Kabul lockdown for Rabbani state funeral

KABUL: Thousands of mourners were Friday expected to attend a state funeral for Burhanuddin Rabbani, the government peace negotiator whose assassination threatens to engulf Afghanistan in fresh chaos.

An assassin with a bomb strapped under his turban and purporting to be a peace emissary from the Taliban leadership killed Rabbani at his Kabul villa on Tuesday as he clasped him to his chest in greeting.

He was the most senior national leader assassinated in Afghanistan since the 2001 American invasion, depriving President Hamid Karzai of a key Tajik ally in the increasingly fractious world of ethnic-riven Afghan politics.

Two months after the killing of Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, his kingpin in the south, and following last week's 19-hour siege on the US embassy, the government has never seemed weaker in the face of a 10-year Taliban insurgency.

Karzai is likely to lead thousands of officials and ordinary mourners in paying their last respects to Rabbani, president of Afghanistan during the 1992-1996 civil war and since October, chairman of the High Peace Council.

The diplomatic zone in Kabul went into lockdown to safeguard the funeral in a capital where insurgents increasingly hit Western targets, challenging hopes that the government can take responsibility for national security in 2014.

Officials said the ceremony would start in the heavily fortified presidential palace at 10:00 am (0530 GMT) with Rabbani's body to be buried near the home where he was killed, on top of a hill overlooking Kabul.

"Of course, high-ranking government officials, the president, cabinet ministers, parliamentarians will be there," High Peace Council member Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar told AFP.

"I am not allowed to say if there will be any international officials in the ceremony as security is a problem, but we predict that there will be thousands of mourners as well."

Police said thousands of extra officers would deploy "on the highest state of alert" for the funeral.

"We have taken extra measures by deploying thousands of policemen, over 3,000, especially for the funeral," the head of Kabul's criminal investigations unit, Mohammad Zahir, told AFP.

"The police, army and intelligence service will all be on standby."

Karzai has said the assassin gained access to the 71-year-old Rabbani by conveying a CD with an apparent "message of peace" from the Taliban.

Officials say the attacker waited four days in Kabul for Rabbani to return from overseas before detonating his explosives as the pair hugged in greeting.

So far, the Taliban have unusually refused to comment on Rabbani's killing, but Afghan police and intelligence officials have blamed the militia.

Afghanistan's spy agency, the National Directorate of Security, said it believes the Taliban's leadership body, the so-called Quetta Shura, was involved in the killing but has given no further details.

The Taliban are leading a 10-year insurgency against Karzai's government and the 140,000 foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan who support it.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday flew to Kabul to pay his respects after Rabbani's death but will not stay for the funeral.

His country, which most Afghans regard with deep suspicion for its historic ties to the Taliban and which some Afghan analysts have accused over Rabbani's killing, will be represented by two minor cabinet ministers.

Pakistani officials say they were shocked by the killing and point the finger at nebulous Taliban factions in Afghanistan. (AFP)