Abstract
(This paper describes the author’s personal dealings with General Abdul Rasheed Dostum when the former was Director General – Afghanistan in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The description of events in this paper, however, goes beyond the personality of Dostum as it describes, through the experiences and analysis of the author, the events and players involved in the power struggle that dominated the 1990’s in Afghanistan. – Editor)
Dostum was born in Shiberghan near Mazar e Sharif in 1955. Before the Soviet invasion, he was appointed as a guard at a gas field nearby and quickly proved himself to be the best thug in the area. He rapidly rose through the ranks of the Parcham Party and the army due to his ruthless and vicious personality and was entrusted with anti-Mujahidin duties and placed in charge of a KHAD battalion in 1982 and by 1988 was heading the Northern Corps. That was when he came to our attention as one of the biggest stumbling blocks in our efforts to enlarge the area of operations against the Soviets to the northern parts of Afghanistan.
Operations on our part were difficult enough due to the distance from the Pakistan border. The Soviets increased these difficulties by treating the area as one of strategic importance, as it was close to the routes from the Soviet Union to Herat and Mazar e Sharif. Moreover, the terrain was flat, making it easier for any Soviet plane or helicopter to interdict the Mujahidin caravans. The mule caravans were themselves a problem as crossing the Hindu Kush range took so long that the mules could barely carry any arms and ammunition as most of the payload comprised of food and fodder for the convoy. The Soviet penchant for a scorched earth policy made effective operations in the northern plains of Afghanistan almost impossible. At the most these were limited to minor hit and run attacks which Dostum repulsed quite easily and burned nearby villages and his enthusiasm for extortion, torture and killing quickly thinned the ranks of the Mujaheddin. This was Uzbek revenge for the royal family settling Pashtuns in the choicest land in the north at the expense of the Uzbeks and other nationalities. ‘The smile of an Uzbek starts where the cruelty of an Afghan ends.’ The result was that not only did the communist PDPA (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) split into Khalq (Pashtuns) and Parcham (Tajiks, Uzbek, Turkman, Hazaras and Ismailis) but the same happened to the Islamic Tanzeemaat which split into Jammiat e Islami (non-Pashtun) and the balance six Pashtun parties. Ethnicity was obviously stronger than ideology or religion.
Iran had easy access to the north but was completely unhelpful, since almost all the Mujahidin, whether Pashtun or non-Pashtun, were Sunni Muslims, while Iranian policy was to only provide arms and ammunition to the Hazara Shia Muslims who restricted their operations to the Hazarajat. The only exception they made was for Ismail Khan who was severely hemmed in from the northeast by Dostum and his second in command Rasul Pehlwan in Faryab. Due to these operational factors Ismail Khan could never field more than 15,000 men at the height of his power. This was despite the fact that he was the Mujahid Al Awal, having initiated the revolt in Herat against the Russians in March 1979 as a Captain in the army, even though he had been trained in India. This showed the extreme nationalism and love of freedom of the Afghans. He joined the Jammiat e Islami soon after and became their Amir of Herat for operational purposes.
For the next decade, until the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1990, the mujahideen’s prime objective in the area was to eliminate Dostum. This policy was completely unsuccessful due to Dostum’s own influence. Matters changed completely after the collapse of the Soviet Union which stopped payments to Najibullah in 1992 and the entire patronage network he had established vanished overnight. Parchamis gravitated towards Ahmad Shah Masud (ASM) while Khaliqis joined the Pashtun Tanzimaat. Dostum was the first to defect and joined Ahmad Shah Masud in walking unopposed into Kabul followed closely by the Hizb e Wahdat. This clearly upset Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (GB) who had stockpiled most of his resources for this day. GB then began his attack on Kabul which he almost single-handedly managed to destroy. Dostum had also created a political party with the help of his Parcham cadres called Jumbish e Milli Islami. The most hypocritical name the Parchamis could imagine, since Dostum had been killing the Islamists for the last two decades. However, the local population in Kabul called them Jauzjani or Ghilam Jam militia and besides carpet thieving, as the name implied, they were also involved in extortion, kidnapping, rape, looting and killings. Ghilam Jan was also one of Dostum’s commanders, notorious for his cruelty.
Masud’s love for power was inordinate and as soon as he realised by late 1993 that GB was no longer a military threat, he turned his guns on Dostum and the Hizb e Wahdat. Dostum later told us that he barely escaped with his life as Masood’s troops had attacked him from behind while he was facing GB. Dostum, after negotiating a ceasefire with GB, quickly returned to Mazar e Sharif and the safety of his home province, leaving the free for all in Kabul between GB and Hizb e Wahdat, Sayyaf and Masud. Much later my Defence Attaché, Brig Sultan Mehmood (Salty), told me that the parties’ favourite way of killing prisoners was to herd them in a container and firing an RPG-7. Masud was so emboldened by his defeating Dostum, GB and Hizb e Wahdat, that he unleashed his goons from the Shura e Nazar on our Embassy, looting the cypher in December 1993. Sardar Aseff Ahmad Ali, our Foreign Minister, made a quick dash to Kabul to admonish Masud which had no effect as ASM started a bombing campaign in the border areas of NWFP throughout 1994, also hijacking a school bus in Peshawar in February 1994.
While we were trying our best to ignore the chaos in Kabul and having given up on ever making the Afghans agree to a peaceful settlement (Riaz Mohammad Khan said it was like herding cats) these changed circumstances also changed our attitude towards Dostum from one of active hostility to indifference to one of active interest due to our mutual benefit. The ISI and our Ambassador, Qazi Humayun, informed us that Masud had started receiving large sums of money from India and Iran, which had probably stiffened his nerve and led to the attack, since payment must have been contingent on carrying out hostile actions against Pakistan. After clearing his visit with the PM and the President, the Foreign Minister decided to visit Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar e Sharif and Jalalabad to see how the different factions in Afghanistan would interact with Pakistan. Preparatory work for the visit was done by the ISI and our Consulates and we embarked on the visit in early May 1995.
