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Warlord solidify power { February 18 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25851-2002Feb17.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25851-2002Feb17.html
U.S. Backing Helps Warlord Solidify Power
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 18, 2002; Page A01
JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Hazrat Ali sat cross-legged on the
floor late one night, engrossed in political intrigue over three
constantly ringing U.S.-issued satellite phones. The U.S.-backed
warlord of Jalalabad is restless these days, and he is never
without bright blue beads he fingers obsessively.
When a call came from Afghanistan's interior minister, Yonus
Qanooni, Ali took the offensive. A rival of Ali's was in Kabul,
lobbying for the job of regional defense chief. Under no
circumstances, Ali told Qanooni. "I don't need him in Jalalabad,"
he said. "I am not happy with him in Jalalabad. He has to leave
Jalalabad."
A minute later, it was Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim on the
line. He had sent weapons to Ali to fight al Qaeda in the Tora
Bora mountains, and was pleading for their return. Ali rebuffed
him. "Security is still a concern here," he said. "Give me some
time, and I will get these weapons back from my commanders,
and I will send them back."
Such bullying comes easily to Ali, who as America's local
warlord is the only power that really matters in Jalalabad.
Supported by U.S. military might and dollars, Ali represents a
potent new force in post-Taliban Afghanistan, challenging a weak
central government that has no choice but to do business with
him.
Ali owes his rise largely to the Pentagon, which enlisted him to
lead the ground battle against Osama bin Laden's fighters in
nearby Tora Bora last fall. Today, his fighters are a constant
shadow to the U.S. Special Forces based in Jalalabad. He
commands a fleet of plush new Land Cruisers, apparently bought
with U.S. money. Ali's rivals say his gunmen routinely warn
anyone who disagrees with them that they have the power to call
down B-52 airstrikes from the Americans.
"The Americans have contacts only with me," Ali said. "They're
always with me."
In hours of conversation over two days, Ali claimed to command
18,000 fighters, which would make his the biggest force in
eastern Afghanistan. He boasted of his ability to commandeer
U.S. helicopters for his own use, and freely acknowledged a
variety of intrigues that a more polished politician might hesitate
to admit.
Physically imposing, with a tight, curly beard and gentle eyes, Ali
comes across as a mix of warrior and schemer. He shows little
interest in rebuilding his war-torn domain, and describes no real
agenda beyond consolidating his power. That mission appears to
square with the war aims of his U.S. patrons. "The Americans
want to spend all their money on al Qaeda and getting Osama bin
Laden," Ali said.
While boasting of the influence his American access gives him,
Ali also talks knowingly about the failings of the warlord system.
"The Afghan nation," he said, "is facing big trouble" because of
the every-commander-for-himself ethic.
Here in Jalalabad, a chaotic but still graceful trading city close to
Pakistan, Ali's rise has come at the expense of two more
politically experienced men, veteran guerrilla leader Mohammed
Zaman Ghun Shareef and regional governor Abdul Qadir. At
least for now, Ali, from the minority-dominated Northern
Alliance and a member of the small Pashai tribe, has trumped
these two ethnic Pashtun rivals in the center of Afghanistan's
Pashtun belt.
"There is only one way to rule Afghanistan now: Follow whatever
the Northern Alliance is saying, follow whatever the Americans
are saying. That's why Hazrat Ali is getting the benefit," said
Jehangir Khan, an adviser to Zaman. "The Pashtuns are getting
divided because of the money and influence that are coming from
the Americans."
Roots in an Isolated Village
There is a word that inevitably comes up in Jalalabad to describe
Ali and his fellow Pashai. Shurrhi is a Pashtun insult that
translates roughly as "ignorant mountain man." Referring to Ali, it
is invariably linked to the idea that he has brought the primitive
code of the mountains to the more civilized city on the plains.
More than one person said that for Ali and his fighters, Jalalabad
is like New York City.
Growing up in the isolated mountain village of Kushmoon, "we
played with stones, with trees," said Ali's top deputy, Musa, who
is Ali's cousin as well as his brother-in-law. "We didn't even think
to come down to the city."
