| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Warlord and perfessor headed fer a shootout in Khost... |
| 2002-05-12 |
| The warlord Padsha Khan Zadran is a beefy, gun-toting, illiterate, accused of killing 36 people in late April by randomly lobbing rockets into Gardez because he couldn't have his way. To confront Zadran, who claims control over three provinces, Afghanistan's interim government has chosen Hakim Taniwal, a slightly built, bespectacled sociology professor. He's playin' the Gary Cooper part... Taniwal, the man dispatched by Kabul to be Khost's governor, has reported progress in his mission. Tribal leaders had been acting as go-betweens. They told him Zadran had agreed to recognize his authority here in Khost, a city so impulsively violent that some of the traffic police tote hand grenades. Things are getting better though. For a right turn on red without stopping they'll just shoot you up. "Padsha Khan sees he is going down, that his days are numbered," said the professor. "He thought Khost exists for his personal booty. Now, I think he sees this can no longer be so." Taniwal then reconsidered these statements, admitting that the unpredictability of Zadran worried him. "Of course, the man is totally out of his mind," he said. "You know, people call him Saddam. He is very stubborn and bitter. He is growing more and more mad each day. I am glad we are moving toward a solution. At least, I hope we are." You hope so, Perfessor, but you never know with homicidal maniacs, do you? And there's a shortage of those coats with the very long sleeves in Afghanistan... Of Afghanistan's many warlords — among them Ismail Khan in the west, Abdul Rashid Dostum in the north, and Gul Agha in the south — Zadran appears to be the only one in a great amount of trouble. "He sits in a room and is afraid to come out," said the warlord tauntingly. "He is not acting as governor. All matters are controlled by me." That's what the Clanton gang said about all those Earps, too... The facts suggest otherwise. Mr. Zadran, a participant in the Bonn agreement that brought the country an interim government, was named governor of Paktia Province. But when he tried to assume office, forcing his way into Gardez with 800 soldiers, he was routed by a rival warlord, Hajji Saifullah. In late April he sought his revenge, ordering the rocket attack on the city. Hamid Karzai, expressed outrage, calling Zadran a murderer. Sounds like a pretty accurate description... Taj Muhammad Wardak, who is serving as the governor of Paktia Province in the warlord's stead, ordered his rival to surrender. "Hah!" declaimed Mr. Zadran again today. "Wardak has control of one square kilometer of Gardez, and I have the rest. Tell me, who should surrender: him or me?" |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |