In an effort to present a more balanced government than the previous one, which was dominated by personalities belonging to the minority Tajik ethnic, Mr. Karzai offered the key post of Interior to Mr. Taj Mohammad Vardak, of the Pashtoon majority but confirmed Mr. Mohammad Qasem Fahim, who was promoted to the grade of Marshal, and Dr. Abdollah Abdollah in their posts of Defence and Foreign Affairs.

Both men are Tajik and belongs to the Northern Alliance that, withmilitary support of the United States, defeated the orthodox Muslim Taleban who ruled Afghanistan for six years.

Abdolkarim Khalili, a Hazara, who rules in Bamiyan and Haji Qadir, the strongman of Jalalabad, near Pakistan, were nominated as deputy Prime Minister alongside with Marshal Fahim, but two prominent warlords, Abdolrashid Dostom of Mazar Sharif, who is Uzbek and Esma’il Khan, a Tajik and self-appointed "emir" of Heart, adjacent to the Iranian border, were absent from the cabinet.

Mr. Ashraf Qani, another Poshtoon, a close adviser to Mr. Karzai and a former official at the World Bank, took over Amin Arsala, a pro-Zaher Shah, as Finance Minister and Mr. Yoones Qanooni, the former Interior Minister who offered his resignation at the start of the ELJ last week, also a Tajik, was named as Minister of Education, but it was not clear whether he accepted the job or not.

Dr. Suheila Sidiq, Afghanistan's only woman general, also kept her job as Health Minister.

In total, Mr. Karzai announced 14 ministers and is expected to complete the appointments over the next few days, while promising to reduce "to the minimum possible" the number of ministers from the present 29, without making it clear which ministries he would scrap.

"If Afghanistan does not have a strong central government, nothing will happen", the new transitional Head of Afghan State said, adding that his effort was directed at naming experts to technical posts.

"We talked very much about how we could create a government that the people of Afghanistan could believe and trust and accept for themselves", Mr. Karzai told the Grand Assembly of Elders, some of them having already left the capital in protest to the way "decisions are taken from above", a reference to the Afghan-born Mr. Zamlay Khalilzad, the Bush Administration’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan.

Considered as the US’s "proconsul" in Kabol, it was Mr. Khalilzad who, according to informed sources, defused a dangerous row between supporters of the 87 years-old Mohammad Zaher Shah and his opponents at the start of the ELJ, by announcing that the former Monarch was not seeking to restore Monarchy nor any specific role for himself.

Mr. Khalilzad also hailed the formation of a new government within six months of the Bonn agreement, adding: "After a short period of interim authority organising this, it is quite an achievement".
Asked by reporters to comment of the new transitional cabinet, Mr. Khalilzad said Khalilzad said he could not make a definitive judgement on the new-look cabinet until all the ministers had been announced.

"My understanding is that it's more ethnically balanced than the previous administration", he said, adding that one has to wait to see if they can work together and push their programmes forward".

"Was it perfect? Clearly not. But I regard it as a positive step in the process of consolidating the new order, of healing the wounds of Afghanistan and of moving towards peace and fair elections."
Like many other observers, Mr. Sultan Ahmad Bahim, the head of the official Bakhter news agency, said although the new cabinet had greater balance, the Northern Alliance, which ousted the former Taleban regime with the help of US forces, still wielded undue clout.

"There are representatives of all ethnic groups in this list but the ethnic balance has not been observed perfectly", he told the French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP).
In a speech before he unveiled his cabinet, Karzai stressed the need for national unity and underlined his commitment to education and health.

"No one in any part of Afghanistan should eat in darkness. No son of Afghanistan should have to study by candlelight. No mother should worry about the health of their children and no one should have to go outside Afghanistan for treatment."

In his address during the introduction of his new cabinet, Karzai "appreciated" the role played by Iran in successful establishment and performance of the Emergency Loya Jirga.

"Both the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its ambassador Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian, played a significant and worthy role in successful establishment and performance of the Emergency Loya Jirga", Karzai said, quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA.

Karzai later took the oath of office in a ceremony, which marked the end of the Loya Jirga.

Special commemorative medals were also handed to United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force General John McColl and Loya Jirga chairman Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar and the representative of a German company that had offered the huge, air-conditioned tent that served as premises for the venue.

Here is a list of the Cabinet ministers and top leaders in Afghanistan's new transitional government.
-President: Hamid Karzai, Pashtoon.
-Deputy Presidents: Mohammed Fahim, Tajik; Karim Khalili, Hazara; Abdul Qadir, Pashtoon.
Cabinet:
-Defense Minister: Mohammed Fahim, Tajik.
-Foreign Minister: Abdullah, Tajik.
-Finance Minister: Ashraf Ghani, Pashtoon.
-Interior Minister: Taj Mohammed Wardak, Pashtoon.
-Planning Minister: Mohammed Mohaqik, Hazara.
-Communications Minister: Masoom Stanakzai, Pashtoon.
-Borders Minister: Arif Nurzai: Pashtoon but from a Tajik-dominated party.
-Refugees Minister: Intayatullah Nazeri, Tajik.
-Mines Minister: Juma M. Mahammadi, Pashtoon.
-Light Industries Minister: Mohammed Alim Razm, Uzbek.
-Public Health: Dr. Sohaila Siddiqi, Pashtoon.
-Commerce Minister: Sayed Mustafa Kasemi, Shiite Muslim.
-Agriculture Minister: Sayed Hussain Anwari, Hazara.
Courts:
-Supreme Court Chief Justice: Sheikh Hadi Shinwari.

Meanwhile, ISAF and Afghan sources said the rockets that were fired Tuesday to the ISAF bases and American embassy in Kabol were coming from southeast of the capital and were fired by men belonging to either Taleban and Al-Qa’eda or former prime minister Golbodin Hekmatyar.