Afghan President Hamid Karzai paid homage yesterday to millions of Afghans who died fighting foreign occupation as the capital Kabul marked 83 years of independence from Britain amid tight security.
But the traditional military parade was canceled to save money.
Thousands descended on Kabul sports stadium, once the scene of Taliban public executions and still showing the marks of heavy shelling, to watch martial arts and parachute displays, a student parade and firing of old rifles seized from the British.
Afghan soldiers in olive uniforms and about 12 US special forces troops were deployed around the stadium, and international peacekeepers with the International Security Assistance Force were also in the vicinity, witnesses said.
US troops body-searched people entering the arena for the festivities and two Afghan helicopters hovered overhead.
Former king Mohammad Zahir Shah, now a father figure to Afghans, inaugurated the celebrations in front of tens of thousands of clapping onlookers.
Addressing the nation, Karzai, wearing a white traditional tunic and his trademark lambskin hat, paid homage to those who had died fighting Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
"Our independence is the result of the martyrdom of millions of sons of this country," Karzai said.
Black, red and green national flags flew on the capital's official buildings and many others besides.
Pictures of Ahmad Shah Masood, the revered anti-Taliban commander and official national hero of Afghanistan, who was killed last year, adorned many of the city's main road junctions. But Afghan officials said the traditional military parade had been canceled to save money.
On the eve of independence day, Karzai had said he would work for unity among rival ethnic groups and clans and vowed to continue to seek international aid to help rebuild a country shattered by 23 years of occupation and war.
After three wars against Britain, in which more than 30,000 British soldiers perished, Afghanistan won independence in 1919.
Decades later the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, leading to a bloody 10-year war that forced out the Red Army in 1989.
Internecine fighting soon broke out between Afghan factions, and in the mid-1990s the hardline Islamic Taliban regime arrived to impose strict religious laws.
Blamed for harboring the al-Qaeda network believed to be behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the US, the Taliban fell late last year after an intense US bombing campaign and land assault by the Northern Alliance opposition.
Independence day was celebrated regularly under the Taliban in Kabul.
But in Kandahar, thousands of people waved flags and cheered as soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles paraded by to mark the first Independence Day celebration in two decades in the former Taliban stronghold.
"In the future, we won't show you ammunition and guns," Governor Gul Agha Sherzai proclaimed from a large dais erected outside his house along the parade route. "We will show you the development of the country. We will show you open doors to schools. We will show you peace in the country."
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