Word: gulbuddin
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...political front, U.S. optimism also seems misplaced. Some experts are worried that the mujahedin leader who has received the lion's share of U.S. support, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a fanatic Muslim who might turn out to be Afghanistan's version of the Ayatullah Khomeini. Others wonder whether the mujahedin coalition, linked by hatred of the Najibullah regime, could stay together long enough to form an effective government...
...Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, 41, best-organized and most ruthless of the rebel leaders, heads a faction of the Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic Party). Despite his outspokenly anti-Western views, he is reportedly allotted 25% of the total U.S. weapon supply by the Pakistanis, more even than Rabbani. An engineer by training, Hekmatyar is a religious extremist who would keep Afghan women in purdah...
Massoud and Rabbani, both fundamentalist Muslims, are careful to distance Jamiat from radical visions of an Islamic state; specifically, asserts Massoud, "the position adopted by Iran is not laid down by Islam." Massoud also jabs sharply at one of Rabbani's chief rivals, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the head of Hezb-i-Islami, calling him the "extremist" among the conservative Islamic resistance leaders in Peshawar. Throughout the war, armed clashes have flared between Hekmatyar's men and other mujahedin parties -- Jamiat, in particular -- and a personal rivalry between Massoud and Hekmatyar dates back to their university days in Kabul. "Hekmatyar has always...
...opposite concern: so far, Najibullah's troops have been showing more gumption than expected. Around Jalalabad, a city the Soviets left three months ago, Afghan troops have thrown back repeated rebel assaults. So far, the mujahedin are holding only two dozen small towns. Concedes a senior aide to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of a rebel Hezb-e-Islami faction: "They ((Najibullah's forces)) have fought much better than expected...
...their Soviet allies willing to see them beaten in a major engagement, as they nearly were at Kunduz. The city of about 40,000, straddling a main road to the Soviet border 37 miles away, fell to units of Jamiat-i-Islami and Gulbuddin's Hezb-e-Islami six days after the 10,000-man Soviet garrison pulled out. The guerrillas overran the government defenders and freed the prisoners at the local jail, but failed to capture the heavily defended airport. Within two days government reinforcements closed in, and Soviet aircraft went to work. After three days of fighting...