Renegade Warlord Threatens to Destabilize Key Afghan Provinces
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Khan’s Kalashnikov-armed men have been deployed east of Paktia’s provincial capital, Gardez |
GARDEZ,
Afghanistan, August 4 (News Agencies) - Renegade Afghan warlord Padsha
Khan has threatened to destabilize several key south eastern provinces
after being denied a leadership position critics say he is unsuitable
to hold.
“I
have 6,000 men across the area, right up to the Pakistani border,”
Khan, the self-styled “general director of the southern zone,”
told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in an impromptu interview in a sleepy
village in Paktia province.
Although
his claims are unverifiable, Khan’s Kalashnikov-armed men are known
to have been deployed across a vast territory of black rocks and
sparse vegetation to the east of Paktia’s provincial capital,
Gardez.
Ignoring
demands by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to surrender his men and
weapons, Khan has made increasingly bold threats against incumbent
authorities in Gardez and Khost since his removal as Paktia’s
governor earlier this year.
His
men have twice attempted to capture Gardez, leaving at least 80 dead
in bloody attacks in January and April.
Khan’s
28-year-old younger brother, Kamal Khan, has also occupied the
headquarters of the Khost governor after Karzai appointed a
representative of a rival tribe.
The
Afghan government is currently attempting to disarm and dissolve the
often powerful militia of local warlords and create a unified national
army, a move Khan says fails to address threats from northern Afghan
warlords.
“We
are not against a national army, but the north is trying to create an
army of its own,” Khan said.
Afghanistan’s
northern territories are dominated by ethnic Tajiks, whose prominent
leader, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, is the Afghan minister of defense.
Loyal
to Pashtun former king Mohammed Zahir Shah, Khan sees the rise to
power of the Tajiks as a threat to the historical dominance of the
Pashtuns and criticises Karzai, also a Pashtun, for conceding
authority, AFP reported.
“How
can he ensure the safety of the country when he requires the
protection of 20 American bodyguards?” he asked.
“The
problem is that the north does not want us, and he (Karzai) does not
want a true Pashtun force.”
Khan’s
status has remained uncontested in the mountainous reaches of south
east Afghanistan since the jihad, or holy struggle, against Soviet
occupation.
A
refugee in Pakistan under the Taliban regime, which dominated
Afghanistan for five years from 1996, he was among the first to offer
thanks after the regime was swept away late last year under a U.S.-led
campaign.
Khan
was subsequently appointed as governor of Paktia by Karzai, but he
failed to take office after members of a local shura (council of
elders) refused to accept him.
Opposition
to Khan remains strong, with many viewing his bloody past as an
unsuitable qualification in post-conflict Afghanistan.
“Padsha
Khan is a man of the mountains, good for the jihad but not to govern
an area. He does not accept any advice and is illiterate,” said Zia
Khad Gul, an assistant to Gardez governor Raz Mohammad Dalili.
“I
know him very well”, the governor says of Padsha Khan, “We had
good relations.”
Dalili
remains convinced Khan’s warmongering will eventually be defeated by
his own approach of arbitration.
“We
will regulate this problem through negotiation with the heads of
tribes,” he said.
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