Masud was sitting in the palace garden as if he owned the place, with his leg on his knee, with two peacocks strutting behind him. He said salaam to our delegation and without shaking hands led us inside. Skipping the pleasantries, Masud thanked the Foreign Minister, ‘For bringing these two idiot generals’ (General Iftikhar and Brigadier Majid). I glanced up from my note taking and saw both smiling and knew they had already decided on what to do with ASM. Masud continued this theme saying that throughout the jihad the Pakistani generals had supported GB and given him almost nothing and GB had wasted all that money by using his stockpiles of weapons in destroying Kabul and now, ‘Where was GB and where am I sitting. I am now going to take revenge for the mistakes made by ISI in ignoring me.’ The Foreign Minister said nothing useful would come out of dragging up a fifteen-year-old issue and we should let bygones be bygones and look to the future and try and build a new future as two brotherly and neighbourly countries. Masud said he had been mistreated by Pakistan since 1973 and could not forget things so easily. The Foreign Minister said that was before his time and asked General Iftikhar to answer the question. Gen.Iftikhar said that the distribution of funds was done equally between GB and Rabbani, who got 40 percent each, while the balance was divided among the remaining five parties, according to their performance in the field. Rabbani in turn divided the funds equally between the Jammiat e Islami fronts in the west, north, northeast and Masud. If Masud had any problem, he should have taken it up with Rabbani. Masud also received funds directly from U.S, France and U.K. Masud said that was the issue. Even though he was better than GB he was never treated as an equal. The foreign money was due to his own efforts and should not be counted. He was now going to ally with India, Russia and Iran and teach Pakistan a lesson. He was planning on becoming another Daud for Pakistan and with the help of his allies would destroy Pakistan. The Foreign Minister said that he was saddened to hear these words as he had come extending the hand of friendship. Pakistan was a large country and had survived Daud, who had instead destroyed his own country. Hopefully we would also survive whatever Masud had in store for us.
The Foreign Minister, while concluding the meeting said that as Masud represented the internationally recognised government of Afghanistan, he was formally asking for permission to travel to Kandahar, Herat, Mazar e Sharif and Jalalabad. Yunas Qanooni interjected, ‘Of course not. You will just use the visit to try and break up the Northern Alliance.’ Masud brushed him aside and said, ‘You can go wherever you want and meet whomever you want but our alliance is much too strong for you.’ Masud said he did not understand Pakistan’s obsession with Pashtoons. ‘Why could a Tajik not become king of Afghanistan?’ The Foreign Minister said this was a question which should be directed to the people of Afghanistan. Tajiks were 20 percent of the population of Afghanistan, and it would be difficult to impose a monarchy. Masud said Tajiks were 40 percent of the population.
For us this sounded like a declaration of war, and we all knew what we had to do with Masud. Foreign Secretary Najmuddin Sheikh tried his best to exercise some moderating influence, as he had been Ambassador in Tehran, and was aware of Iranian sensitivities, but in the heat of the moment his advice was ignored. Col. Imam (our Consul General in Herat), who had known ASM since 1973 told us that Masud was his best student out of all the 125,000 Afghans his team had trained. He had a genuine grievance since despite that, GB received the maximum funds due to Jammat e Islami Pakistan influence on Zia. The ISI kept insisting that operationally GB did not deserve these funds as he was just bribing other parties to join him, but Zia ignored these reports. Imam said GB spent most of his time either stockpiling weapons or fighting ASM. The only good thing about GB was that he never sold anything on the black market, unlike most of the other groups. Later, General Babur (who had started the Islamist insurgency against Daud in 1973 on Bhutto’s instructions) and Rustam Shah Mohmand (who as Chief Commissioner Afghan Refugees, knew Masud since 1983) also supported Imam and said we were mishandling him. General Babur said Masud was his best boy and he had saved his life in 1975 when GB had imprisoned Masud in Peshawar and was persuaded with great difficulty to release him. All of us roundly showed our annoyance towards General Babur for interfering with the normal course of Afghan politics and creating a headache for us but he just laughed and said we did not know how to handle prima donnas. Our contention was that they had got emotionally involved in Masud’s charismatic personality and were ignoring the fact that he had just made a declaration of war. He was now little better than a paid agent of India and Iran and was proving his worth to them by his bombing campaign in Pakistan and his attacks on our Embassy. Imam said Masud should be treated as an errant younger brother and forgiven and brought back into the family.
The Foreign Minister who had shown remarkable restraint during the meeting with Masud, next met Sayyaf and gave him both barrels and vented all the anger and frustration he had accumulated, with words like hypocrite, ungrateful, Indian and Iranian agent flying wildly. Poor Sayyaf who was just doing what Afghans do best i.e., work with the side with deeper pockets, took the lecture in good humour and told the Foreign Minister that regardless of which side he was on he would never work against Pakistan, and he kept his word.
In Kandahar, the Taliban were willing to work with us against Masud. In Herat, Ismail Khan preferred to stay neutral but added that he could not even think of doing anything against Pakistan and was willing to provide trade routes to Central Asia as he controlled the Torghundi and Islam Qila border posts. Due to the custom revenues, Herat looked more like an Iranian city than an Afghan city and showed that Ismail Khan had spent the revenues well. However, Imam said that only the Tajik areas were developed which had led to some resentment.
We flew next to Mazar e Sharif and met with Dostum at his sumptuous residence at Shiberghan near Mazar e Sharif. I was expecting some hostility, as the mujahideen whom we supported had been trying to kill Dostum for the last two decades, but he was the perfect host and showed no hard feelings about the past. While he still looked like a thug in uniform, his behaviour was like a courteous Swiss hotel manager as he showed us to our luxurious rooms. The Foreign Ministers room was 30×100 foot with a 70’’ inch television with countless channels. The Foreign Minister took one look and said he could not sleep there as it was like sleeping in a living room. For some reason everyone else also balked at staying in a room of that size and, despite being the junior most in the delegation, I was nominated to spend the night there. Our Consul General, Omar Khan Ali Sherzai, from Orakzai was an amazing personality and despite being a good Muslim had developed a personal rapport with Dostum and with his help had stocked up the minibars according to our various preferences. Dostum was the perfect host and while showing us our rooms was personally checking the bathroom flushing and toiletries and the rooms minibars and TV. Having settled us in, he told us to wash up, have a drink and join him for dinner where drinks would continue. I had not expected a coldblooded killer to be so polite and soft spoken.
