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| Afghanistan |
| Warlord's brother sez Kabul forces must pull back |
| 2002-04-20 |
Paris is a good place to assess the military situation from. You get a better picture the further you are from the fighting. Amin Wardak, who lives in the French capital, said his brother Ghulam Rohani Nangialai was still in the region waiting for the response of a mediation team sent by Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai from the capital Kabul. In a dramatic turn-around for the interim government, they beat him up, and then gave him a stern talking-to. This is a new thing, and a good sign. "There is no doubt that there will be resistance. It is everybody's right to defend themselves," the Paris-based Wardak, who is called after his native province, told AFP. "Yeah. An' they ain't nobody tells me what to do, suckah!" Nangialai's supporters took control of Wardak region, on the main southwestern highway from the capital to the Pakistani border, after the Taliban regime was driven out of Kabul last November. According to defence ministry sources in Kabul, government troops this week killed 20 fighters and captured most of Nangialai's weaponry. They accuse him of backing the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Our suspicion is that he supports whomever he thinks might advance his interests, or maybe depending on his mood. Wardak said however that his brother was an elected governor of the central province, chosen by the people after the Taliban's flight to fill the vacuum. Translated, that means he was the one with the most guns at the time. "There has been no threat from our province to the regime in Kabul; we have supported Karzai's government," he said, while acknowledging that his brother was running his fiefdom without any link to the central authority. If you're gonna be a feudal potentate, you've got to send tribute. That's in the rulebook somewhere. He accused the government troops of harrassing the locals and looting their property. Y'mean those damned government troops got there first? Damn, I hate when that happens. Wardak said it was now quiet in the strategic region. "Fahim wants all the power for his party and its allies," he said, referring to the interim Afghan defence minister. Ummm... He's part of the central government. Normally, central governments expect to extend at least some control over the pieces of the country. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |