Word: warlord
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...strongmen don't come any stronger than General Abdul Rashid Dostum. A former communist general known to have ordered enemy captives crushed under a Russian tank, Dostum, 49, is trying to transform himself from warlord into smiling presidential candidate. That's going to take some finesse, given that he strikes fear in many Afghans in his northern stronghold of Shebarghan. Dostum's idea of campaigning is to sit on a thronelike chair in his rose garden and scowl at a line of deferential tribal elders, officials and militia commanders who will be expected to deliver votes from among the Uzbeks...
...Kadyrov, said he would not run in the Aug. 29 presidential election. His statement followed Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision not to respond publicly to a Chechen appeal to reduce the minimum age requirement in the constitution - set at 30 - in order to allow for Ramzan's candidacy. Warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for Akhmad's May 9 murder. Security Crackdown EGYPT Officials arrested 54 members of the Muslim Brotherhood organization on suspicion of recruiting volunteers for jihad in Iraq , Chechnya and Palestine . Officials claimed that the Brotherhood - legally banned since 1954 - was hoping to train the members...
...commander in the 1994-96 war against Russian forces. Even some foes showed grudging respect for Gelayev, who was known as a ruthless fighter but not as a terrorist. Moscow-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov told the Itar-Tass news agency that fighting in Chechnya would continue despite the warlord's death...
...Karzai government has attempted to rein in recalcitrant warlords. Most recently Karzai appointed Kandahar strongman Gul Agha Sherzai, a U.S.-installed warlord who has been dogged by accusations of corruption and nepotism, to a Cabinet position in Kabul as a way of keeping him under close watch. But Afghan officials say Karzai is wary of cracking down too hard for fear that the warlords will lash back. In Kabul alone, militias loyal to former President Burhanuddin Rabbani and current Defense Minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim number nearly 50,000. That's enough to overwhelm, if they wanted...
...S.S.A. possesses between 500 and 2,000 troops?no one knows for sure. Ask a rebel spokesman how many, and he tersely replies, "Enough." Many of the S.S.A.'s fighters were previously loyal to former opium warlord Khun Sa, who surrendered to Rangoon in 1996. Today they answer to plainspoken commander colonel Yawdserk, himself a former Khun Sa man, who vehemently denies any current S.S.A. involvement in the drugs trade. On these remote hills, poppies are still grown and opium is still traded, along with millions of methamphetamine pills called yaba, or crazy medicine...