Karzai sworn in as Afghanistan's president

Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president yesterday, promising to bring peace to the war-torn nation and end the economy's dependence on narcotics.

Two of the men most responsible for easing him into power, US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, were among more than 100 foreign guests watching as Mr Karzai placed his hand on the Koran to take an oath of allegiance at the fortified presidential palace in Kabul.

The inauguration passed off peacefully, despite threats by Taliban guerillas that they would disrupt the investiture, the culmination of Mr Karzai's victory in Afghanistan's first democratic presidential poll on October 9.

"With international cooperation we can root out terrorism from Afghanistan," Mr Karzai, wearing a black lambskin hat and traditional cape, or chapan, said in his acceptance speech.

"The relationship between terrorism and narcotics, however, and the threat of extremism in the region... is a source of continued concern," he said, referring to worries over Afghanistan being the world's main supplier of heroin.

He said disarming private militias, fighting the drugs trade, stamping out corruption and forging unity among ethnic groups and tribes would be his goals in the next five years.

During his swearing in, Mr Karzai sat alongside aging former king Zahir Shah, who remained in exile after being ousted in 1973, and returned home only after the fall of the Taliban.

All eyes will now be on who Mr Karzai picks for his new cabinet, which is seen as crucial to whether the country can chart a course of reform away from weak central control, destabilisation by regional warlords and an economy dominated by the drugs trade.

Security was extremely tight at the palace, with large numbers of Afghan and US-led troops deployed and several key roads in Kabul closed to traffic. Nato-led peacekeepers drove armoured vehicles through frosty streets in pre-dawn patrols, helicopters hovered overhead, and rapid reaction forces were on alert.

A measure of the worry about militant attacks was that VIPs were asked to supply their blood groups as a precaution.