Word: warlords
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...have relied on untrustworthy informants who tricked the U.S. into sending in lethal air strikes on their tribal enemies. Both the Kabul-bound convoy and the Qila-Niazi wedding party, for example, were targeted by Pacha Khan, a former provincial governor, derided by one official as a "Pentagon-created warlord," who was using American munitions to take care of his own business, according to Afghan government sources and tribal elders in Gardez. Says tribal chieftain Saifullah Khan: "Pacha Khan would phone up the Americans, point out a village and say they are all al-Qaeda." Pacha Khan denies the charges...
...wants Iran to stop meddling in Afghanistan by supporting those who would undermine the authority of the interim government of Hamid Karzai. Yet last week, the Tehran government claims, it was asked by both Karzai and Washington to hold off on expelling a fanatically anti-American warlord who has been organizing a campaign against the new government in Kabul and its U.S. backers. Administration officials deny that the U.S. has made such requests...
...Iran?s curious claim concerns the paunchy Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who currently lives in Tehran. The former prime minister who has fought against every Afghan government since 1979 has made no exception of the latest administration in Kabul. He recently told an interviewer that Karzai's government "has no value or meaning" as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan...
...Last weekend U.S. warplanes flew bombing sorties in support of pro-government fighters under fire from forces of a rival warlord. The absence of Taliban or al-Qaeda from that fight - and previous warnings by interim president Hamid Karzai that he would call for U.S. air support against armed challenges to his government - prompted speculation that American forces were being drawn directly into Afghanistan's tribal wars. The Pentagon disputes that, stressing that it was simply helping out allied forces who had been ambushed in the course of an anti-Taliban mission. But as Afghanistan runs out of Taliban...
...Kandahar, for example, the U.S. chose former governor Gul Agha Sherzai as the warlord to help them unseat the Taliban. Sherzai is back in power, now, but much of the local resentment bred by the corruption and lawlessness of his first term in office persists. U.S. support for Sherzai has alienated some local commanders with no loyalty to the either the Taliban or al-Qaeda. And their resentment is being exploited by some long-standing U.S. enemies. The forces of the local Ittehad e-Islami faction, for example, appear to have made common cause with the Hizb e-Islami...