Dinner was the usual extravagant Afghan banquet in which we could barely make a dent, but I noticed that Dostum finished half a bottle of Black Label without any apparent ill effect. The Foreign Minister during the dinner asked Dostum why he had around a hundred generals lined up at the tarmac to receive us, besides the helicopters, tanks, planes and APCs. Surely his army was not that large. Dostum said of course it was not that large, but the problem was that no group was willing to join him unless the leader was appointed as a general. I asked him where his officers had been trained and he said they were all Russian trained. It showed the Russians had done a professional job in their training and brainwashing of the officer’s corps since Omar Khan told us that they were all Parchamis. (According to Antonio Giustozzi, on paper Dostum’s army was 110,000 but on the ground was only up to 20,000 troops).
The Foreign Minister told Dostum that he must be aware of Masood’s bombing campaign in the Frontier. Dostum replied that he knew Masud was a snake before Pakistan was aware of it. However, he had a chance to put his foot on the head of the snake and crush it. His troops were close to the north end of the Salang tunnel and had earlier, during the fighting against GB in Kabul, captured some of his 120mm artillery guns. However, they had failed to capture any 120mm shells and if GB could be persuaded to give him the shells, he could, from his positions north of Salang, use them to target Bagram and destroy Masood’s main base. This seemed a highly unlikely scenario given the circumstances under which the guns were captured and GB’s vindicative nature, but the Foreign Minister said we would try. Later Major General Iftikhar and Brig Majid, the ISI representatives during the visit, told us Dostum was asking for the impossible and anyway with Afghans there was no knowing who they would use the guns against if they got the ammunition. Wise words indeed.
To lighten the mood, Dostum asked us why his nemesis during the Jihad, Col Imam (our Consul General in Herat), was not in our delegation. The Foreign Minister replied that he was part of the delegation that visited Kabul, Kandahar and Herat. However, he had decided to stay in Herat. (Imam being a dedicated Islamist had, it seemed, not forgiven Dostum for the evil excesses he had carried out on the Mujaheddin during the Jihad.) Dostum just laughed it off and said Imam was a close friend of Ismail Khan and had in fact modelled his headgear on Ismail Khan’s fashion. He had also heard that Imam and Ismail Khan used to perform zikr together and asked us if we knew what zikr was all about. None of us had a clue but one of Dostum’s second in command, General Abdul Malik Pehlwan told us it was the practice of reciting God’s name all night in a Mosque.
The Foreign Minister said that, in the spirit of forgive and forget, Dostum should now try and patch up with Ismail Khan and the Taliban to present a united front against Masud. Dostum said he had no problem with that policy, but Ismail Khan was the one who was not willing to make peace with him. Pointing at Rasool Pehlwan, he said,’ Ask him’. Rasool Pehlwan was the head of the groups fighting against Ismail Khan in the western provinces (Faryab and Badghis) and he was the main power in the area. He was a burly stocky man and strangely enough, despite it being quite hot in Mazar, was wearing a long sleeve sweater and woollen felt jacket. He was the strong and silent type as he did not utter one word during our entire stay in Mazar. Obviously, he was feeling out of place in Dostum’s glitzy surroundings, being more accustomed to the battlefield. He was also the stepbrother of General Malik who owed his position mainly to Rasool Pehlwan besides his Parcham membership. Hizb e Wahdat leaders Mohaqiq and Khalili were also present as was the Ismaili leader, Nader Jafferi, but they remained silent observers. However, their presence showed Dostum’s coalition building skills.
Dostum said that he had no problem with the Taliban either, as he had plenty of Mullahs in Mazar e Sharif with whom he got along quite well. Obviously due to the Parcham ideologues intelligent policy of coopting the Mullahs instead of trying to eliminate them like the Khaliqi’s had tried doing e.g., Sibghatulla Mujjaddadi lost his entire family of 120 members and survived only because he was posted at the Islamic centre in Copenhagen. In fact, my view after the visit was that if the Parchamis had solely been in charge of Afghanistan we might possibly never have had a Jihad, as they had none of the extremist tendencies of the Khaliqis which had led to the counter revolution of the Islamists. The Khaliqis being Pashtun, loved taking extreme positions on everything and preferred making decisions with a gun like their Islamists counterpart. Giustozzi in his book ‘Empires of Mud’ also noted this phenomenon: “Revolutionaries of Khalq (who started challenging the influence and role of both the clergy and rural elite) would emerge to turn their implicit challenge into outright aggression… The result was the unleashing of the accumulated frustration of the rural elites against not only Khalq but also the state as such by severing the links between the state and rural elites and therefore the Khalqis created the conditions for the drift of rural Afghanistan towards anarchy and chaos, an environment conducive to the rise of the warlords.” (p.40)
Having finished the Black Label bottle, Dostum bade farewell and showed us to our rooms. As I am an early riser, I was up at first light and as soon as the sun rose was trying out Dostum’s hundred-foot swimming pool in the courtyard. To my surprise Dostum also turned up and joined me with no sign of any ill effect of last night’s excesses. Omar Khan later told me this was his daily routine. Being the gracious host, he said I must use the Swedish sauna he had installed inside, after I had finished my laps. The setting was perfect for a Columbian drug lord’s villa with the usual complement of soldiers and luxury. However, unlike the movies, there were no girls around. I mentioned this aspect to Omar Khan, and he said the mullahs were too strong in Mazar and did not allow any hanky panky.
