Afghan lawmakers adjourn

KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan’s parliament adjourned Sunday for its winter recess without waiting for President Hamid Karzai to offer new Cabinet nominees to replace those rejected in two rounds of confirmation votes. Karzai said he’ll appoint caretakers to run those ministries without confirmed leaders to avoid government paralysis as NATO ramps up the war against the Taliban.

The uncertainty over the makeup of Karzai’s administration following the flawed presidential election last year compounds the many problems facing Afghanistan, most notably the increasingly bloody insurgency. In the latest violence, gunmen opened fire on a local government convoy Sunday, killing six people, including a district chief. Separately, NATO said an American soldier died today in Kabul of apparent natural causes.

International forces killed two Afghan civilians in separate checkpoint shootings, underscoring the dangers facing Afghans caught in the middle of escalating combat.

The United States and other countries contributing aid and troops to Afghanistan are eager for Karzai to assemble a second-term administration that is able to combat corruption and pursue reforms needed to garner public support for the government and defeat the Taliban.

But Afghan lawmakers have twice rejected the majority of Karzai’s picks to run ministries, forcing him to go back to the drawing board to fill 11 of 25 slots, including public health and border and tribal affairs positions.

Karzai’s spokesman said Sunday it was not likely the president would have a Cabinet in place before a Jan. 28 international conference in London, as had been hoped by Washington and its allies.

“Our understanding is that we may not be able to do so and that the parliament might go to their recess and we will introduce new members after they come back from their recess,” spokesman Waheed Omar said.

Mohammad Saleh Suljoqi, the secretary for the parliamentary speaker, said lawmakers decided Sunday to adjourn for a recess through the end of February despite the Cabinet standoff, although he acknowledged Karzai has the constitutional authority to call them back.

Police blamed Taliban militants for Sunday’s attack on the local government convoy, which occurred in a relatively safe area in the western province of Herat. The gunmen ambushed the convoy from all directions as it was traveling on the main highway between the provincial capital of Herat to the district of Chishti Sharif, provincial police spokesman Noor Khan Nekzad said.

Abdul Qadus Qayyum, the administrative chief of Chishti Sharif, the local director of criminal investigations and four policemen were killed after a 50-minute gunbattle, according to the Interior Ministry.