New York: In view of "credible threats", Afghan President Hamid Karzai this weekend dismissed his Afghan bodyguards and replaced them with 46 American soldiers, a media report said on July 22.

"There are currently very credible threats against the President," news magazine 'Time' quoted a Western diplomatic source as saying.

The shift risks being seen as a slap in the face to extremely powerful interests in Kabul, the magazine said, adding that in the first few days after the fall of the Taleban, Karzai kept a small band of Pashtun soldiers from his Kandahari home close to him. But tensions with the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance forces, which fought the Taleban for close to six years and have now assumed control of much of the government, meant he had to send his soldiers away, it said.

Since then his personal security has been in the hands of the most formidable Northern Alliance commander and Defence Minister Mohammed Fahim, it said.

PTI