While departing, the Foreign Minister thanked Dostum for his hospitality and cooperation and complimented him about the peaceful surroundings. He said he looked forward to hosting Dostum in Islamabad. Dostum said he looked forward to the visit and mentioned that he had already put a few gifts for us in the PAF Fokker plane which had brought us. These few gifts turned out to be carpets, dry fruit and drinks. By comparison our gift of carpets and onyx seemed quite puny. The pilots were also complaining that the plane was so overloaded that we may not be able to cross the Hindu Kush on our way to Jalalabad to see Haji Qadeer. We were deciding whom to throw from the plane to lighten the load and the consensus was to ditch the FS Najmuddin Sheikh, mainly because he used to deluge us with notes in his indescribable handwriting. Luckily for him we barely managed to clear the mountains with a couple of hundred feet to spare. Iftikhar and Majid were quite shocked at our insubordination, not being used to the casual culture of the Foreign Office. Also, luckily the Faujis did not drink, being representatives of the invisible soldiers of Islam, so we got to distribute their share of the booze amongst those with taste in the delegation.
The first person to see me on our return was the French Ambassador who asked for a briefing on our visit. He was horrified when he heard what had happened in our meeting with Masud and said that Masud was obviously extremely immature and hoped there was time for him to meet with Masud and turn things around. I told him it was too late as the decision to remove Masud from Kabul had already been made and the wheels were now in motion. The Ambassador said he could understand Pakistan’s reaction and the entire business was extremely unfortunate but entirely Masud’s fault.
In the next few days, we briefed President Farooq Leghari on the visit and Leghari was suitably impressed at Dostum’s change of heart and attitude towards us. Omar Khan had also learnt that the Iranians had provided Dostum $1 million in order to stay in the Northern Alliance with Masud and not switch sides to the alliance of Ismail Khan, Dostum, the Taliban and Haji Qadeer that was being built up in order to evict Masud from Kabul. Omar Khan also told us that the Uzbeks had provided Dostum with a house in Tashkent and looked after him like a state guest during his frequent visits. However, Omar Khan had not figured out how much the Uzbeks were paying Dostum.
Leghari was the best leader I have ever worked with. He was from the CSP 1964 batch and it showed in his intelligence, depth of knowledge, experience, wisdom, sagacity, decency and honesty (that too in a PPP government which had a relaxed attitude towards these attributes). His batchmates were legends ,with such luminaries as Shamsher as his PS. They made an ideal pair for running the country but unfortunately could only advise, which Prime Minister Benazir usuallly ignored or rejected. Since Shamsher’s niece had been killed in the Peshawar bomb blast (Governor Khursheed was his brother), Leghari had a personal interest in seeking Masud’s ouster, even though the policy had already been decided. Shamsher’s younger brother, Shaukat, was our batch mate in the police (1973 batch) so the matter was personal for us too.
Leghari told us we must capitalize on Dostum’s friendly overtures in order to build up the alliance against Masud. He said we should double or triple the Iranian bribe of $1 million to Dostum, invite him immediately to Islamabad and develop other ways of increasing cooperation with him. The Foreign Minister read out our brief on the issue which included cooperation in the oil and gas sector, and repair of the fertilizer factory and cement factory near Mazar. We had also included the point that since the days of Daud, Pakistan had bought $20 million worth of fertiliser from Afghanistan but had refused to pay the amount after the Saur revolution since we did not recognise that government. The Foreign Office proposal was to return the amount to Dostum since the fertilizer factory was now under Dostum’s control. The Finance Ministry was objecting and maintaining that since Dostum did not represent the Government of Afghanistan the dues could not legally be passed on to him but had to be paid to Rabbani and ASM. Our counter argument was that Dostum was in more effective control of his territory than Rabbani and had more international recognition with about 18 consulates in Mazar compared to about 12 embassies in Kabul. Dostum was the de facto ruler of the area halfway from Herat up to Kunduz and it would therefore be legitimate to return the money to him. Finance, however, insisted that the de jure government was the legal owner of the funds. Leghari asked Shamsher to break the stalemate. Shamsher’s solution was to return the money in the form of export credit with which our exporters could fix the cement and fertilizer factories. This seemed a reasonable solution but Javed Masud, then AS (Finance), still objected, maintaining that there was no oversight for the proposal.
The ISI maintained throughout that Dostum did not work without money and if we wanted him on our side, we had to pay him. (Brig Majid’s favorite quotation was a Pashtu proverb, ‘One cannot cook chapli kebabs with spit’). The Iranians had just given him $1 million in order for him to stay with ASM and the Northern Alliance. Turkey had given him $10 million in ‘development assistance’ and we would have to at least match the Turkish offer if we wanted Dostum to play the game. We were prepared to pay him $4 million and proposed $6 million in export credits. Javed was still reluctant but after a great deal of pressure the Finance Secretary reluctantly agreed under protest, after nearly a fortnight of deliberate delay. Javed’s instincts were, however, correct. The project was an absolute disaster in which the exporter and Dostum monetized the deal at a discount without anything happening on ground. We should have listened to Javed Masud.
Before our next visit to Mazar the Foreign Minister visited Tashkent where President Islam Karimov appreciated our policy of reaching out to Dostum whom he considered a close ally and who was in effective control of his territory and preventing the spread of terrorism into Uzbekistan. Karimov said that what he understood of the Afghan problem at the present time was that two groups had formed: one which wanted trade between South and Central Asia and included the Central Asian Republics and Pakistan; the other group did not want trade between the two areas and included Russia, India, Iran and ASM. He would therefore advise Dostum, with whom he was on extremely friendly terms, to side with Pakistan. In passing Karimov mentioned the ‘Frankenstein monster factories Pakistan was creating which needed to be shut down.’ Good advice which fell on the deaf ears. Karimov also took the opportunity to bad mouth the President of Tajikistan, whom he claimed was involved in drug trade with ASM through the river port of Bander Sher Khan. He did not mention that nothing in this area could move without the approval of the 20,000 strong Red Army contingent. Karimov added that he had made sure that no drugs came through Hairatan.
We then headed back to Mazar with our delegation of experts in oil and gas, fertilizer and cement plants. Dostum was pleased with the seriousness with which we were trying to increase bilateral relations but could not understand the convoluted way in which we were returning the fertilizer money. He obviously had no idea of how the Pakistani bureaucracy worked, being used to his one-man rule.
