Borzou.com

Afghan governor spurs instability fears

Sway over region seen as challenge to Karzai's power

Borzou Daragahi, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

1,292 words

13 April 2002

The Washington Times

A08

English

Ismail Khan is everywhere in this city. His picture adorns the walls of

government offices. It is on the desk of the manager of Afghan television and

radio. Here's Mr. Khan visiting a girls school. There he is giving a speech to

teachers.

He shares his views on every subject. He rails against his own people for not

playing a large enough role in the reconstruction of their nation. He berates

the United Nations for not doing enough to help his people. His motorized squad

of soldiers toting machine guns in camouflage fatigues surrounds his luxury SUV

swooping through this city of 500,000.

Mr. Khan controls the road between Herat and Eslam Qal'eh near the Iranian

border - on the ancient Silk Road eastward to Mashhad in Iran, Tehran and

Baghdad - and collects thousands of dollars in tolls per day, according to a

high-level official here. That's a fortune in a country where the annual income

averages a few hundred dollars.

But though Mr. Khan - governor of Herat both before and after the Taliban rule -

may have presence and power, he has very little popular mandate among the people

in the five provinces he rules, say residents, observers and officials. "He has

too much power," said an observer and former comrade-in-arms. "He's got too much

money. He's got too many soldiers. He doesn't need [provisional President Hamid]

Karzai."

City people resent him because he's an Islamic fundamentalist in relatively

liberal Herat. Rural folk resent him because they say he has done little to

serve their needs.

Ethnic Pashtuns, who make up a significant portion of the population in the

northern parts of his domain, despise him because he is not a Pashtun.

As Afghanistan prepares for its loya jirga - a national conference in mid-June

at which representatives will endorse Mr. Karzai or name a different two-year

provisional government - the country may find itself challenged by Mr. Khan, who

seems to be building his own military fiefdom in western Afghanistan. That could

spell trouble for the United States as it seeks to stabilize Afghanistan.

Mr. Khan was unavailable for an interview.

Mohammed Afzali, a top Foreign Ministry official, defended Mr. Khan's

government, disputing widely reported accusations of human rights abuses against

Pashtuns. "The people in Afghanistan always lived together in harmony," he said.

Mr. Khan, 56, is a former warlord who fought the Russians as a mujahideen and

ruled Herat and its environs during the fractious four years between the fall of

the Soviet-backed government of the late Gen. Najibullah and the country's

takeover by the Taliban.

He spent the Taliban years locked up in Kandahar for two years, then left for

Mashhad, a prosperous, verdant city in western Iran, a six-hour drive from here.

He came back and re-installed himself as governor after the Taliban collapsed

under U.S. bombing late last fall.

Though only his control of Herat province is widely recognized, he is also said

to hold sway over four other provinces, extending his power to one-fifth of

Afghanistan.

Accusations of human rights violations by Mr. Khan's estimated 50,000 to 60,000

soldiers abound. Here in Herat, his fighters are thick on the ground. Uniformed

soldiers man checkpoints along rural roads, fill city streets, populate police

stations, and guard the offices of the provisional government of Afghanistan.

Mr. Afzali said the country still faces many threats. "There are definitely

security dangers in various parts of Afghanistan," he said. "To oppose the

Taliban and al Qaeda, our armed forces have to be ready."

Still, many wonder whether those armed forces answer to Kabul or to Mr. Khan. A

leading intellectual and former comrade-in-arms, who declined to provide his

name, said most of Mr. Khan's forces are ethnic Panshiris, Uzbeks and Badakhis

and don't reflect the country's other ethnic groups, of which Pashtuns are the

largest.

Though many people here resent Mr. Khan, most won't speak openly against him.

Even most officials of Western aid organizations declined to be quoted.

Still, some people speak fearlessly.

"Relative freedom is here," said Gholamnavi Taji, 31, owner of a video and

cassette shop in the village of Obee, a three-hour drive along a dirt road west

of Herat. "But no one is serving us. Nothing gets here. There's no government

representative. The roads are terrible. Any goods that get here, independent

merchants bring."

Yet, said villagers gathered around Mr. Taji's colorful shop, Mr. Khan's

government is able to collect about one-fifth of the annual property taxes.

"There's 1,000 children who want to go to school this year, but no place for

them to sit and no books for them to read," said Amidollah Hameri, 28. "There's

a hospital but no doctors."

In Herat, the commercial center of Afghanistan, residents resent Mr. Khan's

fundamentalism. They chafe at his attempts to restrict music, liquor and social

life. On a recent Friday, a day off when families flock to the mountains for

recreation, his troops separated the men from the women.

"We were trying to protect the women," said Seyed Ahmad Hosseini, deputy head of

the newly revived Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, a Taliban-era

morality agency. "This is our culture."

But the people here are more sophisticated than that, said the director of a

relief organization that employs many Afghan workers. "Ismail Khan is a

fundamentalist," he said. "The people here want individual liberties. They want

education, health care and to be left alone."

But Mr. Khan also has his defenders.

One government official said prohibitions on music were merely suggestions and

applied only to the holy month of Moharram, when Muslims mourn the passing of

the Prophet Muhammad. "There was an announcement on government radio asking

people not to play tapes loudly," he said. "Even if you don't cry or mourn, you

shouldn't show joy either."

City people here look longingly at Kabul, which has come under American

influence. Despite the local cultural ties with Iran, they resent Mr. Khan's

political proximity to the Islamic Republic. His special forces use Iranian-made

weapons and wear U.S.-made uniforms, leading some to conclude he is playing the

United States and Iran against each other in a foreign-policy game that

jeopardizes the goals of the fragile Karzai government in Kabul.

"Our relationship with foreign countries should emanate from the central

government," said a former government official.

"We have no position on the conflict between Iran and the United States," said

Mr. Afzali.

For ethnic Pashtuns, life has become especially hard under the thumb of the

government and army of Mr. Khan. Many Tajiks continue to associate Pashtuns with

the despised Taliban. But many Pashtuns say they've been here for generations

and had nothing to do with the Taliban. Human Rights Watch has documented tales

of torture, looting and rape against Pashtuns by soldiers affiliated with Mr.

Khan's army.