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Karzai Names Dostum Afghan Deputy Defense Minister
KABUL, Dec 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Afghanistan's new leader, Hamid Karzai, said on Monday that he has appointed controversial warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum as the deputy defense minister in his interim government, news agencies reported.
Karzai was speaking after meeting Dostum and Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim at the presidential palace, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"The agreement [on the appointment] has been signed between me, the defense minister and General Dostum," he told reporters.
Asked if the appointment marked the beginning of a national army, Dostum replied, "Yes, it is. We have made the first step and it will go on."
The ethnic Uzbek general, whose controversial background stems from concerns about human rights abuses committed under his command, told AFP earlier that he has 50,000 fighters under his command and wants them eventually to be incorporated into a future national army.
Dostum also said that while Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda fighters and the former ruling Taliban regime had been decimated in the north of the country, thousands remained free in the south.
"In northern Afghanistan, they are crushed, but in other parts of Afghanistan they have changed their shape," he said.
"In Kabul, in Kandahar, in Jalalabad, there were thousands of al-Qaeda and Taliban - there is still a great danger there."
The Saudi-born bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network are suspected by Washington of masterminding the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
He said the war against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies was not over and that he was prepared to put his divisions at the disposal of the government.
Dostum commanded the troops, who in early 1992 removed the Taliban from the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif - where he now has his headquarters.
Human rights groups regard him with extreme caution because forces under his command have been accused of atrocities against civilians. He has also switched sides many times throughout the tumultuous past decade, a BBC online report on the new appointment said.
According to a Human Rights Watch editorial from October 10, the general now rising to power in the interim government commanded forces that "shelled civilian neighborhoods in Kabul and looted, raped and killed civilians there and in other parts of the country," from 1992 to 1997.
The editorial said that in January of 1997, "planes belonging to General Dostum's militia dropped cluster munitions on residential areas of Kabul.
"Several civilians were killed and others wounded," it said, adding the concern that not one opposition commander has yet been held accountable for human rights abuses.
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