As military actions continued in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who takes power as Afghanistan's interim leader on Dec. 22, mediated a compromise Sunday between feuding factions in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, news reports from the southern Afghan city said Monday.
The News, a Pakistani daily, reported that under the power-sharing deal, former Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai will resume the post he held until the Taliban kicked him out in 1994, while his rival Naqeeb Ullah, a former mujahideen commander to whom the Taliban surrendered the city on Friday, was named as his deputy.
The meeting between the rival anti-Taliban factions was held at the bombed-out former residence of Taliban supreme leader Mohammed Omar.
''I will run the administration of Kandahar with the advice of the local people, tribal elders and mujahedeen commanders,'' BBC quoted Gul Agha Sherzai as saying.
Hamid Karzai reportedly told the BBC he had asked all local commanders to accept the decision to re-install Gul Agha as governor. He also denied that there was a problem with law and order in the city.
It was earlier reported that fighting had broken out in Kandahar on Friday between forces loyal to Gul Agha and Naqeeb Ullah, leaving four people dead.
A local resident who reached the Pakistani border town of Chaman on Sunday reportedly told the BBC that gunfire could still be heard, while BBC said that earlier on Sunday, a tribal commander said that overnight clashes between troops loyal to Mullah Naqibullah and supporters of Gul Agha had continued during the day.
But Khalid Pashtoon, spokesman for Gul Agha, was quoted as saying that the report was ''lies'' and that Kandahar was ''completely quiet.''
On Sunday, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported that the Taliban had handed over control of the southeastern Afghan province of Zabul to local commanders and tribal chiefs, bringing the hard-line Islamic regime's rule of Afghanistan to an end.
( December 10, 2001)
