Kabul, March 7
Habiba Surabi hopes her appointment as Afghanistan’s first female provincial Governor will set a trend in a country whose cultural traditions, she says, “bind the hands of women like chains.

“My appointment has opened a door for other women,” Surabi told AFP in an interview in her Kabul apartment as she prepared to move to the central highland province of Bamiyan to take up her post.

President Hamid Karzai made history last Wednesday when he appointed Surabi Governor of the province, which is racked by poverty and drug trafficking.

Surabi, wearing a smart black suit with a loosely tied white veil, believes Karzai, by choosing her, had sent a powerful signal that women were equal to men.

Also, “Karzai chose me because I have good contacts with the international community and will be in a position to attract funds for reconstruction of Bamiyan which is a very big task.”

Surabi, who belongs to the ethnic Hazara minority, was Women’s Minister in Karzai’s previous transitional government for almost three years during which time she learnt to speak fluent English.

But her appointment attracted some opposition. When it was announced, between 150 to 200 demonstrators, loyal to former Governor and local militia commander Mohammed Rahim Ali Yar, took to the street in Bamiyan town to protest.

They were quickly outnumbered by up to 1,000 people who came out in her support.

Surabi, 48, said she was not worried about threats of violence but women nationwide still face daily harassment and intimidation from armed groups.

Bamiyan, where 48 per cent of the voters in Afghanistan’s first presidential election in October were female, was relatively liberal in its attitudes to women compared with other parts of Afghanistan.

Surabi said many Hazaras, who are Shiite Muslims, had spent time in Iran and had been exposed to a more modern way of life. — AFP

Samarra, March 7
At least 25 persons, mostly Iraqi soldiers, were killed today in a string of attacks against the country’s security forces in Balad and Baquba, north of Baghdad, the police said.

The deadliest attack was in Balad, 70 km from here, where at least 15 persons, including two soldiers, were killed when a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle at the house of an Iraqi army officer.

A US military spokesman, in the area south of the restive city of Samarra, confirmed the attack but gave a toll of two killed and nine wounded.

Since Saturday, commandos from Iraq’s interior ministry and US troops have closed off entrances to Samarra and launched raids in the city and the surrounding areas in search for suspects that might lead them to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the country’s most wanted man.

The Iraqi government released new pictures of the Jordanian-born militant, who has a 25 million bounty on his head and is blamed for the worst bombings, showing him bearded and in conversation with someone.

There was more bloodshed involving Iraqi forces in another restive spot, Baquba, 60 km northeast of the capital, in an attack claimed by Zarqawi’s group.

Five soldiers were killed when gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in the Al-Muradiyah area west of Baquba with rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles, said a US military statement. — AFP

Lahore, March 7
The outcome of the ongoing talks between the government and the PPP will crystallise after the 2007 general elections, president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Chaudhry Shujaat Husain said here on Sunday.

At a news conference also attended by his secretary-general Syed Mushahid Hussain, he said he was abreast of all developments on this front and so far there was "no agreement even on a single point". He said there was no possibility of elections being held before the assemblies completed their constitutional term of five years.

The constitution had been violated in the past by somebody deciding to hold premature elections, but it did not mean the same should be done this time as well, Chaudhry Shujaat argued, rejecting Opposition's consistent demand that polls be held during the current year.

He said shortly after the 2002 general elections he had personally met PPP leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim with a proposal that he set up a government of national consensus. But, he said, the PPP leader missed the opportunity. Now that the assemblies had completed half of their term, he said, there was no reason to change the existing set-up.

"Now whatever has to take place will take place after the next elections", he said. The PML chief said it was because of the lenient attitude of the government that Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto were freely moving about.

Answering a question about the MMA's schedule to launch a movement against the government, Chaudhry Shujaat said the religious alliance had already tested its strength many a time in the recent past.

The MMA had no issue which could provide them with a basis to bring the people out on the street, he said.