KABUL: The Afghan president said Wednesday that he will extend a Dec. 17 deadline for private security firms to disband by at least two extra months. In a statement released by his office, Hamid Karzai said that he will set up a committee of officials to review the decree to ban private guards. Security companies may have longer than two months to disband, depending on how quickly the timetable submitted on Nov. 15 takes to be approved. It is also unclear whether different organizations will be given different deadlines. The private security firms were supposed to shut by Dec. 17, but with only seven weeks to go until the deadline and officials said it was still unclear where the government would draw the extra police and army troops from to replace them. Most of the country's armed forces are busy fighting the insurgency. There are an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 private security guards working in Afghanistan. The review committee will be led by the Afghan interior minister and will have members from NATO forces and major donors. The ban had threatened NATO security convoys and development and reconstruction work worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Agencies have said they would be unable to insure their workers if they had to replace private security contractors with Afghanistan's largely poorly trained and undisciplined armed forces. “Recognizing the importance of maintaining the continuous delivery of critical development projects and programs funded by the international community, the committee will prepare a timetable for the disbandment,” the statement from Karzai's office said. Once approved, each organization will be given a maximum of 90 days before the designated dissolution date. After the plan is implemented, the government will assume responsibility for providing security for the development projects, the statement said. The government will continue to disband illegal private security companies and road convoy security companies, according to the statement. 65 killed in roof collapse A roof collapsed during a wedding Wednesday in northern Afghanistan killing 65 people, nearly all women and children, said police. “Most of the dead were women celebrating the wedding on the top floor of a mud brick house packed with guests,” said Jawad Bashart, spokesman of the Baghlan provincial police. Only one adult male was killed.He added that 12 children were among the dead and another 40 people were wounded in the remote Jelga district.Women and men traditionally have separate celebrations at weddings. Dr. Salim Rasouli, the provincial health chief, said that the incident happened in the afternoon but that the district was very far and the road was unsafe to travel at night. “Unfortunately it is a very remote area. We don't have any access. The nearest clinic to that area is in the neighboring district,” he said.
