Afghanistan gets new national anthem

The anthem was recorded by the Beethoven Orchestra in the German city Bonn.

Afghanistan's government heard for the first time the country's new national anthem, the first since the fall of the Taliban government, at a ceremony attended by cabinet ministers.

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The anthem replaces one that has been used since the fall of the Taliban and was that of the anti-Taliban movement, the Northern Alliance, that was based in the Hindu Kush mountains during the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.

Deputy President Karim Khalili and other cabinet ministers listened to a DVD of the anthem at the cultural and information ministry in Kabul.

The anthem was recorded by the Beethoven Orchestra in the German city Bonn and composed by Babrak Wassa, an Afghan national who has been living in Germany for 25 years.

Its lyrics are in Pashtu, the main language of this ethnically diverse nation, as agreed in the 2003 Constitution.

They are based on a poem by Afghan poet, Abdul Bari Jihani.

The former anthem was in Persian, Afghanistan's second language spoken by the former Northern Alliance.