A fighter since he was a teenager, Ali has known war against the
Soviets, the Taliban and his rival commanders. His father was a
farmer who grew "wheat, corn -- no poppies," he said. A brother
died fighting the Soviets. Ali became a small-time commander
during the Soviet war, first kicking the Soviets out of his village
and later becoming leader of the fractious Pashai. He says he is
38.
Ali has three wives, all living in the Iranian city of Meshed, three
sons and nine daughters. One son died; he doesn't say how.
Another, 16, is studying in London. The third, 22-year-old
Samiullah, is with him in Jalalabad, a quiet part of his father's
entourage, dressed in Western clothes. Before Iran, his family
lived in exile in Dubai; before that, in Pakistan. They haven't seen
much of their father.
Virtually uneducated, Ali said he knows the alphabet and basic
math. Even writing his satellite phone number is a painstaking
process. But he speaks several languages: his native Pashai;
Pashto, the local lingua franca; Dari, the dialect of Persian that is
prevalent in Afghanistan's north; and Urdu, the language of
Pakistan. He is also testing out some English learned from his
new American friends.
He has quickly picked up some accoutrements of the warlord
high life, like the fleet of six gleaming new Toyota Land Cruisers
for his personal use. Even there, however, the transition from
guerrilla to foot soldier is incomplete.
Take his favorite Land Cruiser, a luxury model with a computer
console that offers satellite TV and a Global Positioning System
receiver in addition to the CD player and radio. Ali, who loves
this car so much he insists that the plastic covers be kept on the
creamy tan leather seats, can't operate the console, and neither
can his driver. They bought the car in Dubai without checking out
the computer, which is programmed in Japanese.
Even so, the SUV is one of the only visible perks of his new
power. Unlike his more worldly rival, Zaman, who holds court in
a beautiful Jalalabad garden, surrounded by orange trees and
speaking fluent French and English, Ali is most comfortable
flanked by the pickup trucks of gunmen who accompany him
everywhere. The house where he stays in Jalalabad has the feel
of a soldiers' barracks, which it is.
Northern Alliance, Not
Pashtun
Ali was up north, in the Panjshir Valley, mourning the death of
the Northern Alliance's charismatic leader Ahmed Shah
Massoud, when a new war in Afghanistan became inevitable on
Sept. 11. All around Jalalabad, Ali has made his allegiance to the
Northern Alliance an inescapable political fact, hanging posters of
Massoud on his military command posts and his men's pickup
trucks. He keeps a picture of Massoud's son on the dashboard
of his Land Cruiser.
A few weeks after Sept. 11, he said, the Americans came to him
in the Northern Alliance's Panjshir headquarters, planning the
military campaign against the Taliban. While Jalalabad's other
would-be leaders plotted their return from exile, Ali had never
left the country, fighting inside Afghanistan throughout the
Taliban's five-year rule.
Asked why Ali won the favor of the Americans over Jalalabad's
two other major figures, a Western diplomat who has followed
the relationship closely cited Ali's twin credentials: He is Northern
Alliance, and he is not Pashtun. "Our side decided he might be
more reliable," the diplomat said. "While people like Zaman were
sitting in Dijon, Ali was in the country fighting -- a fairly effective
military guy."
But the Americans, at least back then, hedged their bets. Ali
received money and satellite phones, but so did Zaman,
according to several sources. It's not clear how much either
received. Ali is less known than other warlords who have seized
control of large parts of Afghanistan, such as Gen. Abdurrashid
Dostum in Mazar-e Sharif or Ismail Khan in Herat. Before the
Taliban's collapse, it was far from guaranteed that Ali would
emerge as Jalalabad's leading figure.
When the Taliban fled Jalalabad on Nov. 14, Ali's men were the
first ones here, and by all accounts they went on a days-long
looting spree. But as Ali started taking charge of the city, Qadir
and Zaman at least temporarily teamed up, rushing back to
Jalalabad on Nov. 16 to ensure that Ali did not gain unchallenged
control.
