KABUL, Aug 25: Yunus Qanooni, President Hamid Karzai's former ally turned chief rival in landmark October elections, has accused Karzai of failing to combat drugs, disarm militias and live up to Afghans' expectations.

In an interview two weeks before the official campaign period opens, the former education minister, who stepped down last month to run against Mr Karzai for president, said the two-year-old interim government had failed to tackle the war-ravaged country's biggest problems.

"Security in Afghanistan has deteriorated day by day, narcotics ... have risen 18 times compared to last year, the weapons ... were not collected, and reconstruction of Afghanistan, despite international support, failed to take place," he said.

Mr Qanooni, a senior member of the Northern Alliance group of commanders who helped the United States topple the hardline Taliban regime in 2001, served as Karzai's education minister and also as interior minister before quitting the cabinet to run against him in the October polls.

Part of the powerful clique of ethnic Tajik commanders from the Panjshir valley which dominates the cabinet, Qanooni had been in talks with Karzai in recent weeks over whether to back him in the polls in return for a senior post in the post-election administration, according to his close aides.

But on Tuesday he ruled out pulling out of the race to strike a deal with Karzai. "My candidacy is not to obtain positions, it is to save Afghanistan, to build a government of the future of Afghanistan. So no post and position can stop me from my determination," he said.

Fellow Panjshiri Tajiks including powerful Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim have thrown their weight behind Qanooni's candidacy. Qanooni accused elements in Karzai's government of sparking a factional clash in western Herat province earlier this month in a bid to secure control of drug-trafficking routes to Iran.

"The Herat fighting was organized by some high-ranking government officials. There are some officials in the government who are aiming to connect drugs-trafficking routes ... to Afghanistan's borders.

"One of the aims for inflaming this fighting was to link drug-trafficking routes," he claimed. Clashes erupted between western strongman Ismael Khan, who governs Herat, and a rival warlord on August 14.

Fighting raged for four days, leaving scores of militiamen dead, until Afghanistan's fledgling army and US-led coalition forces stepped in to broker a truce. Qanooni rejected assumptions that Washington had a preferred candidate in the upcoming vote.

"The United States has a wider strategy in the region and would never invest in a single person," he said, responding to perceptions of Karzai as US-backed. "America doesn't have a candidate - America's candidate will be the candidate of Afghanistan's people whomever the people of Afghanistan support."

However, he warned that if the US were to throw its weight behind one individual, "it would be America's historic mistake." Qanooni said he was among a group of rival candidates who had asked Karzai to step down ahead of elections. He said some candidates were still considering boycotting the vote if Karzai declined, but he did not make clear whether he supported the boycott idea. -AFP