AFGHANISTAN - Dec. 5 - Interim Govt Formed.

Four Afghan factions meeting in Bonn sign a pact at 6:45 am creating a broadly based, interim government, which will take power in Kabul on Dec. 22 for up to six months and which will be led by Hamid Karzai, a 46-year-old Pashtun leader, English-speaking relative of the former king Zahir Shah. The Northern Alliance secures 17 of the 30 seats in the new administration, with the Interior Ministry headed by Yunus Qanuni, the Foreign Ministry by Abdullah Abdullah and the army headed by Gen. Mohammad Fahim. They are the younger generation of alliance officials close to the assassinated military commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Northern Alliance will also hold three of the five deputy chairman posts, which are also divided ethnically: one Tajik, one Uzbek, one Pashtun and one Hazara, who is also a woman. The Hazara, Sima Samar, works with a non-governmental organisation for Afghan women based in Quetta, Pakistan, and was nominated by the Rome group of Afghan exiles. The Rome group, loyal to the former king Zahir Shah, will have nine posts, including Karzai's. The Peshawar group, based in Pakistan, has four posts. The Cyprus group, close to Iran, was offered two relatively unimportant posts and declined to take them.

But it gave full support to the agreement. In ethnic terms, the composition was divided thus: 11 posts for Pashtuns, 8 for Tadjiks, 5 for Hazaras, 3 for Uzbeks, and the rest representing other smaller groupings. In addition to Samar, the cabinet includes another woman, Suhaila Seddiqi, a former general working as a medical doctor in Kabul, who will be minister for public health. According to the agreement, the loya jirga, an assembly of provincial elders and powers, will convene after the 6-month period and will create a transitional government for up to two years while a new constitution is written. Then elections will be held. The loya jirga will also pick a transitional head of state. (The agreement comes after nine days of negotiations between the factions, prodded by UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and observers from the US, Germany, Britain, France, Russia, India, Iran and Pakistan).

Brahimi said: "Nowhere is the feeling of hope greater than among the people of Afghanistan, who during 23 years of tragedy and loss have maintained the hope that peace and stability could be restored one day in their country". But he warned the delegates that "the real work starts now, and the real difficulties will start when the interim administration agreed on here moves to Kabul". Brahimi acknowledged the agreement was not perfect, but would have to serve to start bringing Afghanistan out of its chaos of warlordism and rivalries. Brahimi told the delegates: "The eyes of the world will be on you, and you carry a heavy responsibility. You must serve your people in a democratic and transparent manner. Their expectations are high, and you cannot afford to fail them". Interior Minister Yunus Qanuni, said, with the Taliban gone, "Afghans can build a common homeland. If Afghans can fight well, they can also achieve peace". He called on the international community to live up to its pledges for massive humanitarian and reconstruction aid. But officials warned that the Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani and his Pashtun Wahabi ally Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf remained unhappy with the deal.

In an important gesture to Rabbani, the negotiators removed two controversial references from earlier drafts. One is a request to the international security force to help in the "voluntary disarmament combatants". The second deletion removes a specific prohibition on the interim authority from granting amnesty to people "who have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law or crimes against humanity". (Rabbani and Sayyaf had already begun accusing delegates, based on these clauses, of arranging for foreign forces to come to the country, disarm the mujahidin and try them for war crimes). Officials said the UN Security Council would authorise an international security force for Kabul, as called for in the agreement. They said Britain was expected to organise the force and serve as its core, and Washington to support its initial deployment by Dec. 22. Karzai told the BBC by telephone that his first priority would be "peace and stability for Afghanistan and the chance for Afghans to return to a normal life, and being sure people get the opportunity to work and earn... I believe in God's help and I hope that with God's help we can take the country forward to a much better future". Karzai, currently fighting the Taliban in the south of the country, denied that he was wounded during a US attack, as the Pentagon announced earlier. He said: "Have you ever heard an injured man talking like this? Nothing has happened".