Karzai removes security officials after deadly attack

President Hamid Karzai's office on Monday defended his decision to remove two of Afghanistan's top security officials, conceding they would be missed but insisting they must be held accountable for a recent lapse - an attack on a major peace conference.

The resignations of the interior minister and intelligence chief come as Afghanistan is trying to combat a strengthening insurgency in the south. On Monday, Taliban suicide bombers killed at least two people - one of them an American contractor - in an attack on a police training center in southern Kandahar city, the U.S. Embassy said.

Meanwhile, three NATO soldiers were killed in the south on Monday - two whose nationalities were not available from a bomb attack and an American service member in a gunfight, according to a NATO statement and a U.S. military spokesman.

The resignations on Sunday - widely viewed here as forced by Karzai - surprised Western officials and could cause disruption within Afghanistan's intelligence and security establishment at a critical juncture as the U.S. and NATO escalate the war.

The move is also likely to fuel speculation over differences within the Karzai administration over its efforts to reconcile with the Taliban - including the possible release of hundreds of detained militant suspects.

The head of the National Directorate of Security, Amrullah Saleh, was a senior figure in the Northern Alliance that helped the U.S. oust the Taliban regime in 2001. As a young man, Interior Minister Hanif Atmar served in Afghanistan's Communist-era intelligence agency and fought mujahedeen opposed to the Soviet occupation.

Abdullah Abdullah, who lost in last year's fraud-marred presidential election, was scathing in his criticism of Karzai for removing the two security chiefs, saying it would undermine efforts to fight terrorism.

"I would say it's a hasty and irrational decision by a president of Afghanistan who has deprived his own government of professional capacity to combat the insurgency," Abdullah, a key Northern Alliance leader and former foreign minister, told The Associated Press. "The only party that will benefit is the Taliban."

Saleh and Atmar resigned to accept responsibility for lapses that allowed militants to launch an attack on a national conference last week of some 1,500 dignitaries who gathered to discuss how to negotiate with insurgents to end Afghanistan's nearly 9-year war.

Rockets landed near the conference venue, but the attack was thwarted. Security officials have rarely faced punishment or resigned over previous major attacks in the capital and elsewhere.

Karzai left Afghanistan on Monday to attend an international conference in Turkey, canceling a news conference he had scheduled earlier. His spokesman, Waheed Omer, insisted the security lapse at the conference was the only reason for the resignations.

"This could have been national chaos, a national crisis" if the attack had succeeded, Omer told reporters. "Somebody had to take responsibility for this."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking to reporters on his way to London, stepped gingerly in answering questions about the abrupt resignations of Saleh and Atmar, whom U.S. officials had often singled out by name as examples of competent leadership in a government riven by corruption and patronage.

"It's obviously an internal matter for the Afghans," Gates said.

"I would just hope President Karzai will appoint in the place of those who have left people of equal caliber," he said.

Saleh, an ethnic Tajik, had served as intelligence chief since 2004 and had a long-standing relationship with the CIA in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

British-educated Atmar, a former education minister, was first appointed interior minister in a 2008 Cabinet reshuffle aimed at rooting out high-level corruption in Karzai's government. He was reappointed after Karzai's re-election.

Karzai wants to offer incentives to low-level insurgents to lay down arms, and to enter talks with Taliban leaders. Some critics worry Karzai may be willing to give up human rights and other advancements to strike a deal with the Taliban to end the conflict.

Washington is skeptical about opening talks with the Taliban until they have been weakened on the battlefield.

Richard Holbrooke, President Barrack Obama's special envoy on Afghanistan, on Monday voiced cautious support for peace overtures.

"We will support Afghan-led reconciliation," Holbrooke told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Spain. "The U.S. and the international community are not interposing objections."

But militants who enter the talks must renounce al-Qaida and accept the Afghan Constitution, he said.

The resignations come as NATO tries to build up Afghanistan's police and armed forces to take responsibility for the country's security. The Obama administration wants to begin drawing down U.S. troops in mid-2011. As part of those plans, U.S. commanders are planning a major NATO operation soon in the Taliban's heartland of Kandahar.

On Monday, at least three suicide bombers attacked a police training center in Kandahar city, exploding a car bomb at the gate then trying to storm through with guns blazing, officials said. In addition to the two deaths announced by the Americans, three police officers were wounded, officials said. All three attackers were killed.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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