Afghan Interior Ministry Takes on Armed Factions

By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No.228, 1-Sep-06)
A clash between two armed factions in northern Afghanistan looks set to test the government’s resolve to take on armed militias and the politicians associated with them.

Police in the north-western province of Faryab reported that 14 people including four civilians died in a week of fighting in the Pashtun Kot district at the beginning of August. The clash involved close to 300 militia members aligned with rival commanders Abdul Rahman Shamal and Khalifa Saleh.

News reports are full of the conflict with the Taleban in the south of Afghanistan, but this northern confrontation involved combatants linked to figures who are supposed to share the government’s vision of stability and rule of law. Saleh has been linked to Junbesh-e-Melli-ye-Islami, the faction formerly led by General Abdul Rashid Dostum, while Shamal is said to be part of the Hizb-e-Azadi faction led by General Abdul Malik Pahlavan,

Abdul Malik used to be one of Dostum’s lieutenants in the Junbesh military, but fell out with him in the mid-Nineties after accusing him of having his brother killed. He then changed sides and helped the Taleban invade northern Afghanistan, forcing Dostum to flee the country.

When United States-led Coalition forces arrived in late 2001, Dostum became a key ally in the struggle to oust the Taleban. Since then, his and Abdul Malik’s factions have maintained an uneasy coexistence in the north. Dostum has served as deputy defence minister and currently holds the posts of adviser to President Hamed Karzai and chief-of-staff under the overall commander of Afghan armed forces.

The conflict underlines the obvious persistence of armed groups with political links, despite two major United Nations-backed efforts to disarm and demobilise first semi-formal military forces and then looser bands of illegal paramilitaries.

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