AFGHANISTAN HOLDS PUBLIC AMPUTATION (AP, FEB 20)

Friday, February 20, 1998; 9:13 a.m. EST

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Hameedullah sat on the cold, wet ground of a high school football field Friday surrounded by 10,000 people who had come to watch a doctor amputate his right hand -- the punishment in Taliban-run territory for theft.

Taliban soldiers with automatic rifles dragged 18-year-old Hameedullah from the back of an ambulance. Behind him a doctor followed.

Sobbing Hameedullah fell to the ground, while over a loudspeaker a mullah or Islamic cleric condemned Hameedullah's crime. He had apparently stolen some items from a small shop in Kabul's Karte Parwan district. The authorities didn't say what he had stolen or its worth.

A guard stood next to Hameedullah, while the doctor crouched to administer an injection of anesthetic. Within two minutes Hameedullah slumped to the ground, witnesses said.

Using a knife, the doctor amputated his right hand.

``It was all over in two, three minutes,'' said Mohammed Ahmed, a driver who watched the amputation.

After the operation, the soldiers moved quickly, picking up the bleeding youth and carrying him into an ambulance. As it roared off to a nearby hospital, the mullah yelled God is Great and extolled the virtues of the Taliban and its brand of Islamic law.

In Afghanistan, Taliban troops rule roughly 85 percent of the country and their northern-based opposition the remaining 15 percent.

The Taliban, who swept through Afghanistan in the past three years, have imposed a harsh version of Islamic law that calls for the death penalty for people convicted of murder, treason or rape, amputation of limbs for anyone found guilty of theft and public lashing for a variety of smaller crimes.

According to the mullah at Hameedullah's amputation, the young man had confessed to the theft.