Word: dostum
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Dostum brought the Najibullah regime down when he mutinied in 1992 and joined forces with the northern mujahedin. He and his cohort seized Mazar and set up their Jombesh. The following years raised to national art forms both the alliance of convenience and the stab in the back, and Dostum outperformed the rest. He moved in and out of alliances with Ahmed Shah Massoud, then the Jamiat commander; with Massoud's arch-enemy, the Islamist radical Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; and finally with the ultra-fundamentalist Taliban, enemy of both. Meanwhile, differences of policy and personality at the top of the Jombesh...
...Dostum's mercenary troops achieved notoriety for ruthless courage on the battlefield and wild indiscipline off it. Bearing a legacy of 200 years near the bottom of a Pashtun-dominated social order, they seemed to take a special delight in evening the historical score, killing Pashtun mujahedin of the south, and looting and terrorizing the civilians...
...Driven into exile by the Taliban, first in 1997 and again in 1998, Dostum returned to Afghanistan last spring to join Jamiat commander Ustad Atta Mohammed in leading anti-Taliban forces in the hills south of Mazar. But last year's wartime alliance has soured. Tensions between Dostum and his northern rival - who also now prefers to be seen in elegantly tailored business suits - have centered on control of Mazar. Capital of the north and key to the area's agricultural, oil and gas wealth, the city once dominated by Dostum has fallen increasingly under Jamiat's sway. Failure...
...Rising tensions have already spilled into sporadic armed clashes. Both sides have been rearming and conscripting fresh troops. Atta enjoys the support of Defense Minister Fahim in Kabul, who recently promoted him to full general without consulting Deputy Defense Minister Dostum. Fahim has also approved moving more tanks and armor to Mazar to support Atta. In late April a full-blown fight nearly erupted as Jamiat, in preparation for a parade to mark the 1992 fall of the communist regime, moved more tanks into the city. Dostum followed suit. When clashes broke out in outlying districts to the south...
...That does not appear to be in Dostum's plans. With his Jombesh rejuvenated, he no doubt intends to emerge from next month's loya jirga in a stronger position. He surely hopes the assembly will erode the power of Jamiat, which today controls the three key ministries of Defense, Interior and Foreign Affairs. Whether or not that happens, Abdul Rashid Dostum is one politician who still fields an army. Whoever rules in Kabul is not apt to forget...