The Foreign Minister mentioned that he recently had a very good meeting with Islam Karimov who seemed quite impressed with Dostum. The Foreign Minister asked Dostum why he had not considered joining Uzbekistan since most of the population in the area under his control was Uzbek and it would seem to be the natural thing to do to unite all the Uzbeks. It would also put an end to the ethnic fighting in Afghanistan. Dostum replied that he could not even think of doing that since here he was a king, while in Uzbekistan, he would be a slave. Fighting was a part of life, and he did not mind that. Moreover, he was an Afghan first and Uzbek later. This was the response we got from the Tajiks and Turkmens of Afghanistan as well and it seemed that all of them were deeply steeped in Afghan nationalism and none of them were willing to join the CARs. They all still preferred to kill one another in freedom rather than suffer the peace of authoritarian rulers.
Dostum spoiled the mood at dinner by announcing at the end that he had planned for the Foreign Minister to address a meeting next morning arranged by the mullahs to welcome the delegation. The Foreign Minister asked Dostum how he could be so cruel to inflict mullahs on us in Mazar, when we were already fed up with them in Pakistan. Dostum said he was also fed up with the mullahs, but one had to humor them and give them some importance if one wanted peace in the area. Obviously, a policy initiated by the Parcham cadres. While the experts were out checking the factories and the oil and gas fields, we had to sit through a tortuous three-hour long meeting. Anyway, it made Dostum happy, and it showed us once again Dostum’s popularity in the area as there was hardly any security present despite a sea of beards. Nothing at all like the ‘routes’ our leaders have been accustomed to inflicting on the general population. However, I found the whole experience rather surreal with a Communist Parcham regime forcing a delegation from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to attend a mullahs meeting. The irony of the situation showed how well the Parcham were running the area, by coopting the local rural and religious leaders.
When Dostum visited Islamabad, both the Foreign Minister and the President asked Iftikhar to arrange their meetings with Dostum, but Iftikhar refused with the excuse that,’ Dostum was a ‘two-taka badmash’ and not worthy enough to call on them. With this attitude towards a warlord who controlled almost the entire north of Afghanistan, it was no surprise that as soon as Dostum got back to Mazar he complained to Umar Khan that he would never go back to Pakistan if the ISI was handling his visit (even though a safe house in F-10 had been gifted to him) as they had treated him extremely shabbily.
Having got the formalities of money out of the way it was time to get serious. Col. Imam reported that he had tried to persuade Ismail Khan to join Dostum and the Taliban, but it had proved impossible. Ismail Khan’s contention was that he had spent his entire life in the jihad. He could not therefore change sides and join a communist. While he realised that Masud had been immature in provoking Pakistan, he was a member of Rabbani’s Jammiat e Islami and could not abandon his leader. While this was a rational and logical argument, what was unfathomable to me was Ismail Khan’s reluctance for a military alliance with the Taliban since both of them were similar, being traditional and conservative Muslims. Perhaps it may have been because of the Pashtun – Tajik divide or Ismail Khan being an ex- Fauji and being unable to make alliances. The Taliban too preferred to deal with their Deobandi counterparts and ignored everyone else. Like all other Afghans, their lust for power was absolute and brooked no compromises.
The Taliban were initially just as reluctant to make alliances for the same ethnic and religious reasons. However, we told them that the batteries and spare parts their Khalqi pilots wanted for their helicopters and planes were only available with Dostum, since Pakistan did not have any Russian weapons. This approach convinced them to at least undertake a military alliance with Dostum. However, as soon as their aircraft were functional, they started bombing Herat instead of preparing against ASM. It also showed that the Taliban were prepared to be pragmatic when their interests were involved. Otherwise, their default position was crazy. Ismail Khan was the same and despite his long lectures to Imam about how evil Dostum was, joined him as soon as he had lost to the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the Taliban who had taken over Kandahar in late 1994 had managed to take over 12 provinces on the way to Kabul without any fighting due to their bags full of money, some of it donated by Rabbani who still thought they were working for him to remove GB from the south of Kabul. Instead, the Taliban attempted to take Kabul in March 1995, but their attack was a dismal failure as ASM was too professional a commander to be affected by a ragtag mob of mullahs. The Taliban managed to capture the Hizb e Wahdat leader Mazari and then ‘accidentally’ dropped him from a helicopter, claiming he was trying to escape. Instead of consolidating their gains around Kabul the Taliban decided to strike towards Herat which was relatively undefended from the South. They, therefore, rapidly captured Farah and Nimroz and by the end of April 1995 they had reached Shindand. This was the end of the area of the Pakhtun population and beyond that area Ismail Khan was well defended and easily pushed the Taliban back to Helmand, as they were too thinly spread to control the area and completely unorganised in logistics. All this fighting left our Consul General in Herat, Col Imam, in an unenviable state since he had been trying to broker peace between the Taliban and Ismail Khan but neither side was willing to listen to him. At this stage ASM decided to enter the stage even though Ismail Khan had the situation well under control. In one of his major mistakes, ASM decided to airlift 3000 soldiers from his Shura e Nazar to ‘assist’ Ismail Khan but with the ulterior motive of placing Ismail Khan’s troops under his control as Defence Minister.
