"After having been a sanctuary for international terrorism, Afghanistan today would become its graveyard", promised the 44 years-old Mr. Hamid Karzai, a Pashtoon aristocrat tribal leader, taking oath as new interim Prime Minister, the first Afghan "national" government in the past 23 years.

More than 2000 Afghan dignitaries of various ethnics, religions and tribes, some of them having travelled from hundreds of kilometres and representatives of 35 nations and international organisations, including the US and UK military commanders took part at the ceremonies many analysts tagged as "historic".

Mr. Borhaneddin Rabbani, the nominal president of the Islamic Government of Afghanistan that was booted out of Kabol by the now defeated Taleban in 1996, officially handed over power to Mr. Karzai, 76 days after Washington launched its military campaign to oust the ruling Taleban and capture Osama Ben Laden, a Saudi anti-western, anti-American crusader, suspected to be behind the 11 September attacks on the New York’s World Trade Centre twin towers and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

Alternating Dari and Pashtoon languages, he pledged to respect international human rights, freedom of the expression and individuals, particularly the right of women, whom the Taleban had forced to stay at home, segregated, deprived of work and education.

Starting his welcome speech in Dari, or Afghan Farsi, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N’s Special Envoy to Afghanistan who supervised the creation of the interim Administration by four Afghan groups who had met last month in Bonn, said the passage of power was a "historic event" that he hoped would bring to an end decades of wars and destruction in Afghanistan.

Kamal Kharrazi, Iran’s Foreign Minister and his Belgian counterpart, Mr. Louis Michel, representing the European Union pledged to help reconstruct Afghanistan.

Washington said it had bombed a caravan of Taleban and Al Qa’eda fighters, but promised to investigate.

Safeguarding national peace and security, the nation’s geographical integrity, friendly relations with all neighbours and a sound, working administration were among other promises Mr. Karzai pledged to carry out in the six moths he would act at the helm of a 30-member team to put Afghanistan back on the rails and leading to the convention of a Loya Jirga, or Assembly of the Elders.

This Assembly, that might be presided over by Mohammad Zaher Shah, the 87 years0old former Afghan Monarch, in turn will select a new government to last 24 months and draw a Constitution for the country.

"We are strongly supported by the international community...by representatives from each and every province...(now) we must forget the painful past and go to make a new Afghanistan together", Karzai said, wearing the traditional lambskin hat and a green and purple Uzbek robe.

Symbols of the huge, dramatic changes that shook Afghanistan in less than four months, two women are named to important ministerial posts in the interim government, a moving contrast from the days Taleban kept them at home.

Here is the full list of Mr. Karzai’s interim government: