Afghanistan commemorates end of one war

Afghanistan on Wednesday commemorated the 1992 toppling of a Soviet-backed regime, which led to bloody civil war and arguably to the rise of the Taliban, as the capital Kabul went under security lockdown.

Helicopter gunships clattered overhead as the Afghan army staged a 21-gun salute at a sports stadium in central Kabul, used as a public execution ground by the 1996-2001 Taliban regime that emerged from the devastating civil war.

It was the first public commemoration of the 1992 overthrow since an assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai by gunmen and suicide bombers, claimed by the Taliban, marred the 2008 event.

Addressing thousands of people including dignitaries who gathered at dawn for security checks, Defence Minister Abdul Raheem Wardak, in green uniform with gold epaulets, said: "On this day the mujahideen prevailed over the evil of communism."

He criticised the international community - which helps keep President Hamid Karzai's government in power -- for not taking seriously enough the Taliban threat after the 2001 US-led invasion overthrew their regime.

The Islamist militia regrouped and have been waging an increasingly virulent insurgency, which is now in its ninth year.

Karzai did not attend Wednesday's parade as he was in Bhutan for a South Asian security meeting joined by the leaders of Pakistan and India.

As his deputies and most of his ministers took their seats for a series of speeches and military marches, police and soldiers deployed across Kabul, searching vehicles and setting up checkpoints to prevent any attacks.

Thousands of police and soldiers - at the frontline of Afghanistan's stated aim of taking over responsibility for security from 126,000 US-led foreign troops - packed the stadium as war victims, including women, joined a parade.

Male drummers and dancers performed a traditional Pashtun warrior dance, watched by the failed candidate in last year's presidential race, Abdullah Abdullah, also a former mujahideen fighter and right hand of Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Huge portraits of Massoud - the charismatic mujahideen leader who was killed by Al-Qaeda two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks - as well as Karzai, former kings and war heroes served as a backdrop to the parade.

Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, first vice president and a former mujahideen fighter, called for "political unity" to counter the Taliban threat.

The mujahideen victory in 1992 over the pro-Moscow regime - just months after the collapse of the Soviet Union - marked the start of a war that led ultimately to the rise of the Taliban, who filled a security vacuum.

The Islamists took control from their base in the southern city of Kandahar, now one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan and heartland of the Taliban's fight to overthrow the government.

Assassinations have been added to well-used tactics including suicide bomb attacks and the widespread use of crude bombs and mines.

In the latest attack in Kandahar, four Taliban gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed a private security firm Tuesday, killing four people, officials said.

Up to 40 other people, mostly security guards working for the Compas firm, were injured in the attacks which began with a suicide car bomb at the entrance of the company's offices outside Kandahar city, they said.

Since late February, Taliban assailants have killed 12 people in the city, mostly working for the provincial government.

US and NATO troops are ramping up military operations in and around the city as part of a stealth offensive designed to eradicate the militant threat and allow American troops to start withdrawing as early as next year.