New Afghan president vows to work with U.S.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, second left, shakes hands with chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, left, during his inauguration ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014. Ghani Ahmadzai replaces Hamid Karzai in the country's first democratic transfer of power since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, second left, shakes hands with chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, left, during his inauguration ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014. Ghani Ahmadzai replaces Hamid Karzai in the country's first democratic transfer of power since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan swore in Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai as its second elected president on Monday, embarking on a new era with a national unity government poised to confront a resilient Taliban insurgency by signing an agreement with the United States that would guarantee a continuing American military presence.

Ahmadzai quickly appointed his rival in the bitterly contested election, Abdullah Abdullah, as the country's first chief executive officer and shared the inaugural stage with him.

With a hug for the cameras, both sides appeared determined to reach across factions and avoid a descent into an abyss similar to what has happened in Iraq, where the government's failure to mend lingering sectarian divisions after a full U.S. withdrawal helped give rise to the brutal Islamic State group.

The new president also declared a halt to the degeneration of relations with the U.S. under the departing president, Hamid Karzai, who refused to sign a long-term deal to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan and in his last days in office publicly blamed his allies for the country's predicament.

"Now it's time that we enter a new era of our relationship with the United States, Europe and other countries of the world," Ahmadzai said.

The new unity government is inheriting an Afghanistan rife with immense challenges. Most foreign troops are scheduled to withdraw after the current international combat mission ends Dec. 31. Elsewhere in the country, Taliban fighters have been resurgent in many areas.

The government is expected to sign today a security agreement that provides a legal framework for the United States to keep about 9,800 troops in the country to train, advise and assist Afghan national security forces. That number is expected to be cut in half by the end of 2015, and the U.S. would leave only about 1,000 in a security office after the end of 2016.

The Afghan government also is expected to sign an agreement this week with NATO that would outline the parameters of 4,000 to 5,000 additional international troops -- mostly from Britain, Germany, Italy and Turkey -- to stay in Afghanistan in a noncombat role after the end of this year.

Without a post-2014 residual force, U.S. military officials say there is a risk that the Afghan security force will deteriorate, units would run out of fuel, pay systems would fail, and there would be a reduction in the overall readiness of the Afghan police and army. They say al-Qaida is in "survival mode" in Afghanistan, but that if all international forces left this year, the terrorist network would see it as a victory, regroup, and again use the region to plan and conduct operations against the West.

But there are serious questions about the ability of the Afghan security forces to take on the militants, even with a residual U.S. force -- down from a high of more than 130,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan several years ago.

"Afghanistan doesn't have the full military necessary to defend the country," said Mohammad Doud Kalakani, a member of the Afghan parliament. "No air force, no tanks, limited artillery."

U.S.-Afghan relations are expected to improve under Ahmadzai, a 65-year-old technocrat who worked at the World Bank. Karzai, the country's only leader since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, frequently criticized the U.S. government and irritated American leaders with his mercurial behavior; Karzai was criticized in turn for his inability or unwillingness to tackle corruption in his own government.

On Monday, however, Karzai wore a wide smile as he greeted his presidential guards upon entering the palace, where he presided over the first peaceful democratic transfer of power in the nation's history.

Ahmadzai's first act in office was to swear in Abdullah as chief executive, a role that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry helped create to give voice to both Afghanistan's northern and southern flanks of power.

"Afghans have taken a moment of challenge and turned it into a moment of real opportunity," Kerry said Monday in a statement congratulating both men. Kerry was unable to attend the inauguration in person.

The deal settled months of political tensions that threatened the country's already fragile politics.

The nearly six-month-long election was marred by allegations of vote fraud, a staple of Afghanistan's last two presidential votes. Ahmadzai won a June runoff with 55 percent of votes cast, according to official results, though 1 million votes were thrown out. Abdullah's coalition continues to believe the election was stolen but accepted the chief executive compromise to avoid violence.

And that deal almost collapsed at the last minute, as Abdullah threatened Sunday to pull out of the inauguration ceremony over a series of bureaucratic disputes, including an unseemly fight over office space in the presidential palace. Abdullah's followers squabbled with supporters of Ahmadzai's first vice president, the influential but controversial power broker Abdul Rashid Dostum, over who would have offices that Abdullah had expected to get.

Suicide blast kills 6

In a reminder of another challenge facing the new government, the Taliban carried out a deadly suicide bombing near Kabul International Airport.