I called Imam in Herat and asked him to make plans to leave Herat as there was no knowing what ASM would do to him. Imam was his usual overconfident self and said nothing would happen to him because ASM had been his best and favourite student while undergoing training in 1973 and it was our mishandling him which had led to the present enmity. Moreover, Ismail Khan had seen through ASM’s ruse and was now refusing to take part in the offensive. ASM had obviously overextended himself and did not stand a chance against the Taliban and their millions of supporters in their Durrani heartland, who were incensed that a Tajik warlord had the temerity to invade the Pashtun heartland. Control of Kabul was bad enough, reminding them of Bacha e Saqao, but invading Helmand and Kandahar was intolerable. Since its inception Afghanistan had been a Durrani kingdom and the Taliban intended to keep it that way. It seemed that despite ASM and Ismail Khan both being Tajiks, they were from different valleys and their particularism was enough to make them unable to work together. Similar was the case with the Kohistanis, Badakshanis and Andrabis who also balked at working under Masud, despite being Tajik. The events unfolded exactly as Imam had predicted with, at times, the battle looking like a tennis match going back and forth and with ASM almost reaching Grishk in Helmand. Ultimately the Taliban prevailed due to their overwhelming numbers and gift of 400 double cabin 4×4 vehicles from Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. and by 5 September 1995 had taken Herat with Ismail Khan escaping to Iran. On 6 September 1995, in retaliation, ASM burnt our embassy in Kabul, killing one official and wounding 26 others, including the Ambassador Qazi Humayun and Defence Attaché Brig. Afridi, who barely escaped with their lives. ASM was covering up his mistake by blaming Pakistan for his defeat when we were trying to patch things up between Ismail Khan, Dostum and the Taliban. We were not going to allow him to get away with this outrage and decided to teach him what interference by Pakistan looked like. Dostum took advantage of Ismail Khan’s difficulties and managed to take Badghis and Ghor provinces.
Masud had in the meantime culminated the bombing campaign in the NWFP in December 1995 with the bombing of Peshawar Saddar, which killed the Governors daughter and two granddaughters besides sixty other people. Being an elitist state (as per Ishrat Hussains book- Pakistan: The Economy of an Elitist State), except for the Foreign Office and ISI, no one else had taken any notice of the bombing campaign for the last one year since only poor people living close to the Afghan border were affected. However, as soon as the elite were targeted everyone suddenly woke up and took notice. The next day Benazir, who had decided to disband the monthly Afghan Cell meetings, called a meeting of the Foreign Office (Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali was the Foreign Minister) and DG ISI and told us to, sort out the problem with Masud and if we could not do so we should settle with him. While we had no intention of settling with Masud we definitely decided to sort him out, without gloves.
Now that Dostum and the Taliban had implemented the secret parts of their agreement, which they had hidden from us, we hoped that they would immediately implement the remaining part of the agreement. The plan being that the Taliban would attack Kabul from the south, Dostum from the north and hopefully bring Hizb e Wahdat along from the west, while Haji Qadeer was told to attack from the east. This would ensure the encirclement of ASM in the valley of Kabul so that he did not escape to the natural fortress of Panjsher.
The Russians, who had been closely monitoring the situation, upped the stakes by providing two containers of Afghanis which was used as legal tender, as Russia had the printing contract. I told the Foreign Minister that this action had tipped the scales against us, but he said to wait and see. ISI tried to do damage control by telling the Taliban that we could print a similar amount for them, but they refused. They obviously had no idea of the advantages of seigniorage and preferred to let their enemy print the country’s money supply. Besides their ignorance of economic theory, they also did not want to be beholden to Pakistan for the printing. They were comfortable, however in receiving cash in dollars or Pak.Rs., both of which we did not have as Benazir was refusing to listen to Leghari’s pleas to release the money. The Foreign Minister made a hurried trip to Riyadh and put our case before Faisal who heard him courteously and said Inshallah. We assumed that meant ‘no; and were surprised to learn after a week that a tanker had docked in Karachi with 40,000 tons of aviation fuel for us. At least Dostum’s Balkh Air and Haji Qadeer’s Khyber Airlines could keep flying for some time. Peshawar ATC was however always complaining to us about Dostum’s Russian trained pilots who did not know a word of English.
General Patton once said that ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’ and our plan was in even worse shape. It collapsed even before first contact was made. Dostum faked illness and flew off to Tashkent for treatment of his liver. Haji Qadeer did the same, he faked kidney failure and flew off to Frankfurt. Hizb e Wahdat was never a factor anyway, being under Iranian dominance and never having received help from Pakistan. This was due to Zia’s reluctance to deal with Shias. Asif Mohseni (Islamic Movement of Afghanistan), representing the non-Hazara Shias, had formally requested for a transfer from Tehran to Peshawar, but Zia had rejected the proposal. Usually, he waited for a consensus to develop before taking a decision but this time he had guessed quite correctly that none of us knew much about religious matters.
The result was that the Taliban launched their attack alone and were easily stopped by Masud. Everyone took it in stride as the way Afghans did business. I recalled a similar incident during the jihad when a Russian attempt to resupply Khost was under siege by all seven mujahideen parties, who had vowed not to let the convoy through. However, the Russians just bribed everyone, and the convoy was allowed through. ISI managed to get a list of the payments made and it was totalling a few hundred thousand dollars. When we complained to the leaders, they explained that the deal was only for one day and they would charge the Russians again for the return journey before restarting the siege. One can only rent an Afghan and not buy him. This adage applied to us as well. The Iranian saying, ‘Afghan beimaan’ is quite famous and Afghans have always had a pragmatic approach to warfare, with money being of paramount importance compared to fighting and killing. We informed the Americans about this setback, since they were providing the money for the siege, but they took it in their stride, saying they were in the war for the long run, and were not concerned with minor setbacks.
In the ISI there was a change in command in 1996, with Lt. General Aziz Khan replacing Iftikhar. Aziz was a real gentleman to the core and way above the average in intelligence. He was also a consensus builder and allowed the Foreign Office full participation in the discussions. He told me he was a Suddan Durrani which explained his warlike and tenacious nature. (The Poonchis had managed to liberate their area before the Pak army arrived). Given his serious nature he was quite upset with the shenanigans performed by Dostum and Haji Qadeer and while the rest of us had laughed it off, he was not amused. He said he did not appreciate our casual response and he was going to sort out both of them. Aziz believed in doing things himself rather than depending on unreliable and inefficient Afghans.
