U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Kabul on Tuesday to discuss a transfer of power to an interim government set to rule war-shattered Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban. A U.N. official said Brahimi had landed at Bagram airbase north of the Afghan capital and was heading into talks with Abdullah Abdullah, designated foreign minister in the administration due to take over on December 22.

Under a U.N.-brokered power-sharing deal, the administration will govern for six months under Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun tribal leader who served as deputy foreign minister for the Mujahideen government ousted by the Taliban in September, 1996.
Karzai, who negotiated last week's surrender of the hardline militia's last stronghold of Kandahar, planned to travel to Kabul from the southern city on Tuesday, one of his relatives said. The U.N. envoy was expected to leave the capital on Wednesday. Bureau Report