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CNN Saturday Morning News

Afghan Deputy President Killed

Aired July 06, 2002 - 07:03   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.
ROBIN MEADE, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we're going to head first to Afghanistan for you to get the latest on what we told you about at the top of the hour, the killing of a vice president -- or, rather, I think what's called a deputy president there in Afghanistan.

Also more on the investigation into that deadly U.S. attack that left a number of Afghan civilians dead.

CNN's Nic Robertson is standing by at Bagram Air Base. Nic, good morning to you. I suppose you're going to start with the assassination, it appears, of a deputy president there in Afghanistan.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed.

Haji Abdul Qadir was gunned down as he was going into his offices about three hours ago in Kabul. He was driving into those offices with his driver when gunmen approached the vehicle. They opened fire. We're told 36 shots were fired into the windscreen and into the side of the vehicle as well. Both he and the driver were killed.

He's also the minister of reconstruction. But more importantly, he is a Pashtun leader here. He has been -- he is very powerful and very well respected in the east of Afghanistan where he was a governor of the Nangarhar province around Jalalabad in the east of Afghanistan before the Taliban came here.

And he was, after the Taliban left, made again governor of that province. But because of feelings in Afghanistan that the Northern Alliance, the Tajik-dominated group that helped sweep the Taliban from power, had so much power in Kabul, he was asked to come to Kabul to join the president, Hamid Karzai, also a Pashtun.

This will be seen by many Pashtuns as a blow for their -- the strengthening of their power position within the power structure, within the administration in Afghanistan, and it will be a blow for the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai.

Haji Qadir was a very powerful ally and had a very strong following -- Robin.

MEADE: Let's talk about the security that is in place for these folks who are the leaders of the nation there in Afghanistan. What kind of security did he have? ROBERTSON: Well, he was provided with a security guard from his predecessor, who previously had the position of minister of reconstruction, that numbered, we understand, approximately 10 guards, who, we've been told at this time, have been placed under arrest. It's not clear if they're implicated in this crime at this time, but they have, we are told, been put under arrest.

In the city of Kabul itself, security has generally been widely viewed to be guaranteed and assured by the ISAPF, International Security and Protection Force that's inside Afghanistan, numbering to some four -- approximately 4,000 soldiers. At any time, small groups of those can be seen patrolling the capital of Kabul.

However, it does have to be said they can't be everywhere all the time. Weapons, as has been blatantly clear for a long time in Afghanistan, are in the hands of many, many people here. There have, of course, been efforts over the last six or seven months to get the guns off the streets and out of the capital, Kabul.

And on the face of it, that appears to have happened. People don't blatantly carry them in the streets as they used to. However, there has been no mass handing in of weapons. Weapons are pretty much freely available here.

So it's probably -- likely going to be quite a tough job to find out who the perpetrators of this crime were. The government's calling them terrorists. But with so many weapons in the country, the possibilities are quite wide -- Robin.

MEADE: Nic, before you go, obviously this breaking news is on the top of our minds, but also all week, a lot of people have been talking about an incident involving U.S. forces, and there've been preliminary findings today, we understand, that U.S. forces in an incident earlier this week unintentionally killed 48 civilians. Talk to me a little bit about the latest on that finding.

ROBERTSON: Well, the latest on that is, there is still not really an agreement between the official Afghan figures of some 40 or so, as you say, dead and 120 or so injured. That does not quite line up with what the coalition investigators found when they were in the Oriskan (ph) province for two days earlier this week investigating that incident.

They couldn't tally the number of dead, and they couldn't tally the number of injured. However, at a briefing today given by the head of the coalition forces, General Dan McNeill, and by Afghanistan's foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, both leaders tried to put a positive face on what had happened.

Dr. Abdullah saying that it was important for coalition forces to avoid civilian casualties, but he also said that the people of Afghanistan understood the need for coalition forces to be here to try and get rid of the Taliban and al Qaeda. And he said that was something that he felt most Afghans were very supportive of coalition forces. For his part, General McNeill said that it was never an intention to target -- to -- civilians, that they would be everything they can, coalition forces do everything they can to avoid civilian casualties. But further than that, he said that, that, that the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) possibility of, of, of this sort of thing happening again would be minimalized by steps that they would take -- Robin.

MEADE: Nic Robertson, thank you so much, live for us today in Afghanistan. And we'll be talking to him later throughout the morning show as well.

Right now, we're going to turn to our Afghan analyst, Eric Margolis. He is the author of "War at the Top of the World." That is a book about Afghanistan.

And Eric has been kind enough to join us on the phone now from Toronto. Eric, good morning to you.

ERIC MARGOLIS, CNN AFGHANISTAN ANALYST: Good morning.

MEADE: I'd like to talk a little bit about the breaking news that we have this morning that one of the deputy vice presidents there in Afghanistan has been assassinated, and that would be Abdul Qadir.

Are you familiar with the work of Mr. Qadir?

MARGOLIS: Yes, I knew him quite well in the early 1990s when I was in Afghanistan. In fact, I was a guest in his home, or his tribal home in Jalalabad. And his men were assigned to protect me on a number of occasions on missions out in the field.

So he was both my host and protector, and, I must say, one of the finest Afghans that I have met.

MEADE: I'm sure that you got to know him very well there during that time. Any ideas or, you know, the word this morning, obviously, is that there are no ideas about who may have done this, that it was an act of terrorism. But how do you feel, or what do you know about the security there for him in Afghanistan? What did he say about that?

MARGOLIS: Well, I remember him telling me that the importance of always having two Jeepfuls of bodyguards, one in front of you and one behind you, to prevent you being ambushed. But, you know, when people want to kill you, it's -- they can often do it if they're patient enough. He was probably tracked, and they waited till there was a good opportunity and struck.

This is a major blow to the United States, to American efforts to pacify Afghanistan and maintain a government that Washington works with. The reason is that he was the major Pashtun, ethnic Pashtun figure in the government, which was largely dominated, as we've heard, by Tajiks and Uzbeks from the north.

He's long cooperated with the CIA, and, in fact, his brother, Abdul Haq, whom I knew also very well, even better, was the man that the CIA sent into Afghanistan to try and topple the Taliban. And he was captured and hanged.

So this is a double tragedy for the family.

MEADE: As you might imagine, obviously, yes. What might this do, in your opinion and to your knowledge, to any more claims from Afghanistan that, hey, more need -- more money is needed for this reconstruction, because of situations just like this? We need more security, things need to be built, there needs to be more stability. What say you?

MARGOLIS: Well, I've been saying that the U.S. is steadily getting sucked deeper and deeper into the lethal tribal politics of Afghanistan, and this is a setback. You know, this was the man, Haji Abdul Haq, was the man who was designated to hand out American money to tribal leaders. He was the chief bagman, if you will, for the Karzai administration, as minister of reconstruction.

So this is a double blow to the U.S., because he was the most dependable and probably the most honest man in the administration. He's gone, and the most important Pashtun is gone.

MEADE: Eric Margolis, thank you for your time this morning. So obviously a tough day for many people who knew this deputy vice president there in Afghanistan, and obviously for you as well, because you said you knew him. Eric, thank you, take care.

MARGOLIS: You're welcome.

MEADE: All right.

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