Weapons everywhere in Afghan capital

KABUL, Afghanistan -- On a side street, camouflage-clad partisans of the northern alliance play pickup volleyball, their AK-47s bouncing against their backs. On a corner in ramshackle western Kabul, a bony boy no older than 10 paces back and forth, his battered Kalashnikov dragging on the ground.

Kabulis, no strangers to war, take such displays in stride. But though far fewer weapons are on the streets than five months ago, guns are still everywhere -- big guns, automatic guns, battered, dented guns that look like they've already been used to kill people.

Yet with the loya jirga national council convening in the capital next week to select a transitional government, some worry the weaponry could intimidate delegates inclined to grant power to other groups with less firepower.

"The country should have been disarmed first," says Tajwar Kokar, the deputy minister of women's affairs in the interim government. Her office, too, is guarded by northern alliance soldiers with guns.

Most of them, northern alliance soldiers loyal to Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim, rolled into town in November when U.S.-led airstrikes drove the Taliban from Kabul.

They took up positions around the city, and dozens remain.

"There's no one to tell them, 'Don't carry your guns,"' says Abdul Basir, a 42-year-old teacher. "Our people don't want men with guns and military uniforms walking around in the streets when they're not on duty."

But many of the armed men have found a temporary patina of legitimacy. Under the umbrella of the defense and interior ministries, they say they are helping international forces protect the city until the new police force is fully trained.

Thus the paradox that some find troubling: The very forces eager to hold onto power after the loya jirga -- northern alliance soldiers from the Panjshir Valley -- are nominally charged with helping keep the peace.

"It is one of our major concerns," says Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman for the loya jirga commission.

Fewer weapons visible

But, he says, "Be realistic. In a country with decades of war, everyone has a gun. In a city like Kabul, six months ago everyone had a gun. Now people at least can participate in a political process."

In January, the fledgling interim administration tried.

It issued a 72-hour ultimatum: Anyone in the capital with no official need for a gun was told to disarm immediately. For days, the reduction was visible and Kabul's streets appeared more benign.

Five months later, fewer weapons are visible. Still, a drive down any major street reveals many randomly armed men. Even at the gate of the International Security Assistance Forces headquarters, arguably the most secure site in Kabul, partisans with automatic weapons sit sentinel.

"The only people that should be carrying weapons in the city are the police," says Flight Lt. Jol Fall, an ISAF spokesman. "All soldiers in barracks, if they're outside they shouldn't be carrying weapons."

Efforts are under way to minimize problems ahead of the loya jirga.

Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai has ordered those militias within the government not to interfere. And at several district meetings, or shuras, around Kabul, loya jirga commission members overseeing representative selection told gunmen to leave.

The gunmen complied, Nadery said.

On Wednesday, state television reported the confiscation by Kabul police of a stash of weapons from a house in eastern Kabul.

The haul included a rocket launcher, a heavy machine gun and large amounts of ammunition.

ISAF also has the authority to either stop people with illegal weapons or notify Kabul police. But it, too, acknowledges the need to work with the interior and defense ministry forces.

Ultimately, the country must get a national army running, integrate one-time northern alliance soldiers into it, then place it all under the supervision of a new, more robust government. That has begun with U.S. training of army recruits, who received 700 used AK-47s from the Romanian Defense Ministry on Thursday.

But any nationally accepted army has a long way to go, as American special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad acknowledged this week.