Power shift in Afghanistan | csmonitor.com December 10, 2001
The problems that beset the victorious Afghan factions in Kandahar are a composite of the challenges that Afghanistan's new rulers face in cities around the country, and indeed, in the formation of a new national government. Even though most of the warlords and political leaders who now control Afghanistan shared a common goal of throwing out the Taliban, their agreement ended once the Taliban were defeated. Now, some top warlords, such as Pashtun leaders Pir Syed Gailani and Haji Abdul Qadir, reject the new interim national government put together last week in Bonn. Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum told US officials yesterday he will now cooperate with the new interim government.
In a country with so many possible dividing lines - by ethnicity, language, religion, and tribe - Afghanistan's new leaders are searching for ways to bind their country together.
The man who bears this burden is Hamid Karzai, a southern Pashtun leader who was recently selected as Afghanistan's interim leader. This week, Mr. Karzai has been shuttling between rival warlords in the city of Kandahar. Unlike Pashtun expatriates in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, who had organized an anti-Taliban council called the Eastern Shura before taking the eastern city of Jalalabad, the Pashtuns of the south have no such council. This leaves them with the unwieldy task of forging political alliances between armed groups, while the smoke of war is still clearing.
The chief dispute in Kandahar lies between Pashtun warlord and former Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai and another former governor, Mullah Naqib Ullah, who handed over the government of Kandahar to the nascent Taliban movement seven years ago. Mr. Gul Agha's followers criticize Mullah Naqib for his close ties to the Taliban, while Mullah Naqib's supporters say that Gul Agha's troops are unruly thieves.
Kandahar on brink of chaos as warlords ready for battle
War in Afghanistan: Observer special
Peter Beaumont in Quetta
Sunday December 9, 2001
Residents of the Taliban's former headquarters city of Kandahar were last night bracing themselves for a return to the inter-factional fighting that raged there until the Taliban took control in 1994, as evidence grew that militias were preparing to fight for control of the city. Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's new interim leader, called a shura, or council, to resolve the differences. But former factional leaders seemed already busy accumulating men and weapons for a return to civil war.
According to Pashtun tribal sources in Quetta in neighbouring Pakistan, commanders loyal to Gul Agha Sherzai, the former governor of Kandahar, who is angry that the city has been handed over to his bitter rival, Mullah Naqib Ullah, has been recruiting men in Pakistan to join his forces.
Gul Agha has a house in Quetta, home to thousands of refugees who have fled Afghanistan's two decades of conflict. 'I know his commanders were here last week,' said one source in the city. 'They are actively recruiting and moving men across the border.'
There are conflicting reports over the whereabouts of the Taliban's supreme spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, who escaped Kandahar, apparently with the connivance of the man who accepted the Taliban surrender, Mullah Naqib Ullah.
The threat of fighting over the spoils comes amid increasing international concern over deepening splits across Afghanistan's tribal, nationalist and religious divide, despite the agreement to form a broad-based interim government, headed by Karzai, due to be inaugurated on 22 December. Aid workers and diplomats in the region claim the tensions have hastened Afghanistan's descent into lawlessness as the Taliban disintegrated.
Already Uzbeki General Rashid Dostum has protested against the way power was shared out by the Bonn talks, making veiled threats of a return to war. Some sources claim Dostum has had satellite phone talks with Gul Agha to discuss a joint strategy.
Pashtun sources in Quetta allied to Hamid Karzai told The Observer the real problem was Gul Agha, who they claim has enjoyed the support of the Pakistani intelligence agencies. Until Gul Agha is 'removed', they say, there cannot be a solution.
At least four groups allied to former Mujahideen commanders appeared to be moving fighters into the city. At the centre of the dispute is the issue of who controls Kandahar, the scene of two months of ferocious US bombing attacks.
Following his personal negotiation of the surrender of Kandahar, Karzai agreed that the Taliban should hand over control of the city to Mullah Naqib Ullah, who has enjoyed good relations with them for years.
Indeed, it was Naqib Ullah's agreement to quit Kandahar with his fighters in 1994 that handed the keys of the city to the Taliban. According to his detractors - including Gul Agha ,who reoccupied his old headquarters on Friday - Mullah Naqib Ullah is Taliban in all but name.
'There is a shura in the city now to try to figure out how to control the situa tion,' said Khalid Pashtun, spokesman for Gul Agha.
He said the council included Hamid Karzai, Gul Agha and Mullah Naqib Ullah. 'Mullah Naqib Uullah is also there, but that is the biggest obstacle,' Pashtun declared by satellite telephone. 'Right now, we have to convince Mullah Naqib Uullah to stand aside.'
