sharif to boost regional security. According to Afghan officials, the police in Mazar-e Sharif are currently divided between the Tajik-dominated JE, the Uzbek-dominated JME and the and the Hazara-dominated HWE, a state of affairs which has led to calls for a neutral national police to take charge of the city. Kabul said the 300 new police were mandated to patrol the city and control key security posts together with the local police.