KABUL (AFP) - The top UN envoy to Afghanistan strongly opposes President Hamid Karzais choice of a warlord and alleged rights abuser as running mate for August elections, a Western diplomat said Monday. International diplomats in Kabul have alleged that Mohammad Qasim Fahim was involved in criminal activities, including kidnappings for ransom, besides rights abuses during Afghanistans decades of war. Special representative Kai Eide believed Karzais choice of Fahim could cost him international and Afghan support, the diplomat close to the United Nations told reporters on condition of anonymity. Karzai revealed he had chosen Fahim earlier Monday when he registered as a candidate for the August 20 election just hours before flying out to Washington for a meeting with US President Barack Obama. Eide, one of the most senior international diplomats in Afghanistan, had urged Karzai in several meetings to not choose Fahim as one of his candidates for vice president, the diplomat said. After Mondays announcement, Eide had said he was really, really saddened by the fact that we are now where we are, the Westerner said. The international reactions could be serious, he said, adding that Eides concerns had wide support among the international community in Kabul which lends vital financial and development support to Karzais government. The United Nations wanted warlords from Afghanistans past to make way for more modern forces, he said. Fahim, a former commander in an anti-Soviet faction led by the late resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massoud, is alleged to have committed various human rights abuses, such as executions, including during the 1990s civil war. International diplomats told reporters Monday that he and his men were also alleged to be part of powerful criminal gangs behind recent kidnappings of foreign nationals in Kabul, bank robberies, weapons trafficking and narcotics. They alleged he had also ordered the 2002 execution of an aviation minister, Abdul Rahman, as well as of hundreds of men from a rival faction at the Kabul airport in the early 1990s.These claims have not been proven. Fahim, in his early 50s, was defence minister and vice president in Karzais post-Taliban government formed in 2002 but was dropped two years later. International pressure forced Karzai to drop him as his vice presidential running mate in the 2004 elections, Afghanistans first-ever vote for president. Karzai chose to run with Fahim and his current vice president, Karim Khalili, in a move that observers said may have been attempt to splinter the opposition including groups that were loyal for the late Massoud.