Warlords to Report on Alleged Killings

Three powerful warlords have been asked to investigate claims that their troops committed acts of “ethnic cleansing” against Pushtuns in northern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the interim government said here Tuesday.

U.N. officials claim that attacks by other ethnic forces against Pushtuns, who dominated the Taliban regime, have created waves of new internal refugees since the Taliban was driven from power.

In the northern village of Bargah, witnesses said, 37 Pushtuns were dragged from their homes and slain late last year. Similar incidents, including allegations of sexual assault, have been reported across northern Afghanistan. Witnesses and U.N. officials describe the assaults as acts of retaliation against Pushtuns who supported the Taliban regime.

Government spokesman Yusuf Nuristani described the accounts as “exaggerated and unsubstantiated” but said warlords commanding ethnic Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik forces have been asked to investigate the claims.

“We think there have been some minor incidents, but mostly these are rumors,” Nuristani said. But he said that interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai personally asked warlords Gens. Abdul Rashid Dostum, Ata Mohammed and Haji Mohammed Mukhaqiq to look into the reported incidents. Dostum, who serves as assistant defense minister in the interim government, commands ethnic Uzbeks; Mohammed commands ethnic Tajiks; and Mukhaqiq leads ethnic Hazaras.

In addition, Nuristani said, three members of Karzai’s government have been asked to independently “assess and evaluate the reports.”

The tension between the ethnic groups stems from the brutal treatment of other groups by the Taliban. In its sweep to power in the mid- and late 1990s, the fundamentalist Sunni Muslim Taliban forces committed massacres against other minorities, particularly the Shiite Muslim Hazaras and the Uzbeks. Tajiks formed the bulk of the Northern Alliance, the Taliban’s main foe.

If Karzai, a Pushtun, wants to succeed as Afghanistan’s leader, he must calm the simmering tensions with these groups. Karzai is viewed warily by the three major northern ethnic groups but also finds himself criticized by Pushtuns for having what they feel are too many non-Pushtun northerners in his administration.