Violence Flares Up as Karzai Travels

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, en route to the United States for ceremonies commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks, pledged Sunday to persevere in fighting terrorism, even as violence flared in the southeastern Afghan city of Khowst.

Al Qaeda fighters and Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers who gave them shelter “are defeated as a movement but continue to act as individuals,” Karzai said during a German stopover. “Of course, they will try some desperate acts.”

“We will continue to fight against terrorism,” Karzai said before he and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer met at a U.S. air base next to Frankfurt international airport.

Karzai is to meet President Bush and address the U.N. General Assembly during his five-day visit to New York.

Presidential spokesman Said Fazel Akbar said Karzai would visit ground zero at the World Trade Center and “express his condolences to the American people” over the terrorist attacks.

The trip to the United States comes three days after Karzai survived an assassination attempt in the southern city of Kandahar. Karzai’s U.S. bodyguards killed the gunman. An Afghan security guard and an Afghan teenager who deflected the gunman’s aim were also killed in the exchange of gunfire.

U.S. troops took over security for Karzai after the July 6 assassination of Afghan Vice President Haji Abdul Qadir.

Karzai leaves behind a tense capital, Kabul, where security was stepped up after a car bombing Thursday, just hours before the attempt on his life.

And conflicts flared Sunday in volatile Khowst, where a grenade exploded in a music shop and fighting broke out between gunmen loyal to a renegade warlord and government-allied soldiers.

Five people were seriously injured in the explosion in Khowst, where American soldiers are based, said Lt. Tina Kroske, a U.S. military spokeswoman.

Music and video shops have often been targets of attacks in Khowst, a stronghold of the former Taliban regime, which outlawed such entertainment.

Late Sunday, militiamen loyal to warlord Bacha Khan attacked a checkpoint in Khowst controlled by Gov. Hakim Taniwal, said Interior Ministry spokesman Alishah Paktiawal.

The governor is allied with Karzai.

No other details of the fighting were immediately available.

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Beginning in stories published in 2006, the Afghan warlord Bacha Khan is identified as Pacha Khan Zadran. (Second reference is “Pacha Khan.”)

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