KABUL, Afghanistan - Hamid Karzai was sworn in today as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president, calling for sustained help from the international community to bolster a young democracy that still faces the twin threats of terrorism and drugs.

The U.S.-backed leader, wearing a traditional green robe and a black lambskin hat, took the oath of office in a solemn ceremony in a restored hall of the war-damaged former royal palace.

Vice President Dick Cheney, the highest-ranking American official to visit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were among those who gave Karzai a standing ovation when he arrived.

Karzai repeated the oath of allegiance read to him by Afghanistan's white-bearded chief justice, Fazl Hadi Shinwari. He then swore in his two vice presidents, Ahmad Zia Massood and Karim Khalili, members of the country's two largest ethnic minorities.

BERLIN - A U.S. Army tank company commander accused of killing a critically injured driver for radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq will be court-martialed, an Army spokesman said today. The American told a fellow officer he killed the Iraqi out of compassion, according to testimony.Capt. Rogelio Maynulet, 29, of Chicago, was ordered court-martialed following an Article 32 hearing, the military's equivalent of a civilian grand jury investigation, division spokesman Maj. Michael Indovina said.It was not clear when the court-martial would start, but in the meantime, Maynulet will continue to serve on the division's planning staff, where he was assigned after his command was suspended May 25, Indovina said.He will be tried on charges of assault with intent to commit murder and dereliction of duty under articles in the Uniform Code of Military Justice that leave punishment up to the discretion of that court.Maynulet had been charged with murder following the May 21 incident near Kufa in Iraq and it was not clear whether the hearing officer recommended the lesser charges for court-martial, or if that was Dempsey's decision.The incident occurred when Maynulet was leading his tank company on a patrol. They came across a sedan believed to be carrying a driver for al-Sadr and another militiaman loyal to the cleric.U.S. soldiers chased the vehicle and fired shots at it, wounding both the driver and passenger.When a medic pulled the driver out of the car it was clear he had suffered critical injuries, with part of his skull blown away, according to testimony during the hearing.