Afghan 'Loya Jirga' Delayed

08/12/2003| IslamWeb

A major gathering, aimed at thrashing out details of a new Afghan constitution, is not going ahead on Wednesday as planned. The official reason is that not all delegates have arrived in Kabul with many needing more time to travel from remote regions. Saturday has now been penciled in as a new start date for the grand assembly or Loya Jirga. "Everything depends on the arrival of the delegates and taking them through the necessary orientation before the formal starting of the Loya Jirga," said one of the organizers. Privately, however, sources say the main reason for the delay is that President Hamid Karzai is having to work harder than expected to gain support for an already-published draft of the constitution. If endorsed, the draft would give him sweeping powers. Elsewhere in the capital, Afghan soldiers have been handing in their weapons as part of a US-supervised disarmament drive. It comes as US forces remain under pressure to explain how they could have accidentally killed nine children in an air strike on Saturday in the southern province of Ghazni. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Hamid Karzai. (AFP/File/Shah Marai