Afghan government minister accused of hampering fight against insurgents

1.Bismillah Khan Muhammadi's intervention in Kabul siege may have led to British and Afghan casualties, say Isaf officials. Members of British and Afghan special forces were seriously injured during last week's Kabul siege after Afghanistan's interior minister barged onto the scene at 3am and ordered the "cowards" to rush the final assault, Afghan and international officials say.Even as fighting raged on the upper floors of a 12-storey condemned building site that insurgents had used to fire missiles at the US embassy, Bismillah Khan Muhammadi, a 50-year-old cabinet minister, marched into the ground floor at around 3am and ordered a new team to be thrown into the fight.Well-informed sources have painted an extraordinary picture of a senior official who not only remained in the building while fighting continued, but also accused commanders of being cowards and threatened to sack them unless they hurried up. A shocked official from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said that by bypassing the established chain of command Muhammadi sent the mission into disarray, spoiling what had until that point been a painstaking and careful effort by Afghan forces.

2."The troops that he sent in were not properly briefed or prepared, which may well have led to them taking casualties. By taking complete command of the entire operation he undermined all levels of command below him, rendering them ineffective," the official said.Five Afghan commandos from the reserve unit Muhammadi had ordered into the building were injured as they raced up the building. Another had been wounded earlier in the operation, which took 20 hours to complete.In addition five British special forces soldiers, most likely from the Special Air Service who were mentoring the Afghans, were wounded by grenades thrown in the abandoned building site. Another Isaf official said the British casualties were taken to a Nato medical facility where at least one man, suffering shrapnel wounds to his chest, was operated on.The Ministry of Defence refuses to comment on either special forces operations or on injuries sustained by troops, but all the wounded are said to be recovering.

3.John Allen, the US general in overall command of the international forces, was said to be furious with Muhammadi's interference in the operation, which Isaf officials believe may have added hours to the final outcome, giving insurgents extra time to prepare for the final assault. An Isaf spokesman refused to comment on Allen's view of events, or on details of the operation.A group of opposition MPs have called for the resignation of Muhammadi and other ministers with security portfolios in the wake of the day-long fight in the capital. In a statement the interior ministry denied the claims of security and diplomatic sources, saying the minister had stayed 600 metres away from the building and respected the chain of command.It said there was "no reason to clear the area with hurry", adding: "The minister, when sought by the commanders, encouraged them to have patience during the operation and said they should act according to the procedures and training they have received while responding to these attacks."But a western diplomat said Muhammadi, a former guerrilla leader who fought the Russians in the 1980s, had been "fuming about the amount of time it took to clear everything".

4.Afghan special forces believed they had no choice but to proceed slowly after booby-trapped bombs had been found on the upper floors. "They couldn't rush up," one official said. "Fighting upstairs is very difficult in a normal building, let alone one that is largely open with massive arcs of fire that the insurgents can shoot from."In another sign of how well prepared the attackers were, a car filled with remote controlled explosives was left by the entrance of the building in an effort to kill security forces as they arrived. It did not explode, officials believe, because the insurgent with the detonator was killed before he could use it.At one stage the Afghans planned to try and land troops on the roof with a helicopter but the plan was abandoned after it was decided the risks of the aircraft being shot down were too great.It was a wise choice as the insurgents had at their disposal hundreds of grenades, rocket propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and an 82mm mortar tube used to fire at the US embassy.

5.Suspicions have been raised that such a huge quantity of weapons must have been pre-positioned, and two policemen who worked in a checkpoint based in the lower floors of the building have been arrested.The insurgents, who have been identified by the US as members of the Haqqani Network, were highly proficient in using the weapons, at one point scoring a direct hit on a military vehicle with a rocket propelled grenade from 400 metres.In another sign of military training, they also had basic first aid skills and equipment which they used to treat a colleague wounded soon after entering the building. His blood trail is still visible on the broken concrete flights of stairs.During a visit to the site on Sunday an energy bar was still lying on a staircase where it was dropped by an attacker who was prepared for a long and physically draining siege.

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