Iran closes offices of firebrand Afghan dissident

By Jon Hemming

Sunday February 10, 9:50 PM

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian authorities have closed down the offices of dissident Afghan guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in a move seen as trying to prove Tehran's goodwill towards the interim government in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Newspapers said on Sunday the strongly anti-American Hekmatyar, who recently voiced hostility to the presence of foreign peace-keeping troops in Afghanistan, had acted against Iranian national security.

Iran vehemently denies U.S. charges it is trying to destabilise the fragile peace in Afghanistan by arming groups hostile to Hamid Karzai's interim administration.

"Iran decided to close down Hekmatyar's offices because he did not consider the country's security policy," the official Iran newspaper quoted police chief Hossein Zare-Sefat as saying.

"It's a green light to the world and the Americans that shows Iran's foreign policy is based on dialogue and friendship," Tehran University politics lecturer Hamidreza Jalaipour told Reuters.

Hekmatyar, a leading Afghan warlord who fought Soviet occupation in the 1980s, expressed scorn for the Karzai government in an interview with Reuters last Tuesday, saying it was installed by foreign troops occupying Afghanistan.

"I have a lot of organised forces. They have weapons and we are in contact with them," Hekmatyar said. "While foreign troops are present, the interim government does not have any value or meaning."

International peace-keeping troops are now deployed in the capital Kabul after U.S. forces joined opposition Northern Alliance fighters to rout the previously ruling Taliban and destroy Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

CALLS FOR EXPULSION

Powerful Kandahar governor Gul Agha last month accused Hekmatyar and al Qaeda members of having forces to provoke a new civil war in Afghanistan and topple the interim government.

On Saturday, Gul Agha charged that Iran was supplying guns and money to factions in western Iran. Iran has denied interfering in Afghan affairs and rejected U.S. allegations that it was letting al Qaeda members escape from Afghanistan through Iran.

Calls have mounted inside Iran for Hekmatyar to be expelled from the country, where he has lived since the Taliban took Kabul in 1996.

"Iran is no place for any one or group that resorts to mischief," Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari said. "We will pursue the issue of Hekmatyar through our intelligence ministry and other channels and make a due decision about him."

During the guerrilla war against Soviet forces, Hekmatyar was backed by Pakistan who helped supply his mujahideen fighters with U.S. arms. His forces later devastated much of Kabul firing hundreds of rockets to try to displace the rival faction of Ahmad Shah Massoud.

But when the Taliban wrested control of most of the country from the feuding mujahideen fighters, his Pakistani backers switched their support, forcing Hekmatyar into exile in Iran.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said Hekmatyar had now been warned to stick by guidelines set for his proper behaviour as a "guest" in Iran.

"Although Hekmatyar has received constant warnings from Iranian officials, why has he not been expelled from Iran?" the reformist daily Norouz asked in an editorial on Sunday.