AFGHANISTAN:Former Afghan king Mohammad Zahir Shah, whose 40-year reign coincided with one of the most peaceful periods in the country's recent history, died yesterday, aged 92.
President Hamid Karzai declared three days of mourning and ordered flags to be flown at half mast for the man heralded as "father of the nation", who returned from 29 years of exile in 2002.
"With paramount grief, I would like to inform my countrymen that . . . Mohammad Zahir Shah has bid farewell to this mortal world," Mr Karzai told reporters.
The former king died in his bed after months of illness. Mr Karzai described Zahir Shah as the founder of Afghan democracy and a symbol of national unity.
Mr Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan from 1933 until he was deposed by his cousin in 1973. Since then, Afghanistan has seen a succession of coups, wars and foreign military intervention that has cost millions of lives. When he returned to his homeland after the Taliban government was overthrown, he was visibly moved.
"When I saw the mountains of my country, my people, my friends - what is better than this?" he said shortly after his return. "I wish just to be able to do things for my country and serve it."
He came from a long line of ethnic Pashtun rulers and was the last monarch of a dynasty established in 1747. The former king's reign is remembered as one of the most tranquil periods in Afghanistan's turbulent history.
"Afghanistan has lost a statesman of great stature, whose commitment and contribution to the peace, stability and welfare of Afghanistan and the region will be remembered for long," Pervez Musharraf, president of neighbouring Pakistan, said in a message of condolence.
Born in Kabul in 1914, Mr Zahir Shah received part of his education in France and returned to Kabul for military training.
He became king in 1933 after his father was assassinated. For two decades, he stayed in the shadows, allowing three uncles to run the government. But he took full control in 1953, overseeing a cautious modernisation scheme.
He supported an end to purdah - the wearing of the veil - for women, used foreign cash to develop the country's medieval infrastructure and struck a balance between Soviet and western interests.
In 1973, while holidaying in Italy, Mr Zahir Shah was ousted in a bloodless coup orchestrated by his cousin and brother-in-law, Prince Daoud. He lived for 29 years in exile in Italy.
Some Afghans look back with nostalgia on Mr Zahir Shah's rule, but others saw him as an ineffective ruler. He will be buried in a mausoleum next to his father on a hill overlooking Kabul.