Pro-Regime Fighters Move to Enforce Fragile Truce in Kabul

Hundreds of pro-government fighters fanned out across the Afghan capital Saturday to help enforce a truce between rival rebel groups.

But two hostile factions refused to pull back, raising fears that the fragile cease-fire might collapse.

“Maybe they’re regrouping. Maybe they’ve given up,” said Humayun, a spokesman for Defense Minister Ahmed Shah Masoud’s security council. Like many Afghans, he uses only one name.

On Saturday, for the first time in four days, the blasts of exploding rockets, mortars and tanks stopped. But the destruction left behind was enormous.

Entire blocks of shops had been destroyed. The streets were littered with shattered glass, downed power lines and charred bricks. Dozens of homes had been burned.

Tensions were heightened by a reported overnight attempt to assassinate a leader of the militia enforcing the cease-fire. Abdul Majid Khan was not harmed, but two of his bodyguards were wounded, said his deputy, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Nawab. He did not provide further details.

Majid Khan is the Kabul commander of the militia headed by Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum. The 100,000-strong force has been a critical element in propping up the transitional government and was a key force in driving Marxist President Najibullah out of office.

Recent fighting between Iranian- and Saudi-backed rebel factions has left at least 100 people dead and hundreds more wounded, and it has heightened fears of a full-scale sectarian war.

Hezb-i-Wahadat, a loose coalition of eight small Iranian-backed parties, and the fundamentalist Ittihad-i-Islami supported by Saudi Arabia agreed to a third cease-fire and released hundreds of prisoners seized during the fighting.

Most were innocent civilians who told tales of beating and torture.

Hezb-i-Wahadat represents Afghanistan’s minority Shiites, known as Hazaras, while Ittihad-i-Islami is made up of Sunni Muslim Pushtuns, who dominated Afghanistan for nearly three centuries but fear their hold on power is being chipped away by other ethnic minorities.