Abdul Rashid Dostum
General
Abdul Rashid Dostum (also
Abdurrashid Dostum, born 1954), a powerful ethnic
Uzbek warlord is the principal leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community. He currently holds the honorific position of "Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces".
He is leader of Junbish Milli /
Junbesh-i Melli-i Islami, Jombesh-e Melli Islami (
National Islamic Movement Afghanistan). He later joined the communist government, serving as defense minister for President Muhammad Najibullah, until the mujahideen defeated it in 1992.
One of the best-organized and powerful of the militia groups operated under the command of Abdul Rashid Dostum in the area around
Sheberghan in
Jawzjan province, northern Afghanistan. Dostum had been in the Army at the time of the 1978 coup, and was a member of the
Parcham faction of the PDPA.
Dostum completed his national service, and had trained as a
paratrooper in the 1970s, as was required by law. Following his demobilization he found employment in the oil fields around
Sheberghan where he wasworking at the time of the
Saur Revolution.
As the government started to arm the staff of the
oil and
gas refineriesâ€"creating "groups for the defense of the revolution" - he was, on the basis of his military training, encouraged to enlist. His group, in response to increasing conflict, was deployed in the rural areas around
Sheberghan, under the auspices of the
Ministry of National Security.
By the mid 1980s his platoon had grown in stature, reaching a company level by at least 1987 and a regimental level, Regiment 734, by 1988. While the unit recruited throughout Jauzjan and had a relatively broad base, many of its early troops and commanders came from Dostum's home village, Khoja Dukoh, and these represented the core of the unit at that juncture and again when it was reconstituted after 2001.
He left the army after the purge of
Parchamis, and returned after the
Soviet occupation began, commanding a militia battalion that became a regiment and ultimately was incorporated into the defense foces as the
53rd Infantry Division, but reporting directly to President
Mohammad Najibullah. He then joined the
Ministry of State Security and became commander of unit 374 in Jozjan.
He defended the communist
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the
United States-backed
mujahedin in the
1980s. Although he was only a regional commander, he had largely raised the militia he fought with on his own.
The Jauzjani militia, as it became known, was one of the few militia forces to be used outside of its region. They were deployed in
Qandahar in 1988 when Soviet forces withdrew. He also supported the
Gorbachev-era Communist reforms in
Afghanistan.
On
April 18,
1992, he revolted against the government of President
Najibullah, allying with
Ahmed Shah Massoud. Together, they captured
Kabul, the Afghan
capital. He commanded the principal militia force in
Kabul that ousted Najibullah, creating episodes of
kidnapping,
looting and
fighting.
In 1994, Dostum again switched sides, allying with forces of
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in once more laying siege on Kabul, this time against the government of
Burhanuddin Rabbani and Massoud.
In 1996, following the rise of the
Taliban and their capture of
Herat and
Kabul, Dostum realigned himself with Rabbani against the Taliban. Along with General
Mohammed Fahim and
Ismail Khan, Dostum was one of three factional leaders that comprised the
Afghan Northern Alliance. Facing capture and death by Taliban forces, Dostum fled to Turkey as an exile.
In 2001, he returned from exile on the heels of a
U.S.-led bombing campaign that drove the Taliban from power. Since then, he has run parts of the country's north as his own
fiefdom, nominally serving as a deputy defense minister in the national government in Kabul but operating almost totally independent of the government.
In November of 2002, the
United Nations began an investigation of alleged
human rights abuses by Dostum. Witnesses claimed that Dostum jailed and tortured witnesses to prevent them from testifying in a war crimes case. Dostum is also under suspicion for the events of the
Dasht-i-Leili massacre.
In March 2003, he established a
North Zone of Afghanistan, against the wishes of interim president
Hamid Karzai. On
May 20,
2003, Dostum signed an agreement to no longer serve as Karzai's special envoy for the northern regions. Later, Dostum reached a political compromise with Karzai, assuming the position of "Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces".
In the aftermath of the Taliban's removal from northern Afghanistan, forces loyal to Dostum frequently clashed with forces loyal to
Tajik General
Mohammed Atta. Through the political mediations of the Karzai regime, the U.S.-led international military Coalition, and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, as well as the UN-run Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration program, the Dostum-Atta feud has largely ended. The two are now generally politically allied as part of a broader ideological effort to protect the interests of Afghanistan's war veterans and to preserve their own power.
In most ethnic-Uzbek dominated areas in which Dostum has control or influence, he encourages women to live and work freely, as well as music, sports, alcohol, and allows for people of other religions. However it is claimed that during the civil war he financed his army through the
opium business. He has also been accused by people fleeing Afghanistan of being involved in human rights violations: arresting and killing people all over the country through government infrastructure.
On March 1, 2005 President
Hamid Karzai appointed him chief of staff to the head of the Afghan armed forces.
*
BBC online profile*
Biography about Dostum