On Friday night, Pashtun all but accused Naqib Ullah of harbouring Mullah Omar and 1,000 followers. 'Our information is telling us that Omar and some other leaders, they are all with Mullah Naqib Ullah.'
As well as forces loyal to Naquib Ullah, Mullah Haji Bashar (who is based in nearby Spin Boldak) and Karzai, former commanders attached to the Hezbe-i-Islami leader, Engineer Hekmatyar, occupied Qishla-i-Jadeed garrison on the outskirts of the city.
Reports in the Pakistani media claimed some other unaffiliated commanders, including Kabibulah Khan, had taken control of Taliban tanks and armoury in the Bagh-i-Pul area and moved their fighters to Kandahar. Ustad Abdul Halim, another former Mujahideen commander from Professor Sayyaf's Itthead-i-Islami, was also reported en route to the battered city to revive his forces and seek a role in the new administration.
All these commanders had divided Kandahar into fiefdoms until their ejection in 1994. They were so hated that the Taliban captured the city and surrounding province almost without a fight.
Evidence has emerged of the devastation rained on Kandahar during the past two months, in particular on the Taliban positions. One Taliban official said: 'Our defence lines were broken. Seven times we tried to rebuild them and every time they bombed. 'Rows and rows of Taliban soldiers were killed and we couldn't even find the bodies.'
The Mujahideen had literally fallen apart, fighting each other as fiercely as they had fought the Soviets, the commanders becoming warlords in the territories they ruled over e.g. Ismail Khan became Governor Herat, Mullah Naqib Kandahar, Haji Qadeer Jalalabad, etc. Lesser commanders simply became brigands, blocking roads and imposing “taxes” at will. Absolute lawlessness ruled the land, rape, loot and pillage became the order of the day. The new Afghan Armed Forces became an amalgam of elements of the Soviet trained Afghan Army and lateral entries from the Afghan Mujahideen. Most of those inducted were Tajik and Uzbek loyalists of Defence Minister Ahmed Shah Masood (the actual man in power), this alienated the majority Pashtuns. Holding the major cities and the military bases around the country, Masood abandoned the countryside to the Mujahideen-turned-bandits. The withdrawing Soviets left a vast surplus of defence material, particularly tanks, fighter aircraft, helicopters and ammunition of all kinds, greased and packed in crates.
With Masood increasingly hostile, his troops stood by as a mob set the Pakistan Embassy on fire, the Benazir Government in 1994 mandated the ISI to help the traders secure a route for Central Asia through Kandahar and Herat to Turghundi. Unwittingly Ms Benazir acted as a midwife to the birth of the Taliban. A convoy of Pakistan trucks was intercepted by the local Mujahideen Commander in Hilmand along with the accompanying ISI operatives. When the Governor Kandahar Mullah Naqib expressed his helplessness, ISI requested Mullah Zakiri, who was in Quetta, for help. A small group of Talibs led by a relative obscure religious preacher Mullah Umar, who had lost an eye during the Afghan War, freed the convoy. Welcomed as saviours, the Talibs replaced Mullah Naqib. Hundreds of Talibs from all over rushed to join the Talibs in Kandahar. With Kandahar in their control Mujahideen from the other factions and even entire units of the Armed Forces defected to the Talibs. The world could not believe that these country yokels, now known as the Taliban, could handle sophisticated weapons. They concluded these were Pakistani skilled personnel despite the fact that Soviet origin equipment (except for MI-8 helicopters) is not in use in Pakistan. For their own individual selfish purposes some ISI officers, started the myth that Pakistan created the Taliban, this damaged Pakistan no end. True that Pakistan has been giving money and material support, far cheaper than to have refugees costing many times more for their upkeep.
The Taliban restored law and order by clearing the roadblocks of all bandits and disarming everyone not in the new militia. Fed up of years of lawlessness and atrocities, the population welcomed the cleanliness of Taliban governance. Provinces fell without firing a single shot when the local commanders came over to the Taliban side. Fully 90% of those called Taliban were not Talibs and have never been Talibs, many have never been to any school or Madrassah. The Taliban ultimately took over control of Kabul in 1996 from Masood, his forces withdrawing to the safety of his native Panjsher Valley. Masood was brave but parochial in looking only after the Tajik interest. This myopic vision created anarchy in all of Afghanistan except Kabul, a set-piece environment for takeover by the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. Mazar-i-Sharif changed hands a couple of times before Rashid Dostum fled.
A computer rendition of the ExoMars rover, which the European Space Agency wanted the Canadian space industry to build for a planned mission to Mars by 2015.
