New Afghan cabinet sworn in

Karzai took the oaths of 23 of the 27 ministers he named late Thursday, just over two weeks after his own inauguration as the first democratically-elected Afghan leader.

In a ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul, the new cabinet members swore with their right hands on the Koran to defend Islam, the constitution and Afghanistan in the name of Allah.

Interior Minister Ali Ahmed Jalali and Commerce Minister Hedayat Amin Asala were abroad while Urban Development Minister Yusuf Pashtun and Mohammed Sediq, Minister for Mines and Industry, were also absent, a presidential aide told AFP.

Seven weeks after he was officially announced winner of the historic October 9 election, Karzai appointed a government including two women and many English-speaking technocrats considered his close aides

Ousted were former defence minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim and former education minister Yunus Qanooni, two powerful ethnic Tajik figures with the Northern Alliance which toppled the Taliban regime in 2001 with US assistance.