According to police reports, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at an intersection that leads to Kabul's airport, killing a half dozen people. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed Taliban responsibility for the suicide attack near the airport, declaring that the target was Afghan and foreign soldiers.

A bigger attack took place in eastern Paktia province, where a car bomb sparked a gunbattle between Afghan army and police units and the militants. Seven Taliban fighters, four police officers and two civilians were killed.

This summer, Taliban militants, who control vast rural sections of southern and eastern Afghanistan, fought Afghan army troops instead of U.S. and NATO combat troops for the first time since 2005. The Afghan army saw its fatality rate skyrocket and the Taliban make gains.

"I hope Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai can bring peace and the rule [of] the law in Afghanistan as former Afghan President Hamid Karzai could not bring peace," said Abdul Rahman, a 30-year-old police officer. "Our people have been suffering from the instability and poverty."

In his address, Ahmadzai called upon the Taliban and another armed faction, Hezb-e-Islami, to enter "a political negotiation" with the new government.

"We are tired of war," he said in his inauguration speech. "Our message is peace, [but] this doesn't mean we are weak."

Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, rejected such an overture, saying that they do not recognize Ahmadzai as the country's new president.

"The president inauguration has no meaning to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," Mujahid said in a phone interview, using the Taliban's name for the country. "It is the project of the United States."

first lady to have role

The new president made pledges sure to please not only the international community but many Afghans as well.

Seeking to strike a note of social change, Ahmadzai announced that his wife, Rula, whom he met while both were students at the American University of Beirut, would have a public role as well -- another rarity in a country where women are frequently sequestered and a sharp contrast to Karzai, whose wife almost never appeared in public.

"My wife worked a lot on behalf of refugees and will continue working for them," Ahmadzai said. "Women and youth will have a wide participation in my government."

Ahmadzai wore a dark black turban popular in the country's south as he swore in his two vice presidents and then Abdullah and his deputies.

Abdullah, a former foreign minister, spoke first and thanked Karzai for his service and the people of the country for casting votes in the millions despite threats by Taliban militants.

"We are committed as one in the national unity government," Abdullah said. "Our commitment will be fulfilled together as a unified team to create national unity."

Ahmadzai then congratulated Karzai for a peaceful and democratic transition of power, and he thanked Abdullah for making the national unity government possible.

"We want to be held accountable. I am your leader but I am no better than you. If I make mistakes, you should hold me accountable," he said.

In his final speech as president before the inauguration, Karzai told the audience that he would support Ahmadzai and Abdullah and that he would be "at their service."

"Our journey in the past 13 years has been full of ups and downs. I am proud to hand over responsibilities to the president-elect in a peaceful process," Karzai said. "Afghanistan is off on a good journey. And I will continue to be part of this journey. Long live Afghanistan. Long live our proud nation."

But Karzai has cautioned the successor government about its future dealings with the U.S. "They should take a careful path with America and the West," he said during a farewell address last week.

The U.S. has invested $104 billion in Afghanistan since 2001 to train and equip the country's security forces, pave roads, upgrade hospitals, build schools and help modernize the nation, but the United States was omitted from a list of countries Karzai thanked in his speech. The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, James Cunningham, said Karzai's remarks were ungrateful and not representative of widespread Afghan public opinion.

In his statement, however, Kerry paid tribute to Karzai, who inherited a broken country when the Americans and their allies chose him more than a decade ago as a leader they hoped could cross ethnic lines, embrace former enemies and bring Afghans together.

"It's no secret that our relationship with President Karzai has been punctuated by disagreements," Kerry said. But "he is a nationalist, a patriot, and an important figure who stepped forward when his country needed him, and helped profoundly shape one of the most challenging periods in Afghan history that has seen remarkable progress."

On the streets of Kabul, Afghans sat in cafes and restaurants watching the inauguration as it was televised nationally. Many expressed optimism that the new government could solve the myriad challenges facing the country.

"Dr. Ghani [Ahmadzai] has a clean past and he is well educated," said Ahmad Mubashir, 33, a shopkeeper. "The roots of all problems that Afghans face is economic hardship, and I think he is the guy who has the ability to solve this problem. Once he solves the economic problems, definitely security will be improved."

Information for this article was contributed by Rahim Faiez, Amir Shah and Deb Riechmann of The Associated Press; by Rod Nordland, Declan Walsh and Jawad Sukhanyar of The New York Times; and by Sudarsan Raghavan and Sharif Hassan of The Washington Post.

A Section on 09/30/2014

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