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Dostum appointed Afghan army chief?
 Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is to appoint General Abd al-Rashid Dostum as head of the country's fledgling army, a source close to Karzai has said. "General Dostam has been appointed as the Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces," President Karzai's spokesman Jawed Ludin told journalists. However, Ludin added that Deputy Defence Minister Bismillah Khan will retain day to day management as the Chief of Army Staff in command of the nation's 25,000-strong army. The decision - likely to be announced on national TV on Tuesday night - may alarm rights groups who have been calling for those who committed war crimes during the country's bloody civil war to be brought to justice. Dostum, one of the most powerful men in northern Afghanistan, contested against Karzai and won 10% of last October's presidential vote, mostly in northern provinces where he garnered much support from the ethnic Uzbek and Turkmen communities. However, he was named by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission for the violence of his troops during the civil war which raged in the Afghan capital between 1992 and 1995, and for his bombing of Kabul during that period. Karzai's spokesman Jawed Ludin did not say if Dustum had been made the country's military chief, but hinted that he would be given a key post. "I think General Dustum will be offered a very good, respectable and appropriate job within the government" Jawed Ludin, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai "I think General Dustum will be offered a very good, respectable and appropriate job within the government," Ludin said. Ludin insisted that Dustum's appointment to a government post was "a good thing, a positive one". Posted by: Fred 2005-03-02 |
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