Afghan minister and intelligence chief quit over attack

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's interior minister and head of intelligence resigned on Sunday over lapses that led to an insurgent attack on last week's peace conference addressed by President Hamid Karzai, his office said.

Insurgents fired at least four rockets at a giant tent holding a traditional jirga (gathering) of 1,600 Afghan elders and notables on Wednesday. They all fell short, but the attack was followed up by a commando raid by three insurgents wearing suicide vests.

"The president lost confidence in our capability to provide security for the jirga and my explanation to the president was not convincing enough," intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh told a news conference.

At a separate news conference later, Atmar said he had also been summoned by the president to explain the lapse in security during the jirga.

"My explanation was not satisfactory. I had no other choice but to hand in my resignation and Karzai signed it," Atmar told reporters in Kabul

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the jirga, which came despite a massive security blanket thrown over the capital.

While there were no casualties apart from the attackers -- two were shot dead and one captured -- the incident was embarrassing for Karzai, who called the meeting to discuss his proposals to make peace overtures to the Taliban.

Karzai brushed off the attack as an everyday occurrence, but a direct hit on a tent containing scores of Afghan notables as well as senior Western diplomats would have been disastrous.

Several hours before the resignations were made public on Sunday, Atmar's spokesman called a news conference in the capital to say security forces had prevented other attacks on the jirga.

Afghan security forces had arrested 15 Taliban insurgents, including would-be-suicide bombers before and during the jirga, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

He said some 700 rockets and 250kg (530 pounds) of explosives were discovered from remote districts of Kabul province before the peace jirga, calling the discoveries a huge success for the security departments.

RESIGNATIONS ACCEPTED

A statement from Karzai's palace said he had accepted the resignation of Saleh and Interior Minister Hanif Atmar.

Atmar is a Pashtun technocrat who has worked in humanitarian organizations and once served as a senior spy during the communist regime. He is well liked by Western diplomats for launching early reforms of the struggling police force.

Reports in Afghan media he was being investigated for corruption have been denied by the attorney general's office.

Saleh, an ethnic Tajik from northern Afghanistan, was an active member of the Northern Alliance, the main faction fighting the Taliban during the late 1990's.

He had served as Karzai's intelligence chief for more than five years.

The Taliban insurgency is at its height since the hardline Islamists were overthrown by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001 and despite the presence of over 150,000 foreign troops.

The statement from Karzai's palace said the president had appointed Paswal Mohammad Munir Mangal as acting Interior Minister and Engineer Ibrahim Spinzada as acting head of the intelligence department.

The jirga, where last week's attack took place, was a traditional Afghan tribal council called by Karzai to establish a national consensus on how to bring an end to an insurgency that has dragged on for nearly nine years.

More than 1,500 Afghan tribal and religious elders met over three days where they agreed, among other things, to open negotiations with the Taliban and other insurgent groups in a bid to bring peace.

On Sunday, in his first step toward implementing the agreements made at the peace conference, Karzai ordered a review of all cases of suspected insurgents in jails in Afghanistan and called for the release of those being held without sufficient evidence.

The jirga had also called for the Afghan government and foreign troops in the country to free those prisoners being held "on inaccurate information or substantiated allegations."

(Editing by David Fox)