Minister buried after brutal death

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The tourism minister who was violently beaten to death at Kabul airport as pilgrims waited for their planes to Mecca has been buried.

Thousands of mourners attended the funeral in Kabul of civil aviation and tourism minister Abdul Rahman as investigators continued to search for suspects.

Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was among the mourners Saturday and offered prayers that his country would be delivered from "the culture of the knife and the gun" after two other violent incidents during the past few days.

Football supporters clashed with police at Kabul's sporting stadium Friday after a restricted number of tickets left hundreds of angry men outside.

In a separate incident British troops, in Kabul as part of an international security force, came under fire Saturday from unknown gunmen who peppered their observation point with bullets.

Rahman's coffin, draped in the Afghan flag and strewn with flowers, was carried from a mosque to a cemetery in southern Kabul.

Karzai, flanked by his foreign, interior and defense ministers, marched before the casket.

"This is a very bad thing to happen to our nation, to our new government, this killing," said mourner Mohammed Mohaqaq, shaking his head.

"We are not at all ready for more problems like this."

Karzai said the death showed the need for Afghanistan to move away from its violence-shadowed past.

"This event is proof once again that the culture of the knife and gun is something we should save the people from, and see the way to peace," Karzai told the crowd.

"With God's help in the future, no one will do these kinds of things any more. We hope God will help the people of Afghanistan."

The slain man's brother, Naser, appealed to Karzai: "Please capture the people who did this."

Witnesses and initial official accounts said Rahman was killed by a mob of would-be Muslim pilgrims furious over delayed flights to Saudi Arabia.

He had reportedly been dragged from his plane bound for India and thrown on to the tarmac.

In the hours before Rahman's killing, more than 1,000 pilgrims had grown increasingly restive, stranded at the airport without flights for Saudi Arabia.

About an hour before Rahman was killed, the mob beat the president of Ariana, the national airline.

But Karzai blamed high-ranking officials in his own government whom he said were motivated by a feud dating back to the struggle against the Taliban.

Three suspects were arrested, and three others -- including Gen. Abdullah Jan Tawhidi, the deputy intelligence chief, and Gen. Kalandar Beg, a Defense Ministry official -- were being sought.

They were thought to have been among the planeloads of pilgrims who eventually flew out to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

International peacekeepers, less than 200 yards away at the time, were unable to shed any new light on Thursday night's killing.