Iran Shuts Offices of Warlord

Iran has closed the offices of a former Afghan warlord who opposes Afghanistan’s interim government and the strong new U.S. role in that country, one of his aides said Sunday.

The closing of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s offices in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and the eastern city of Mashhad appears to be a conciliatory gesture toward the United States. U.S. officials have accused Iran of trying to destabilize the new Afghan government.

The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not give details about the closure. But Interior Minister Abdul Vahed Musavi-Lari said: “Iran is no place for any one or group that resorts to mischief. We will pursue the issue of Hekmatyar through our intelligence ministry and other channels and make a due decision about him.”

Tehran University politics lecturer Hamidreza Jalaipour said the move is “a green light to the world and the Americans that shows Iran’s foreign policy is based on dialogue and friendship.”

Hekmatyar, a leading Afghan warlord who fought Soviet occupation in the 1980s and once served as prime minister, expressed scorn for the interim government of Hamid Karzai in an interview last week, saying it was installed by foreign troops occupying Afghanistan.

“I have a lot of organized forces. They have weapons, and we are in contact with them,” Hekmatyar said. “While foreign troops are present, the interim government does not have any value or meaning.”

Gul Agha Shirzai, the powerful governor of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, last month accused Hekmatyar and Al Qaeda members of intending to use their forces to provoke a new civil war in Afghanistan and topple the interim government.

Calls have mounted inside Iran for Hekmatyar to be expelled from the country, where he has lived since the Taliban took control of Kabul, the Afghan capital, in 1996.