Funeral of slain vice president

(7 Jul 2002)

0000 Various of Coffins of Qadir (draped in Afghan flag) and his son in law being taken into mosque
0028 Wide shot of Kabul's Eid Gah Mosque
0034 Armed solders on roof of mosque
0039 Various of security around the mosque
0052 SOUNDBITE (English) Momar Samad, Foreign Ministry spokesman:
0125 Military vehicles bearing coffin, and crowds of mourners
0128 Coffin on gun carriage
0137 Various of coffin being lowered into ground at Amir Shaheed Gardens
0150 mourners around grave
0154 Various of earth shoveled into grave
0205 VISION ENDS

STORYLINE:

Afghan Vice President Abdul Qadir was buried Sunday in Jalalabad, with full military honors one day after he was gunned down in an attack that Afghans fear may bring new instability to a nation struggling to build peace after decades of war.

Qadir was the most prominent ethnic Pashtun in the government after the President Hamid Karzai himself, and his assassination threatens to stir unrest in Nangarhar province, a relatively wealthy trading and opium poppy-growing region that borders Pakistan.

Instability in such a key region could complicate efforts by the Karzai government to extend its authority beyond the capital.

0002
Wrapped in the Afghan flag, the body of slain Afghan vice president Abdul Qadir was carried on the shoulders of his family members into the Eid Gah mosque in Kabul for funeral prayers .

0014
Qadir was gunned down Saturday, in a car, outside his government office in a daring daylight attack by two men with kalashnikov.

0022
His son-in-law, who was driving the vehicle, was also killed. His coffin too was carried into the mosque.

0028
Thousands of men streamed into the grand Eid Gah mosque that stretches the length of a city block in the heart of Kabul's old city.

0036
One hundred international peacekeepers joined hundreds of Afghan soldiers and policemen to provide a security cordon around the building.

0045
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said he didn't consider the assassination a major blow for the new Afghan government

0052
SOUNDBITE: ( English) Momar Samad, Foreign Ministry spokesman:
"I don't consider this as a blow to the government, it is a loss of an important figure in the government, loss of an Afghan with respect of all Afghans from all walks of life, from all ethnic groups, someone who was involved in the fight against terrorism, in the fight against invasions, he was a true mujahid, the freedom fighter. He spent most of his life fighting for this country, that is the loss. The country remains, the people remain, the process will go on, the Afghans are dedicated to bring peace and stability to this country."

0125
Qadir's body was then flown to Jalalabad, where an estimated 10-thousand people followed his body, carried on a gun-carriage, from the city's White Mosque to the grave in the lush Amir Shaheed Gardens .

0137
As the body was lowered into the grave, a Pashtu-language poem read over a loudspeaker hailed Qadir as "a unique man" and "a hero of Afghanistan."

0148
Some fear that his death threatens to stir unrest in Nangarhar, the province over which he governed.

0154
Apart from President Hamid Karzai himself, Qadir was the most prominent Pashtun in the new Afghan government.

0204 VISION ENDS

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