From the International Desk
Filed 2/16/2002 3:17 AM

A senior Interior Ministry police commander who led the first reaction forces to the airport and conducted subsequent investigations into the incident, tells UPI that the riot broke out when Karzai blamed Rahman  for the 3 day delay in flights to Mecca in front of the angry pilgrims stranded at the airport terminal.

According to the account given UPI at the Interior Ministry today, Karzai was the first to be confronted by the angry Hajjis as he returned with a government delegation from a trip to Jalalabad on Thursday afternoon. ìThey gathered around Karzai and Interior Minister Kanooni [Yunis Qanooni] when the two entered the terminal, shouting insults,î says police commander Shir Agha.

ìKarzai told the crowd that the 76 hour delay in their flight was the responsibility of the Aviation Minister,î the police officials say. Rahman arrived at the airport half an hour later.

ìKarzai has singled out the Generals because they happened to be among the Hajjis,î say the police sources consulted by UPI.  Although the security officials concede that their military commanders were among the 700 pilgrims who flew to Saudi Arabia following the riot, they claim that  the four officers had no part in instigating the disturbances or in any assassination conspiracy.

One of the Generals, Abdullah Tauhidi, was jailed upon returning from Saudi Arabia last night.

Afghanistanís Interim Administration has requested the extradition of two others and moved to suspend several more commanders from their posts. According to government sources, the list of top security officials who might be arrested or fired could exceed 20.

Fearing that Chairman Karzai could be purging the Northern Alliance controlled security services, high-ranking Defense Ministry officials are reported to be holding meetings at their private homes with some of their key commanders who have flown into Kabul by helicopter over the past two days.

There are also reports of extra diesel deliveries to mechanized and armored units based in northern Afghanistan to prepare a possible move on Kabul.

The view that they are being made scapegoats, or set up, is growing among Afghan security officials who also deny Karzaiís claim that Rahman was stabbed to death when the mob rushed his plane. ìPolicemen say the crowd didnít have knives and did not see knife woundsî says Shergai although a government ordered medical autopsy reports several stab wounds on the Ministerís body.

According to the account given UPI, when Rahman became surrounded by the increasingly violent mob upon entering the airport terminal following Karzaiís departure, he told them that their flight would arrive in fifteen minutes. As he got back into his car to drive to his waiting flight on the runway, word swept among the crowd that their plane for Saudi Arabia was landing.

When they learned that the inbound plane was a military flight for the International Security Assistance Force, the mob rampaged out of the terminal chasing Rahman to his plane. ìThere were a lot of Hajjis around the plane already,î says Shergai, ìmany were camping out below the fuselage. Some had been sleeping next to the wheels.î

One policeman tried to hold back the rioters as they stormed up the stairwell but got thrown down the steps. Bursting into the aircraft, the mob shouted for Rahmanís resignation before they grabbed him and beat him to death.

The mob moved so quickly that the 100ñ200 policemen deployed near the airport could not move quickly enough to control the situation, according to Shergai.

"Jack," as the special advisor to the Afghan military is known, managed to rescue the President of Afghanistanís Ariana Airlines, Robullah Amain, who had escaped from the mob and was surrounded in a terminal office. Along with seven Afghan commandos, Jack rescued Amain, Haji Timor the airport manager and five others and escorted them to safety. 

	An ISAF spokesmen claimed that a small team of British soldiers supposedly helped to save the national airline executive from certain death. Ariana President Robullah Amain confirmed that in reality, it was an American Green Beret and his Afghan soldiers.
Ministry of Interior and Defense officials called in American led soldiers when ISAF failed to launch rescue attempts at the international airport.

Karzai has made increasingly urgent calls during the past several days for an expansion of ISAF forces in Afghanistan. But the UN mandated European peace keeping mission is becoming increasingly discredited even in Kabul.

ISAF officers tell UPI that they failed to disperse the airport mob ìbecause we didnít want the situation to escalate into a battle between Christian soldiers and Muslims.î But in an even more embarrassing incident last Friday night, British paratroopers who came under fire, mistakenly shot up a taxi carrying a pregnant woman to hospital.

The woman, her husband, her mother and the taxi driver were wounded. One other man is dead.

If the highly exposed International Force tried to intervene in favor of the Interim Administration in the event of a coup, the perception of ISAF as ìKarzaiís private armyî held by many Northern Alliance commanders would be confirmed and the hamstrung 4000 peacekeepers could end up hopelessly besieged in Kabul.

American forces who might then have to intervene and U.S. Army Special Forces reinforcements are already being flown into Kabul, ìpossibly to discourage moves by resistance leaders,î sources tell UPI.