Posted on 03/27/2006 9:51:13 PM PST by FairOpinion
Abdul Rashid Dostum looks like a man in search of a mission. The burly general who was once the feared strongman of the north and is now chief of staff of Afghanistan’s armed forces has been at a bit of a loose end lately.
So he has decided to battle the Taleban.
At a disarmament ceremony in Shiberghan in late February, during which the militia of the Junbesh-e-Milli-ye-Islami faction he used to lead handed over hundreds of weapons to the government, Dostum said that he had submitted a request for a commando unit under his leadership which would be tasked with eliminating the Taleban and al-Qaeda.
“If a separate force is established under me, I will organise it in such a way that when the Taleban order their loyalists to enter Afghanistan, their legs will begin trembling at the border,” he said.
Appointed chief of staff of the armed forces in March 2005 in a move widely seen as an attempt to neutralise his hold on the north, Dostum soon found that the job carried more rank than responsibility. Credible sources testified to his growing irritation with his lack of real influence, and within months he had stormed out of Kabul to return to his old stomping grounds. Now, according to media reports and numerous eyewitnesses, he spends most of his time in his native Shiberghan, capital of Jowzjan province.
General Dostum is widely credited with helping to bring down the Taleban when he headed the Northern Alliance advance in the north in autumn 2001. But back in 1997, he was forced to flee from the Taleban when senior Junbesh commanders betrayed him. He ended up in Turkey, and although he made a few trips into Afghanistan after that, he spent the bulk of the Taleban years outside the country and returned only when an American offensive loomed.
Now he is full of advice for the government of President Hamed Karzai, of whom he has been openly critical.
“The Afghan National Army and the international forces have spent a lot of money but have not been able to [get rid of the Taleban],” he said.
Dostum said the government has been too soft on the Taleban over the past few years.
“It always waits for the enemy to attack. It has not chased them,” he complained. “The Taleban are not an army today. When 10 Taleban fighters conduct a hit-and-run attack, all of the National Army troops get involved in it. It is very expensive, and they do not get good results, because the Taleban run away after the attack.”
Dostum, like many former commanders, has a somewhat chequered past, characterised by a fluid history of enmities and alliances over the years. He fought alongside the Soviet-backed communist government, only to desert at the end to help bring down the Najibullah regime in 1992. He floated freely among mujahedin factions during the subsequent civil war, allying himself at various times with Ahmed Shah Massoud against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and then with Hekmatyar against Massoud and the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani. Ahmed Rashid reports in his book, “Taliban,” that Dostum also assisted the Taleban by helping them repair the MiGs fighters and helicopters they had captured in Kandahar.
With a reputation for ruthlessness, Dostum has been accused of numerous human rights abuses, particularly against the Taleban. He is among a group of warlords who have been branded as criminals by human rights groups, and there have been demands that he and others be brought to trial for their actions during the civil war years.
Kabir Ranjbar, a political analyst and member of parliament, said that sending Dostum after the Taleban in the volatile south would be a recipe for disaster.
“People in the south really hate Dostum,” said Ranjbar. “They have very bad memories of his operations during the communist regime.”
Ranjbar said Dostum’s arrival would only inflame tribal and ethnic conflict, and said the ethnic Uzbek general could never find common ground with the Pashtun-dominated south.
“If the government accepts Dostum’s plan, it will incite national feelings and instead of eliminating the Taleban and al-Qaeda, people will flock to their ranks,” he said.
But Dostum appears confident that his plan will succeed. “Discussions are under way. I have talked to the president several times. He too agrees that such a unit should be set up to root out the Taleban. I have a plan and it will be implemented,” he said.
Presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi told IWPR that Dostum’s bravado was out of place.
“We see no need for the establishment of a new force as long as the Afghan National Army and the Coalition forces are on the job,” he told IWPR.
The defence ministry agrees, with its spokesman General Zahir Azimi insisting, “No independent body has the right to pick up weapons to defend the country as long as there is a national army.”
After so much time and effort has been expended on disarming the militia groups, it would be counterproductive to start arming autonomous commando units, said Azimi, adding, “The Afghan National Army is getting stronger every day, so if General Dostum is interested in fighting terrorism, he can hand over his power to the army.”
Assadullah Walwalji, a political analyst and a former military officer, said Dostum’s offer was a cover for his growing frustration at his lack of influence.
“Dostum calls himself the second-highest military man in Afghanistan, but he has not done anything,” said Walwaji. “He has a high position but no authority, so he says these things to make himself seem more important.”
