Word: uzbek
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hard-core group of former Taliban commanders (including Mullah Omar) who operate out of sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan and who maintain ties with Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency (though Islamabad vehemently denies this); bands linked to al-Qaeda whose ranks have recently swelled with Arab, Chechen and Uzbek fighters operating in the craggy, northeastern ranges of Afghanistan; and, a last group, probably the largest, made up of local tribesmen who have allied themselves loosely with the Taliban as a result of President Hamid Karzai's often corrupt provincial officials pitting one tribe against another. Mullah Salam, a tribal...
...many Afghans may see Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum as the epitome of the worst brand of warlord politics, but to President Hamid Karzai he represents a bloc of votes crucial to winning reelection. The feared Uzbek warlord, who returned to Afghanistan from Turkish exile on Monday, urged some 10,000 people gathered in his home district to vote for Karzai. The president needs to win more than 50% of the votes cast on Thursday to avoid a runoff election. And Dostum figures his endorsement will deliver 500,000 additional votes to the incumbent. "Because I am now here, more than...
While Karzai has welcomed home the Uzbek strongman, the U.S. and human rights groups have protested his sudden return as a setback for Afghan democracy. As a commander of the Uzbek forces of the Northern Alliance, Dostum acquired a reputation for brutality and was accused of war crimes, including the mass suffocation of Taliban prisoners held in metal containers in 2001. He denies the allegations. Dostum had taken refuge in Turkey amid conflict with a rival, but he remains the single most powerful leader of an Uzbek minority that accounts for 9% of Afghanistan's population. (Read a story about...
...with the turmoil of Taliban insurgencies further south. In Tajikistan, the fragile status quo that has existed since a civil war between Russian-backed forces and an Islamist opposition ended in 1997 looks to be unraveling. Observers point to a possible influx in recent months of Tajik and Uzbek militants, returning to their homeland after fighting alongside Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. Since May, the Tajik government has locked down the country's Rasht Valley, ostensibly as part of an anti-drugs operation, but also, say experts, in a bid to crack down on local Islamist-leaning warlords. In some parts...
...similar arrangement in 2007 with two different and more powerful militant leaders proved disastrous. When Maulvi Nazir of the rival Ahmedzai Wazir tribe in South Waziristan took on Mehsud and Uzbek groups aligned to al-Qaeda, the Pakistan army backed him. After his men killed 250 Uzbek fighters, the army entered a nonaggression pact with Nazir and his associate Hafiz Gul Bahadur. But Nazir continued to attack U.S. forces across the border, and was targeted in air strikes. Enraged, Nazir and Bahadur shed their differences and formed a new alliance with Mehsud earlier this year. Now, all three groups could...