Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 18:00:25 EDT
From: freemanaz@aol.com
Subject: [lpaz-discuss] Afghan warlords vie for power
To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com


http://www.news.scottsman.com/international.cfm?id=627212002

Afghan warlords vie for power 

PHILIP SMUCKER IN KHOST 


ABOVE a destroyed adobe village, the warlord Badshah Khan, a sinister-looking 
character with a constant frown and one long black eyebrow, stops to pray 
along with a dozen of his gunmen. The Pathan royalist warlord has fallen on 
hard times since he was beaten back in a brutal battle earlier this year from 
his appointed governorship in nearby Paktia province. 

He is a bitter man bent on revenge against the Tajiks who killed some of his 
best fighters. There may be a way to allay his rancorous spirit though. He 
has high hopes for a political comeback through the ancient process of the 
loya jirga, a huge meeting of Afghan elders, which begins tomorrow and will 
choose a government for the next two years. 

The line-up for this weeks conference in Kabul will consist of persons, 
mostly warlords just like Badshah Khan, who played key roles in the countrys 
last 23 years of brutal warfare. 

Badshah Khan, who relishes his current role as a bad-boy warlord opposing the 
powers-that-be, is one of several independent voices in the countrys east 
and south now warning of a civil war if the countrys Northern Alliance does 
not share more power than it does at present. 

"Hamid Karzai is deaf and blind to the real situation in Afghanistan," he 
said, leaning back to display a glistening brass bandoleer across his hefty 
chest. "He is foolishly allowing the Northern Alliance to make links with 
fundamentalists in the south, people who are friends of al-Qaeda. If the 
northerners continue to use him as a puppet and manipulate the Pathan areas 
for their own interests, Karzai will only be helping to drag us into another 
war." 

Hamid Karzai, the countrys current interim leader, is favourite to be 
returned by the loya jirgas delegates as Afghanistans new leader. He is 
also the golden boy of US aspirations in Afghanistan with no military 
muscle he can call his own apart from the temporary fix of US and British 
firepower on the ground since late last year. 

But in the eyes of many of his fellow Pathans, Karzai is considered a 
"prisoner" of the Northern Alliance, which maintains a grip on the countrys 
ministries of interior, defence, intelligence and foreign affairs. Western 
diplomats are looking to their northern "friends," whom they assisted with 
air power to seize Kabul last year, to politely divide up two or three of 
these key ministries with the countrys largest ethnic group, the Pathans. 

That is unlikely to happen without an intense political struggle. Few outside 
observers expect Afghanistan, still divided by the aftermath of war and 
lingering hatreds, to suddenly embrace democracy. That is why they are 
closely watching out for attempts by the Northern Alliance and fundamentalist 
Islamic groups across the country to manipulate the loya jirga. 

The Northern Alliance, which fought its way to power under the wings of 
Allied air power, has forged a marriage of convenience with fundamentalist 
groups in the south, including former Taliban leaders. These alliances are 
being strengthened to undercut the growing power of royalist-minded Pathans 
who support a greater role for the countrys moderate-minded former King, 
Zahir Shah. 

In Khost and Paktia provinces an al-Qaeda operative, Jalaluddin Haqqani, has 
surrendered his own military hardware to his brother Ibrahim in Gardez and to 
his former lieutenant, Malim Jan, both of whom are now struggling to keep 
Badshah Khan, a relative moderate in the spectrum of Afghan warlordism, out 
of Afghanistans new political line-up. 

The largest fort in Khost, however, is still controlled by his surrogate 
warlord, Malim Jan, a former Taliban security chief in neighbouring Ghazni 
with an appalling human rights record, who has managed to make his way on to 
the US militarys payroll. He is currently the chief of a border military 
camp charged with keeping the thousands of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters 
hiding in Pakistan - including his mentor - out of his country. 

In Kabul, the Northern Alliances power is bolstered by the presence of an 
international peacekeeping force, ISAF, that has been reluctant to disarm the 
thousands of fighters, almost all of them ethnic Tajiks, who enforce the law 
in the capital. 

In the southern Pathan stronghold of Kandahar, power rests partly with the 
backers of King Zahir Shah. The governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, is doing a 
splendid business for himself by housing both US and British Special Forces 
within his own family compound. 

Nipping at his heels with control of the regions military hardware, however, 
is General Khan Mohammad, a deputy and brother-in-law of Mullah Naquib Ullah, 
a warlord who once supplied the Taliban with thousands of machine-guns, 
hundreds of tanks and six Mig-21s. 

When the Taliban was finally ousted from Kandahar in December last year, 
their leaders handed the power they had taken from Mullah Naquib Ullah back 
to him - some say for safekeeping until they can regroup. 

"He is a dangerous character who has supported the Taliban with guns and 
manpower in the past," said Ahmed Rashid, author of The Taliban, the 
definitive text on the movements rise to power. 

With the political winds still not blowing in favour of a moderate-minded 
Afghanistan, the country is in danger ofreturning to its former status as a 
"rogue state", said Western observers in Kabul. 

No wonder the governor of Kandahar, Shirzai, argued: "We need the foreign 
forces [British and American troops] here for at least five years to create 
real stability. If it was up to me, I would keep them around for 30 years."


The Loya jirga

THIS weeks loya jirga, or grand council, is the first to be held since 1987. 
All 1,500 delegates will meet at Kabuls Polytechnic University to elect a 
new government for Afghanistan to rule until December 2003, when a further 
constitutional loya jirga will be held to decide on future political 
structures for the country. 

Delegates will elect a new head of state and government, although the 
chairman of the current interim government, Hamid Karzai, is expected to be 
confirmed as the head of the new government. One other question to be 
resolved is the status of the King, Zahir Shah, who only recently returned 
from 29 years in exile. 

The 87-year-old says he has no interest in restoring the monarchy but is keen 
to play some part in the countrys future government. 

One thousand of the delegates have been elected in their local districts or 
regions, while the other 450 take up places that have been allocated to 
women, exiles, civil society, professional associations, Islamic scholars, 
nomads and regional governors. 

Despite numerous reports of intimidation and a number of murders, Afghans are 
determined that the loya jirga takes place as part of the ongoing 
normalisation of the country.  



 2002 scotsman.com 


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