A powerful Afghan regional commander said on Tuesday the central government needed to take courageous action against unruly regional warlords if it was to extend its rule around the country. Ustad Atta Mohammed, a senior commander in the north, also said President Hamid Karzai must resist calls for a federal state or risk the disintegration of Afghanistan. Speaking about a call by his northern rival, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, for a federal system in Afghanistan with greater powers vested in the regions, Atta said he agreed with the concept in principle, but now was not the time. "Federalism now, or calls for it, would mean disintegration of Afghanistan... it would mean a repeat of the debacles of 23 years of war," he said.
While both Atta and Dostum are officials of Karzai's government, they are bitter rivals whose forces have clashed repeatedly for control of the north since the Taliban fell in late 2001. Atta blamed the fighting on rivalries of local commanders and ambitions of local elders. He said he was satisfied by a weekend meeting of regional and central military commanders and commanders of the U.S.-led coalition pursuing Taliban and al Qaeda remnants. "There was no feeling of disagreement; it was a relaxed atmosphere," he said.
Atta said the conference also dwelt on concerns about increasing activity in southern Afghanistan by Taliban remnants operating on the Pakistani border. "There was a lot of discussion about ongoing meddling, formation of fronts, regrouping and equipping across the southern border," he said. He said some worries were raised about links between some Cabinet members and "strangers in a neighbouring country". He did not identify the Cabinet members or refer to Pakistan by name.
Interesting article. I cut a lot of it out, so feel free to read it all. The goobers who sneer at the "warlords" are talking about Atta Mohammad, Dostum, Ismail Khan, and, to a lesser extent, Gul Agha Shirzai. Of them, Gul Agha's the one who most fits the warlord stereotype — he's a corrupt little man, who's not in the same league as the other three. His corruption as governor of Kandahar was what gave the Talibs their start, hanging some of the worst of his men from a crane. Dostum's troops were fighting without shoes in the early days of the Afghan war. Atta Mohammad stuck by Rabbani and Massoud — I suspect mostly Massoud — through the Dog Eat Dog and the Taliban days. At one point the Talibs had Ismail in jail and were going to hang him. So these are men of substance, even when they bicker with each other, who justly regard themselves as having contributed to Afghan freedom. Karzai's government has to accomodate them at least to an extent, and a federal system, actually a group of "dukedoms," probably makes as much sense as a federal system does in Iraq, and for the same reasons. The sticking point always comes with Pashtunistan, and God knows what to do with that area.
They've got to do something, though, because of that meddling from the "strangers in a neighbouring country." Iran's doing a certain amount of meddling, cozying up to Ismail, but the majority of it's coming from NWFP and Baoluchistan. Regardless of what Jamali and Perv tell Karzai, that meddling is going to continue. Unless the Paks are willing to produce Hekmatyar's head on a pike, the Afghans are going to discount those assurances as just so much flatulence. My personal preference would be to turn Dostum and Atta Mohammad loose on the Paks — let them see what real mujaheddin can do to them. |
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