Afghanistan's former king returned home yesterday after 29 years in exile, carrying hopes of a new beginning for his volatile nation on his frail shoulders.
The 87-year-old Mohammad Zahir Shah stepped onto a red carpet at Kabul Airport as an ordinary citizen, wearing a leather jacket, not a crown, and with no plans to reclaim his throne.
But his arrival shortly before noon immediately marked him out as the one figure able to heal ethnic and warlord divisions which could again return Afghanistan to a state of chaos.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"If his return can bring unity among the various tribes, then he is more than welcome," said Ahmed Rashid as he watched the former king and his entourage speed from the airport to his new home in an exclusive Kabul suburb.
There was massive security around the two-story house, including international peacekeepers, armored cars and several dozen smartly-dressed Italian Carbineri, who travelled with him from Rome.
But not even Afghan guards at the house were overawed by the former king's return
"We don't have anything against him if he doesn't try to reinstate the monarchy," said one who did not want to give his name. "Any effort to sit on the throne again on his part will spark fighting and tension."
About 200 people, including some feuding warlords who attended as a symbol of their loyalty, cheered, applauded and thronged the former king as he stepped from an Italian C-130 aircraft.
The Zahir Shah, who still cuts a regal figure, was the first of his entourage of about 20 family members and retainers to leave the aircraft.
Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai -- a distant cousin of the king and, like him, a Pashtun -- walked on one side of Zahir Shah. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the powerful Uzbek warlord from the north and once an opponent of the king, walked on the other.
Six government ministers went with Karzai to Rome to escort the former king home in a symbol that showed -- after delays caused by security fears -- that it was now safe to come back.
Young children presented flowers to a monarch described as an ascetic who ruled Afghanistan as a modernizer for 40 years until he was deposed by a cousin while on holiday in Italy in 1973.
Karzai has gambled that the monarch's return will help underpin a delicate balance of power which he has juggled since the fundamentalist Taliban were driven from power in December.
Ethnic Tajiks from the northern part of the country, who were in the forefront of the US-led war against the Taliban, control the powerful defense, interior and foreign ministries -- ?even though they are a minority.
The Pashtun majority, mainly from southern Afghanistan, hope the king can become a rallying figure for them, particularly at the loya jirga, or grand council, that will either endorse Karzai's Western-backed administration or choose a new government.
In a sign of the sensitivity of the king's return, there was no announcement on radio or television in the immediate hours after his return.
In Kabul, only at the airport and at one demonstration of support by about 1,000 people near the king's home were there flags and banners of welcome.
There was a bigger welcome for the king hundreds of miles from Kabul, along the Pakistan border where most Pashtuns live.
"I still don't believe the king has returned but I am so happy," said a cyclist with a photograph of the king fixed on his bike in Kandahar Province.
Old portraits of the king in military uniform adorned the walls of mud-built hotels and cafes in Kandahar, Takhta Pul, and Spinboldak across from the Pakistani border town of Chaman.
The majority of people living in the area belong to the king's Durrani tribe, a subset of Pashtuns.
But they were concerned about the king's safety in Kabul.
"He should settle in Kandahar where he will have his own Pashtun speaking people to protect him," one resident said.
The former king has said he will never leave Afghanistan once he returns. But he stepped onto home soil on a day of tragedy and violence.
In the eastern city of Khost, long a center of Taliban unrest, provincial officials said three Afghans died in a bomb attack on a busy market just hours before the king's arrival.
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