Global Policy Forum

By Alan Sipress and Peter Finn

The U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war in Afghanistan, has put the brakes on the imminent deployment of thousands of international peacekeepers in areas freed from Taliban control out of concern that this could encumber American military operations, Bush administration officials said.

This decision has left several allied governments, including those of Britain, France, Canada, Turkey and Jordan, in limbo after they had readied their troops for duty earlier this month primarily to help speed humanitarian aid as winter closes in on Afghanistan. Gen. Tommy R. Franks ruled that it would be premature to accept these offers of assistance while he is occupied with pressing military operations, officials and diplomats said.

His opposition to the immediate deployment of peacekeepers comes even as one obstacle to the creation of an international security force was removed yesterday when the Northern Alliance said it was dropping its objections. The alliance, which controls more than half of Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, said it could accept international peacekeepers as part of an overall agreement on an interim administration to replace the Taliban.

Pulling back from an apparent crisis, negotiators from the Northern Alliance and three other Afghan factions meeting under U.N. sponsorship in Bonn, Germany, moved toward a deal on a future government for their country. They reached broad agreement on the shape of an interim authority and began detailed discussions on who might serve in it, according to accounts from the closed-door talks. In another important shift, the alliance said it could accept a role for the country's exiled king, Mohammed Zahir Shah.

"Today, I'm more optimistic than yesterday about a peaceful solution," said Yonus Qanooni, head of the Northern Alliance delegation. He said a bad translation was to blame for his apparent dismissal on Wednesday of proposals for a peacekeeping force and a role for the former king. Those statements led to predictions that the conference would reach a deadlock.

But the alliance's newfound willingness to accept international peacekeepers is not likely to prove decisive in Franks's thinking, administration officials said.

"His focus right now is certainly not on peacekeeping. . . . You have to have a peace before you can keep a peace," said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a senior military spokesman attached to the Central Command.

Though several U.S. allies have urged a quick response to help provide relief and stabilize a volatile political situation, administration officials said the deployment of peacekeepers would further complicate what is already a complex war effort. Offers by allied governments to dispatch soldiers to Kabul, the Bagram airfield north of the capital and the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif -- considered a crucial hub for humanitarian aid -- are now on hold.

"Whatever piece they're offering doesn't work at this time," Quigley said. "You take them up on their offers at the location and time and manner that fits into the overall fabric of Enduring Freedom. . . . The best intentions in the world, if provided in an uncoordinated way, makes things worse instead of better."

Britain dispatched about 100 commandos to the Bagram airfield two weeks ago as the vanguard of a force estimated to number at least 6,000. But those other troops, put on alert by Prime Minister Tony Blair for immediate duty, were told to stand down after the Central Command determined that the timing was not appropriate, officials said.

That delay prompted complaints from British cabinet ministers about a lack of cooperation with Washington, but Blair himself insisted that there is "complete agreement" between the two governments.

France has also planned since mid-November to send about 250 troops to Mazar-e Sharif to secure the city's airfield, guard humanitarian convoys and prevent rival factions from turning their guns on each other. About 60 French soldiers have already been sent to Uzbekistan, where they are awaiting an order to move. They were to be joined by troops from Jordan, which had offered to establish a military field hospital in the city.

To provide stability in Kabul, U.S. and U.N. officials had been mapping out a plan to deploy a peacekeeping force composed of soldiers from Muslim countries. Turkish officials said they were anxious to lead and had special forces ready to arrive on short notice.

American officials and foreign diplomats said the allied governments were told by the Bush administration to slow down.

"General Franks is very much in charge of everything, and he doesn't want to worry about a multinational force," said a diplomat representing a U.S. ally. "The United States has one goal: Attack al Qaeda and get the job done. And they're not too worried about the rest of it right now.'

The Northern Alliance, a royalist group and two delegations of exiles -- one backed by Pakistan, the other by Iran -- are now discussing the nitty-gritty of power-sharing: how many people would form a supreme council and a smaller interim administration to govern Afghanistan, and how the membership of each body would be divided among rival groups, U.N officials and delegates said. A central goal remains the establishment of a government that is broader than the Northern Alliance, which now controls the capital.

"All the factions see the urgency of a hand over [of power] in Kabul," said U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi. "But there is no agreement yet on any of the key questions."

However, the delegates did begin to draw up lists of candidates for seats on each body, which need to balance ethnic, geographic and gender interests.

Under the emerging structure, an interim executive administration of 15 to 25 people, reporting to a supreme council of 120 to 200 people, would govern Afghanistan until the spring. At that point, a traditional tribal council could endorse the existing structure or create a new transitional administration before new elections to be held two to three years from now.

The 38 delegates met today with female European leaders, who called on them to assign 40 percent of all positions in a new government to women. "The women were very happy," said one of the leaders, Maj Britt Theorin, a Swedish member of the European Parliament, "but the men didn't say anything."

Qanooni said the alliance will not insist that Burhanuddin Rabbani, who is still recognized by the United Nations as the Afghan president, become the next head of state. He called the former king a pivotal figure, a sharp reversal from Wednesday when he said the alliance was not interested in personalities but in systems of government.

The Northern Alliance, composed mostly of ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras from central and northern Afghanistan, now controls Kabul, which would be home to any new government. The other delegations, predominantly made up of ethnic Pashtuns from the south, want an international force to guarantee security, particularly in the capital.

Although security is reasonably good in Kabul, according to a U.S. official, the largely Pashtun delegations do not want the alliance to have a "home-team advantage" in the capital, where it controls all the guns. "They want to establish a politically neutral zone," the official said.

Qanooni seemed open to having foreign troops, even saying that their role could extend to patrolling Afghanistan's borders. He said "the people of Afghanistan would prefer if the international forces come from Islamic countries."

U.N. relief experts said the absence of an international security force is hampering their efforts to deliver humanitarian assistance in several key Afghan cities. Looting and violence in Mazar-e Sharif has blocked aid deliveries, while humanitarian convoys have also been unable to reach the hungry people in Jalalabad.

"Security, or insecurity, remains one of the major impediments to the relief operation in Afghanistan," said Kevin Kennedy, the chief of the U.N. emergency relief agency. "In addition to the ongoing military conflict, we have tensions in the Mazar-e Sharif area; we have roaming groups in the north and the east, and lack of law and order on the road from the Khyber Pass to Kabul."

Administration officials have said that they prefer the establishment of a "pan-Afghan" security force over the deployment of foreign troops. A senior U.S. official said this week that the administration could accept an international peacekeeping force deployed under either U.N. or other auspices if an all-Afghan force proves impractical. But he said he sees little role for a continued American military presence in the country once the military campaign is finished.

"I don't want to speak for Tommy Franks, but I would expect he would look forward to sending in a cable to the secretary of defense or the president saying, 'Mission complete,' " the senior U.S. official said. He added: "If you had some sort of a U.N. force or something like that, I would not imagine the United States would be a participant in that."

Finn reported from Koenigswinter, Germany. Special correspondent Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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