All three leaders aspired to rule. "I should be governor," Ali told
reporters in November. "I liberated the town." Instead, he was
appointed regional security chief, the post he held before the
Taliban took over. Zaman was nominally in charge of the military
as regional corps commander. Qadir returned to the
governorship.
But Ali always had more power in the way that counted: He had
thousands of fighters at his command. When the Americans
pushed the Afghans into mounting an assault on al Qaeda forces
at Tora Bora, it was Ali who took charge.
Today, Ali's men are installed in key positions in the city. A top
lieutenant is the police chief. Another runs the beleaguered
telephone exchange, which neither receives calls from elsewhere
in the country nor can send them out of Afghanistan. His
commanders control the airport, the military headquarters and the
city checkpoints. Like Ali, many are Pashai outsiders, and are
loyal to him.
Asked how many fighters are under his command, he demurred
at first. "If I tell you, you will think it is an exaggeration," he said.
Later, he said, "I have 18,000 soldiers with guns," spread
throughout several provinces of eastern Afghanistan. Six
thousand of his soldiers are in Jalalabad and surrounding
Nangahar province, he said. "I am giving to all these money and
food and everything."
Faulting Rival on Tora Bora
Ali's main project these days is not military, but political --
securing the permanent ouster of his rival Zaman.
In the eight weeks since the end of his inconclusive campaign in
Tora Bora, Ali has used his clout to blame Zaman for the
apparent escape of bin Laden and his fighters.
He also accuses Zaman of "playing a double game," receiving
support from Pakistan as well as from the British special forces
who are headquartered at Zaman's house in Jalalabad. "Because
of that, the Kabul government doesn't have trust in him," Ali said.
In mid-January, Ali appeared to win when the Kabul government
ousted Zaman from his post as corps commander. "We told the
Americans, so they kicked Zaman out, they took his job from
him," said Musa, Ali's deputy. Now, Ali is lobbying the Kabul
government to give Zaman a different job, anywhere but here.
But Zaman has been fighting back. In a meeting with
Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, and defense chief
Fahim, he was offered the post of head of security for Karzai,
commanding a force of 6,000 soldiers. He refused. "He told
Karzai and Fahim angrily, 'I don't want to quit Nangahar,' " said
an aide who was present.
Qadir, too, has become bitter at Ali's ascendancy, according to
advisers. "Everybody knows Hazrat Ali isn't a military
professional, he isn't a real leader," said Buryali, Qadir's brother,
who uses a single name. "But he has influence, he has people, he
has money. He is supported by the Northern Alliance and the
Americans."
To Buryali, Ali's power is a bad sign of the long-term effects of
the U.S.-led war. "The Americans have created this warlord," he
said. "And unfortunately, the structure of warlordism in
Afghanistan will last as long as power depends on how many
guns you have."
A Sermon on Change
Ali's convoy arrived one recent afternoon in neighboring
Laghman province, on a mission to make peace between rival
factions.
Aware of his limitations as a negotiator, Ali asked the
silver-tongued mayor of Jalalabad, Engineer Ghafar, to speak
first. He offered a sermon on the evils of warlordism.
"In Europe and the world everywhere, they are talking about the
warlord culture in our country," the mayor said, "where
everything is for money, for bad things. So now we have to make
clear to the mind of the West that we will change these things. It's
your duty to unite all these warlords and commanders. We have
to join ourselves together, and that's the reason for our visit."
No one seemed to sense any irony.
Later, in a meeting in the barren concrete building that serves as
the governor's house, Ali offered a homily that described his own
evolving sense of what it means to be a warlord in a country
where war is over, but peace is not yet established.
"Don't go for war because you know war is disaster," he
lectured. "Holding an official job means being like the servant of
the people -- so now you have to behave like that."
Outside, his heavily armed retinue waited. He had told the guards
to watch especially carefully over his beloved Land Cruiser. "I
don't trust these people," he had said. "They are all thieves."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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