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Afghan President Fires Top Provincial Officials
Monday, November 4, 2002
By Todd Pitman
Associated Press Writer

"We will try by political means, or by conversation or negotiations, to
convince these people to accept these decisions. There will be a little trouble of course. Nobody wants to leave voluntarily. But the people were against them, and that means the people and the government will join hands to bring these changes."

KABUL, Afghanistan -- AP
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has fired between
15 and 20 top civil and military chiefs across the country, accusing them of corruption and abuse of power, officials said Sunday.

The move came after an emergency Cabinet meeting late Saturday, presidential spokesman Sayed Fazel Akbar told reporters in the capital, Kabul.

The decision targets high-ranking officials in Kandahar, Logar, Balkh, Paktika, Nimruz and Farah provinces, Akbar said. They include security and intelligence chiefs, brigade commanders, customs directors, finance chiefs and a mayor.

But Karzai's government has little authority outside Kabul, despite a new national army numbering about 1,000 men. Most of the countryside is the realm of powerful warlords -- some tenuously allied to Karzai -- who command huge private armies of their own.
(More: The Napa Valley Register News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

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