Some of Dostum’s former commanders are eager to get back into battle.
Nazar Mohammad, who used to be one of Dostum’s military chiefs, told IWPR, “If our leader orders us to fight al-Qaeda, we are ready to fight until they are eliminated.”
But many people in northern Afghanistan have grave reservations about seeing Dostum’s men back in arms.
“These commanders terrorised us when they had guns,” said a resident of Mazar-e-Sharif who declined to be named, “They robbed us. If they get weapons again, we will never feel safe.”
Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.
“If a separate force is established under me, I will organise it in such a way that when the Taleban order their loyalists to enter Afghanistan, their legs will begin trembling at the border,” he said.
General Dostum is widely credited with helping to bring down the Taleban when he headed the Northern Alliance advance in the north in autumn 2001"
He was a great help to us in Afghanistan, very pro-US. My kind of guy. We need more like him.
"With a reputation for ruthlessness, Dostum has been accused of numerous human rights abuses, particularly against the Taleban." WAAAAHHH!
"Taleban"?
The 'word' is used over & over.
But 'terrorized' was misspelled as well, so maybe this is a translation. And I didn't even examine the entire thing. Read, it, though.
There is no fixed spelling for these words, there is no firm rule for transliteration from Pathan/Pashtun/Pushtun
Thanks for clarifying. It is a very good read.
Taleban is a British version of Taliban. I checked on the BBC website, they spell it the same way, the other must be a typo, but it is a translation and probably by a non-native English speaker.
Dostum is portrayed by the MSM as some wild crazy general, but he ruled a city and in there the economy prospered, girls could go to school, unlike in the rest of the Afghanistan, under the rule of the Taliban. It was an article from a few years ago, and couldn't find it now. He was a great help to our special forces in Afghanistan.
buwaya straitened me out on that... thanks. Sorry for my ignorance.
It's kind of like Al Qaeda, Al Qaida, not to mention the 15+ version of spelling Qaddaffi, Kaddaffi and so on.
Afghanistan needs a couple of decades under the rule of law, not another warlord strongman taking control of the government. The Uzbek minority there loves him since he is one of them, an Uzbek friend of mine from Uzbekistan loves him and says he's a good guy and that the man is affective, and if any warlord took over the country I'd rather it be him, but he's still a warlord thug IMO. And once a warlord thug always a warlord thug.
Well, but he would clean out Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He would not worry about putting panties on the head of the terrorists.
You can't have a law and order country, while thousands of AQ and Taliban are trying to topple the government. Need to clean out the rat's nest first and Dostum sure would know how to do it.
He is also fiercely pro-US, unlike the other leaders in Afghanstan and Iraq, who are quite ungrateful.
"He is also fiercely pro-US, unlike the other leaders in Afghanstan and Iraq, who are quite ungrateful."
Dostum is fiercely pro-Dostum, period. Like many Afghan tribals, he ends up on the winning side, regardless whether that's the side he started on or not.
However, that said, the exact same applies to both Massood and Karzai. Further, it never made the western press, but Dostum >is< the guy who cracked the Taliban veneer at Mazar and put them on the run for good, with an unexpected and still hard to believe end run through flat out ugly terrain to turn their southern flank after weeks of air attacks had accomplished nothing more than collapsing mudwalled fortresses.
How much of that was long term topographic familiarity and how much was military genius is still open for debate. He's had a scrape or two since then as well.
Best place for a guy like him would be a comfy bunker with several big sat-pipes, full access to the NIMA archives, and all the free cell and sat-phones he can justify handing out. Listen to him carefully, give him the respect due a general blooded in a battle significant to US interests, have a team of analysts go over his data before acting on it, be careful setting the bi-directonality of the information flow levels, maybe let him ride with the S3 on the infrequent op to satisfy his lust for battle, if he earns it, and who knows, he might just pull some one eyed rabbits out of his turban.
Dostum is the perfect guy to use if the goal is to start a civil war.
Dostum, like many former commanders, has a somewhat chequered past, characterised by a fluid history of enmities and alliances over the years
Now THAT'S what I call an understatement.
Sorry for my ignorance.
I just checked the schedule and it is your turn. :-)
It's my turn on Friday. I'm really looking forward to it!
"Terrorised" is not a misspelling - it is the proper British spelling.
Take him up on this. Submitting a request indicates submission to higher authority. The worry about Dostum was as an independent actor. There is nothing wrong in that culture with having a person raise forces in support of a national military objective.
Okay I got it. But you bastards are spelling in MY Cuntry
*fart*
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