Dostum then did something incredibly stupid, which gave Aziz his chance. Dostum’s hubris had made him order the assassination of Rasul Pehlwan on 24 June 1996. Rasul had been his biggest and most effective commander and was loyal to Dostum since the jihad started in 1978. As the Greeks said, ‘Whom the gods want to destroy they first make mad’. Even more stupid, he left the stepbrother, General Malik alive, assuming that Malik had no power base of his own. Therefore, while Aziz was meeting with Dostum, Brig. Majeed and the rest of the ISI team was working out a deal between the Taliban and Malik.
While we were taking off from Mazar, I told Aziz that it was unfortunate that we were about to destroy the only civilized and peaceful place in Afghanistan (besides Herat). Aziz ,who was already irritated at the sight of our crates of booze being loaded, retorted that just because we got our drinks from Dostum it did not make him civilized. What about all the men, women and children he had killed, and villages destroyed during the jihad. Like Imam, Aziz too had not forgotten nor forgiven Dostum’s past actions. That was the only time I saw Aziz upset. Otherwise, he was always a true professional. Yaqub-Khan once told me that whenever he had to make any decision which affected the country’s future, he prayed to God to remove all emotion from his heart so that he could take a cold-blooded decision based only on the interests of the state. Aziz had missed the point by concentrating on the drinks alone. He also it seemed had not read Hannah Arendt on the banality of evil i.e., doing evil without being evil.
Dostum’s area was the only area in Afghanistan in which there was no ethnic strife. The Uzbeks were the dominant ethnic group in the area and were in alliance with the Turkmans, Hazaras, Tajiks and Ismailis. Our attempt to assist in the imposing of obscurantist Islamic mullahs, who had proved incapable of governing any non-Pashtuns and who considered all Shias apostate, was a recipe for chaos. Moreover, Dostum was on good terms with all his neighbours, especially Iran, which was important since Iranian influence in the area dated back to the Achaemenian Empire (about 550B.C). We had to consider the reactions of the neighbouring countries to events along their borders, just as we were concerned about our border with Afghanistan. I recall Kharrazi visiting us after the Taliban first surfaced and asking us, ‘Where did you dig up these lunatics. They are even crazier than us’.
Much later, Javed Hussain, our Ambassador in Iran, tried his best to convince the ISI to take Iran’s concerns about our destabilising activities in their neighbourhood into account. The only result was that Javed got into a slanging match with Mehmud at the envoys conference in Islamabad in 2001. The problem was that whenever we talked to the Iranians about Afghanistan, they behaved like carpet merchants rather than strategic thinkers, by asking for double representation for the Shias compared to their population size. After four years of listening to their fantastic estimates of the Shia and non-Pashtun population in Afghanistan, the ISI finally got fed up and decided to serve the Iranians with a fait accompli. De facto control they hoped would create its own facts. Luckily, this time around (2021 0nwards) Iran and ISI showed they had both learnt their lesson and coordinated closely with each other on Afghan issues. In fact, the Meshed shura received more funding from the Iranians than the Quetta, Miranshah and Peshawar shuras put together. That is the main reason northern Afghanistan fell to the Taliban with hardly any fighting as soon as the U.S left. The Afghan generals and warlords had also made so much money they decided to run away rather than fight. So far as the issue of cruelty was concerned, Dostum did not have a monopoly on evil and inhumane actions. All the Afghan groups fought with extreme cruelty and the mujahideen and the Taliban were no different, as their treatment of Hazaras showed. Luckily, this time the Taliban also seemed to have learnt the benefit of cooperating with the Iranians.
Returning to the 1997 events, eventually the ISI managed to broker a deal between Malik with the Taliban calling for: Malik to join the Taliban in a joint attack on Dostum and to be in full charge of all the area captured. In return Malik would recognize the sovereignty of Mullah Omar over Afghanistan. It seemed like a good deal from Malik’s point of view.
The offensive on 24 May 1997 was almost a walkover with hardly any serious fighting. Malik also managed to capture Ismail Khan, who had joined Dostum, and promptly handed him over to the Taliban, who put him in prison in Kandahar. Imam tried his best to get him released but the Taliban, including Mullah Omar, refused and instead after a couple of years took a huge bribe/ ransom and let him go. To show that he had actually escaped, they also shot him in the leg. Ismail Khan never forgave Imam for this incident. Primitive minds always need a scapegoat to explain away their debacles. Later in Tashkent, Umar Khan asked Dostum, “General, how could you lose with the hundreds of tanks, planes, APCs, artillery and generals you had’. Dostum replied, ‘They all ran away as they had made too much money which was lying in dollars in the banks in Tashkent and they wanted to be close to their money, rather than fight the crazy Taliban.’ Dostum added, ‘The Taliban were so crazy they did not care for minefields or artillery fire but advanced regardless of casualties. No normal army could fight them.’ Dostum did not mention his own role in his defeat by alienating his followers. No one can trust a boss or be willing to die for him knowing one can at any moment be arbitrarily killed.
The Russian Counsellor in Islamabad corroborated this account when he called on me after the battle and said the problem was that the Russians had overplayed their hand by the gift of two containers of Afghanis. Dostum and his generals had immediately converted all of it into dollars which they had deposited in their accounts in Tashkent instead of using it to bribe the Afghan commanders. As a result, the Afghani had lost 50 percent of its value and the rank and file refused to fight for such greedy commanders. I told the Counsellor that ideology had seemed to trump over money this time, but the Counsellor did not agree and said that money was the only thing that worked with Afghans, but it had to be used wisely like the Taliban and Pakistan had done. Also, Dostum was a complete idiot for killing Rasul Pehlwan for no reason whatsoever. It was gracious of the Counsellor to dissect the battle with me and give us credit for defeating the combined plans of ASM, Dostum, Russia, Iran and India. He did not seem to know about our secret weapon, General Aziz.
Ayaz Wazir, who had replaced Omar Khan as Consul General in Mazar e Sharif, told me that by the afternoon Malik was in full control of Mazar e Sharif. However, as soon as the situation had calmed down the next day, the Taliban started clamping down on women not wearing burqas and started collecting weapons and disarming Malik’s troops. The agreement between Malik and the Taliban had barely lasted 24 hours. This was a new record for the Afghans since the Peshawar accord, Islamabad accord, Mecca accord and the Geneva accord had lasted for a few days. Breaking the agreement was not a problem since in the world of real politick countries break treaties all the time. The stupidity this time was that the Taliban had mostly depended on Maliks troops for the offensive and did not have sufficient resources in the north to implement their power play as they were outnumbered 10 to 1. Rationality was never a strong point with the Taliban as they always relied on God for the implementation of their irrational policies.
