KABUL, 10 April 2004 — An Afghan strongman whose forces have overrun a northern province issued a stark warning to the US-backed president yesterday — fire the defense and interior ministers or your government will fail. Even as a delegation led by Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Mohibullah met Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum to urge him to withdraw his fighters from Faryab province, the militia advanced further having taken the provincial capital on Thursday.
Speaking to Reuters for the first time since his forces attacked Faryab on Wednesday, Dostum complained he had not been consulted about the deployment of hundreds of National Army troops to the province to restore order. “I will help with the national army and I should be trusted,” he said.
Dostum, who has continued to angle for a top position despite losing favor since helping US forces topple the Taleban in 2001, called on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sack officials including Defense Minister Muhammad Qasim Fahim and Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali.
“If he does not, his government will fail,” he said. He said Fahim was only interested in extending his power, while Jalali had been out of the country working in Washington while Dostum and others were fighting to overthrow the Taleban.
Dostum, an adviser to Karzai, also complained that US planes hovered over his house in the town of Shiberghan on Thursday night. “My kids were frightened, but let me say that I am not the type of man to be afraid,” he said.
Karzai rushed troops to Maimana on Thursday but they arrived too late to stop the advance of Dostum’s forces that forced the governor and provincial commander Muhammad Hashim Habibi to flee.
While few casualties have been reported, the latest factional unrest is bound to cause worries in Washington about the stability of Afghanistan as the country prepares for elections and US troops pursue Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters. It is an unwelcome headache in President George W. Bush’s own election year as US forces struggle in Iraq.
Karzai has ordered the immediate withdrawal of Dostum’s fighters from Faryab, but so far has been ignored. “Talks are going on and we hope that the issue can be settled without confrontation,” a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Karzai’s spokesman Jawed Ludin confirmed an Afghan Islamic Press report quoting Habibi as saying that Dostum’s forces had continued their advances on Thursday night and yesterday. He said they captured the district of Belcharagh yesterday morning and occupied other eastern areas of the province.
“Our forces have retreated, but now fierce fighting is raging in Gurzawan,” Habibi told AIP, adding that several people had been killed and wounded. Ludin said 500 troops would be in Maimana by evening and it was now calm. “It will probably take a bit of time to bring the wider region under control, but it will be brought under control,” he said.
Ludin said Dostum had contacted Kabul on Thursday and insisted he was not trying to challenge Karzai’s authority and that he had not sent fighters into Faryab.
Asked what action Karzai would take against Dostum, Ludin said: “I don’t think it’s useful to speculate. We’re looking into the factors and we will cross that bridge when we come to it.”
On Thursday, Jalali termed Dostum’s moves “unconstitutional” but the ethnic Uzbek, whose forces have been involved in several rounds of fighting for territory since the Taleban fell, has a sufficiently large power base to make him difficult to arrest.
