A group of former warlords who helped the U.S. topple the Taliban regime in 2001 have launched a political alliance against Afghan President Hamid Karzai's rule, in a re-emergence of old civil-war divisions as the country looks ahead to the departure of U.S. forces.
The leaders, each representing a minority ethnic group, say they are concerned that Mr. Karzai will seek to claim more power following President Barack Obama's announcement last week of plans to begin withdrawing U.S. troops.
The announcement of the renewed alliance last week followed a decision by a special court backed by Mr. Karzai that disqualified a quarter of all parliamentarians elected in September polls. The decision weakened the contingent of lawmakers that is trying to turn the legislature into a check on Mr. Karzai's authority.
Mr. Karzai had argued that the election wasn't representative of the public's wishes because it diluted the power of the Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group-to which Mr. Karzai and the Taliban belong.
The court turned the seats over to the runners-up in the polls, many of them Karzai supporters, including one of his cousins. Mr. Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omer, said the new lawmakers were legal and had the full support of the president.
The disqualifications are "not good for the president but shows the democracy in this country," Mr. Omer said. He also welcomed the formation of the new opposition group
The new opposition alliance took shape with a sense of urgency, amid worries that the U.S. withdrawal will take away the most significant check to Mr. Karzai's power: the international community.
The opposition group is the first to include leaders across Afghanistan's Uzbek, Hazara and Tajik communities, which slightly outnumber Pashtuns with roughly 43% of the population.
"We want to inform the international community and Karzai that we don't agree with the direction the country is moving in," said Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, the leader of Afghanistan's Hazara community, which had gained power in September polls but lost seats in last week's court decision.
"Political leaders from all ethnicities are being left out of government," Mr. Mohaqiq said. "Look at how he is trying to end parliament because it's not allied to him."
The new opposition group is led by former key figures in the Northern Alliance, which banded together mostly Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara militias to fight the Taliban regime during civil war in the 1990s.
Along with Mr. Mohaqiq, the group is led by Gen. Rashid Dostum of the Uzbek community and Ahmad Zia Massoud, a prominent Tajik whose brother, Ahmad Shah Massoud, led the Tajiks against the Taliban before his assassination by al Qaeda two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Efforts to form opposition groups to Mr. Karzai have crumbled in the past, and how much parliamentary support the new alliance can muster is unclear. But the three leaders successfully rallied their communities to support Mr. Karzai's presidential race in 2009.
They say they feel the president since his election has betrayed them by moving against their own supporters in parliament and pursuing negotiations with the Taliban.
The group says it fears that talks with the insurgents, which also have the backing of the U.S., would lead to a power-sharing agreement with the Taliban.
"These negotiations with the Taliban are also a main reason we've formed this alliance. What will the government give up in peace talks?" said Mr. Massoud. Mr. Massoud served as Mr. Karzai's vice president during his first term.
Afghanistan's political system provides few checks to presidential powers except for the parliament, though it is considered weak. There are few strong political parties in Afghanistan, where political allegiance often runs along ethnic and tribal lines. The only current major opposition group is headed by Abdullah Abdullah, who ran for president against Mr. Karzai in 2009 and was a Northern Alliance leader.
But Mr. Abdullah's party has been unable to cobble enough leaders together to form a strong opposition to Mr. Karzai's rule.
Some analysts suspect the coalition will succumb to infighting. "Whenever they build coalitions, they are vulnerable because each leader is fighting for its own community," said Haroun Mir, a Kabul-based political analyst.
Among the opposition's objectives is to put enough pressure on Mr. Karzai to reverse the decision to disqualify lawmakers from parliament; ensure the Taliban don't gain power through peace talks; and to field their own candidate for the next presidential election, in 2014-the year that foreign forces plan to hand over full authority to Afghanistan.
Separately on Tuesday, the Afghan government appealed to the U.S. and Interpol to arrest Afghanistan's central-bank governor, saying he was involved in systemic fraud at the country's largest lender. Gov. Abdul Qadir Fitrat fled to the U.S. about 10 days ago, saying he feared for his life after exposing corruption at Kabul Bank.
Mr. Fitrat has denied wrongdoing. Neither he nor a central-bank spokesman could be reached. The U.S. has no bilateral extradition treaty with Afghanistan.
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