Luke Harding: A New War is Brewing in Afghanistan

The scene was faintly reminiscent of Julius Caesar. Lying in a freshly dug grave was Afghanistan's murdered aviation minister, Abdul Rahman. As rain drizzled down on Kabul's muddy cemetery, Afghanistan's interior minister, Younis Qanooni, stepped forward. Dr Rahman, gruesomely murdered on his own plane, was a fine man who survived imprisonment by the Russians, Mr Qanooni said. He came back from exile only to meet an untimely death, he added. There was only one thing troubling about Mr Qanooni's funeral tribute - the fact that his own intelligence chief appears to have played a key role in bumping off Dr Rahman, the man lying in the ground.

Two weeks ago Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, accused three members of his own government of murdering Dr Rahman when he was besieged by angry pilgrims whose plane to Mecca had failed to turn up. What, then, does this tale of post-Taliban assassination mean for Afghanistan? The answer is depressing: that Afghanistan is now in real danger of sliding back into civil war. Rockets are not yet raining down on Kabul. And we have not returned to 1992-1996 when rival mojahedin factions shelled each other, during the bleak pre-Taliban era. But the seeds of future conflict are being sown by a political settlement that gives too large a role to the Taliban's old adversaries - the Tajiks - and too small a one to the ousted militia's own ethnic group, the Pashtuns.

The three officials who apparently killed Dr Rahman are all members of Jamiat-i-Islami, the Tajik party (and faction of the Northern Alliance) that effectively runs the country's new administration. There are whispers that Dr Rahman's unIslamic lifestyle - he liked parties and women - may have brought about his undoing. But the most credible explanation for his murder is political revenge. Many of Rahman's former Jamiat colleagues grew to view him as a traitor when he defected from the party in the 1990s and joined the royalist camp of Afghanistan's exiled king, Mohammad Zahir Shah.

The fact that his enemies felt bold enough to plunge a knife, Cassius-like, into him soon after getting jobs in government is ominous. Jamiat troops took over Kabul last November after the Taliban's speedy departure. In the Bonn agreement that followed, the party was generously rewarded. It got the defence, interior, justice and foreign affairs ministries. It also controls the security and intelligence services.

Hamid Karzai is Pashtun, the ethnic group which makes up about 40% of the population, while the Tajiks account for 25%. But increasingly he seems isolated and vulnerable, even within his own administration. Critics wonder whether he is much more than an American puppet. Mr Karzai is still rapturously received abroad: he meets the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today in Delhi. But he controls little of Afghanistan beyond his presidential palace in Kabul. And unlike the old mojahedin warlords now back in power, he doesn't have an army.

Since reoccupying Kabul, Jamiat has appointed its own supporters to crucial civil service posts. Many of the government's new advisers are decent, educated and pleasant, a refreshing change from the obscurantists who used to haunt the Taliban's ministries. The problem is that the new appointees are almost exclusively Tajik. Sooner or later this imbalance is likely to cause resentment in the Pashtun-dominated south.

Britain is meanwhile preparing to do the one thing most likely to bring about another civil war: clear off. The government has said it wants all its 4,000 peacekeeping troops to leave Kabul by mid-April. Mr Straw has been trying to persuade Turkey to take over Britain's lead role in the International Security Assistance Force when its three-month term is up. But the Turks do not appear to want the job.

Britain should instead commit to Afghanistan for the long haul and send peacekeepers outside Kabul, where they could be of real use. Some of the interim authority's Tajik ministers also need to be convinced to hand over their portfolios to Pashtuns when a permanent government in Kabul is formed later this year. If they do not, then a new war is clearly on the cards.

The Taliban are currently demoralised. Those members of the regime not yet in US custody are hiding out in the tribal regions of Pakistan. But forces that once supported the Taliban - and have now trimmed their beards and dumped their black turbans - will not remain dormant indefinitely. Unless they are included in the political process, they are likely to stir up trouble. Nobody wants the Taliban back. But even their most grudging critics conceded that during their brutal stint in office they brought peace. It would be a dark irony if the international coalition that turfed out the Taliban should preside over another dismal war in Afghanistan.

luke.harding@mantraonline.com