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CNN Sunday Morning

Afghanistan Mourns Loss of Vice President

Aired July 07, 2002 - 07:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A nation's in mourning after the assassination of Vice President Haji Abdul Qadir. CNN's Nic Robertson is on the phone in Kabul to talk more about where the mourners have been paying their respects today -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, about two to 3,000 mourners merge at the main mosque in Kabul, the Eid Gah mosque. They gathered there along with all of the government ministers, we are told, and listened to half an hour of funeral prayers. Following that service, Haji Abdul Qadir's funeral casket covered in the Afghan flag with flowers scattered on top of it was carried shoulder high to awaiting helicopters.

Those helicopters taking him to the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. That is Haji Abdul Qadir's hometown, and it is there that he is being buried this afternoon. He is being missed by many Afghans. He was very popular among many of the ethnic Pashtun group that he came from. He was an important stabilizing influence for the Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the fledgling government here.

He represented the Pashtun ethnic group of whom many had felt the ethnic Tajik group from northern Afghanistan had too much power in the new government here, and that was one of the reasons why he came to be a vice president in Kabul. In Jalalabad he has been a very, very strong and powerful figure and will no doubt be missed there.

PHILLIPS: Nic, what's next for Hamid Karzai? Undoubtedly he's under a lot of pressure right now, especially his relationship with the U.S. Is he going to move to replace this position? I know they are not easy shoes to fill.

ROBERTSON: It would -- it would seem very likely that he would need to bring in another senior Pashtun figure with power and influence. It is not clear who that person might be at this stage, but certainly there would be a lot of pressure on him from Pashtun element to do that, to see the power balance redressed in the new government here.

He is also under pressure because there are developments elsewhere in Afghanistan, in the eastern Afghan town of Khowst in the last couple of days. Two smaller warlords have started fighting to such a degree that the coalition forces who have a small Special Forces base in the town of Khowst have had to suspend their operations to hunt for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. So at this time Hamid Karzai faces problems on many front, not least of which, as you mentioned, his close association or the way that many people view him here being closely associated with the United States in the same week that there was bombing following a coalition forces operation that killed several Afghans in the south of Afghanistan -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Our Nic Robertson, live from Kabul. Thanks, Nic.

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