No limit to list of suspects in assassination

Years of bloodshed and political instability in Afghanistan not only account for the assassination yesterday of Abdul Qadir, one of the country's three vice-presidents, they mean the list of suspects is almost limitless.

Asked whether terrorists were responsible, President Bush replied: "Could be that, could be drug lords, could be long-time rivals." But the complexities do not stop there; "long-time rivals" may be from Mr Qadir's Pashtun community or another ethnic group, such as the Tajiks, the second-largest community in Afghanistan after the Pashtuns – many of whom feel the Tajiks have usurped their previously dominant role.

Mr Qadir is the second cabinet minister to be assassinated since the Taliban collapsed. In February the civil aviation and tourism minister, Abdul Rahman, was killed in what the government called a conspiracy involving members of his own police and intelligence services, although no one has been arrested.

Certainly Mr Qadir had no shortage of enemies. The brother of Abdul Haq, a mujahedin leader captured and executed by the Taliban, he was governor of the eastern province of Nangahar and welcomed Osama bin Laden when he set up his base there in the early 1990s. When the Taliban seized power, he fled abroad and became one of the few prominent Pashtuns to join the Tajik- and Uzbek-dominated Northern Alliance, which ousted the Taliban with the West's help last year.

Mr Qadir returned to Jalalabad, the capital of Nangahar, as soon as the Taliban fell. Governor once more, he reversed his previous tolerance towards opium-growing, launching a crackdown that angered farmers and led to armed clashes. In Jalalabad yesterday, it was suggested the killing could have stemmed from manifold personal, political and economic rivalries.

As vice-president and public works minister, Mr Qadir was the most senior Pashtun in the interim government after President Hamid Karzai. The assassination is bad news for Mr Karzai, just weeks after a loya jirga, or grand assembly, of Afghan leaders approved a cabinet to prepare for elections in 18 months.

Not only could Mr Qadir's murder cause violence in Nangahar, it threatens to set Pashtuns against the rest of the Afghan population. Whether the West is willing or able to help Mr Karzai keep these dangers at bay is debatable.