Ayaz said that he was having an early dinner with the Taliban Minister for Interior, Mullah Abdul Razzaq, who was an extremist and a hot head to boot. Ayaz told him that what the Taliban were doing was completely against the accord and ignoring the fact that Malik would react violently. Instead of discussing the situation Razzaq asked Ayaz, “Consul General sahib, when are you bringing Islam and Sharia in Pakistan”. Ayaz told him rather curtly,” Forget about Pakistan and concentrate on the gunshots happening outside. So long as Pakistan and Islam were concerned, Pakistan was a young country and the Taliban were still trying to bring Islam to Afghanistan after 250 years of its formation.” Ayaz added, he was 20 years older and if he kept a beard, it was sure to be white. In tribal society when white beards (spin girah) spoke the youngsters kept silent. In order to retrieve the situation, General Aziz decided to send Mullah Ghaus, the Taliban Foreign Minister, who was a known moderate, to Mazar to replace Razzaq in the negotiations with Malik. Under pressure from ISI, Mullah Ghaus agreed to go to the talks in Mazar. However, it seemed that the real culprit was not Razzaq, but Mullah Omar since Ghaus also took a hardline in the talks and asked Malik to renegotiate their agreement. Maliks response was predictable, and he asked the Hizb e Wahdat to join him in eliminating the Taliban presence in northern Afghanistan. Hizb e Wahdat being Shia Hazaras, gladly joined and started a massacre of the Taliban, with the Taliban losing about 2000 to 3000 men. The fighting lasted for three days, and a similar number of Taliban escaped to Kunduz, from where they continued their hit and run raids on Mazar. Razaq and Ghaus barely escaped to Kandahar by shaving their beards and hiding in friendly houses on the way. Ayaz had a narrow escape as he tried to cross the border at Hairatan bridge, but the Uzbeks allowed all the other 17 consuls through and stopped Ayaz. Obviously, Islam Karimov was furious at our ignoring his advice about Frankenstein’s monsters and throwing out his good friend Dostum. I immediately called over the Uzbek Ambassador and gave him a stern Note Verbale and we waited for the next morning. Luckily, Karimov had a change of heart, having made his point, and Ayaz was allowed through, but he had spent a sleepless night expecting sudden death anytime. His tenure in Mazar e Sharif had lasted three days. It seemed Malik realised that the Foreign Office was not involved in this adventure.
I was posted to Rome soon after and I told General Aziz that at times one lost some battles, and one could always go back to the drawing board. Aziz did not reply as his motto seemed to have been, “Never give up”. I had to follow Afghanistan from the media after my posting. After nearly a dozen attacks from Kunduz, Mazar was finally overrun in 1998, firstly by taking over Hairatan in the north and then coordinating the attack from the east with Taliban reinforcements from the west. Malik’s rule had lasted only from May to Sept. 1997 and seeing his ineffectiveness, the Uzbeks asked Dostum to come back and lead them in guerilla warfare from the hills south of Mazar.
St. Augustine had said, ‘Kingdoms without justice are mere robberies and robberies are small kingdoms; but large Empires are piracy writ large.’ Dostum seemed to fit this description exactly. Starting as an almost illiterate villager he managed to create a state covering almost the entire North of Afghanistan, including not only the Uzbeks but also alliances with the Turkmen, Tajik, Hazara and Ismaili communities. All these nationalities had been chaffing under a discriminatory Pashtun royal family for the last 200 years. His successfully thwarting ASM’s plans to replace him with the Tajik leader, Ustad Atta, required considerable networking skills. (Faheem was however successful in implementing ASM’s policy after the US invasion). During the jihad when he was an irritant in the operations of the mujahidin, it was easy to envisage the mujahideen planning his elimination. However, after getting to know him, it was difficult not to be impressed by the enormity of the task he had accomplished, despite his handicaps of lack of education and wealth. His diplomatic manoeuvring both internally in Afghanistan and externally with the regional countries, were an impressive achievement, even though he had considerable help from the Parchamis. He was living in a Hobbesian environment (short, nasty and brutish) and had to act accordingly, in an evil, inhumane, cruel, ruthless and deceitful manner. His end came in a surfeit of hubris when he disposed of with diplomacy (and listening to the Parchamis) and resorted to brute force and his evil ways, against a close friend and ally.
The US failed to appreciate the coalition building talent of Dostum and while taking his help in defeating the Taliban in the north of Afghanistan (where Dostum indulged in his favourite passion of killing Taliban prisoners), afterwards they just assigned him sinecures.
Our balance sheet of interaction with Dostum was not impressive. He managed to gyp us out of $10 million without giving us anything in return. Our attempt to assist in the Taliban rule in the North of Afghanistan was an absolute disaster, alienating not only Iran but also all the Afghan minorities. This time around ISI and the Taliban had the sense to coordinate with Iran and Russia, while Iranian influence also ensured the Hazara were not declared apostate again.
Sadiq, our Ambassador in Kabul had told me the last time he had seen Dostum he was complaining against Umar Khan for giving him holes in his liver while himself setting off as a Tablighi. From what I had seen, Dostum was always the instigator and Umar Khan the guest who kept him company. Anyway, Dostum now seems to be enjoying his retirement on the Bosphorus.
This was a personal account of my dealings with Dostum when I was DG(Afg). For a more detailed and somewhat philosophical account based on historical perspectives one has to turn to, “Empires of Mud” by Antonio Giustozzi (Hurst & Co. London 2009) which gives a detailed account of Dostum and Ismail Khan, both starting small but ending up almost as monarchs of the Uzbek and Tajik communities of Northern and Western Afghanistan respectively, where they created protostates.
