Rabbani death could leave Afghanistan in fresh chaos

AFGHANISTAN: 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.

"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." AFP