Afghanistan's Mujahideen 'building new military unit'
Afghanistan's Mujahideen commanders are building a new military unit to protect the country where Nato forces have failed, according to one of the country's most prominent warlords.
Tanks of Afghan northern alliance mujahideen leave the city of Herat and head towards Ghowr and Helmand provinces in central Afghanistan to replace Taliban forces which have left the areas 2001 Photo: AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili
By Ben Farmer, Kabul1:13PM GMT 02 Nov 2012
Ismail Khan reportedly complained that the commanders who defeated the Russians and later fought the Taliban had been sidelined.
He said that the Nato coalition had sent "girls" to fight and said Hamid Karzai was aware of the plans to build the Mujahideen unit, reported Tolo News, the country's biggest private news network. His comments came as many Afghans fear that the country may fracture and return to civil war after Nato combat forces pull out at the end of 2014.
The Mujahideen who fought the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s turned on each other during the 1990s and many of the commanders are now remembered more for barbarity than heroism.
Mr Khan, minister for energy and water, was a senior resistance commander against the Russians and then ran the western city of Herat as his own fiefdom until the Taliban swept him from power.
Mr Khan told Tolo that the Mujahideen were again needed to protect Afghanistan from "foreign conspiracies". "The foreigners sidelined those who had fought for ages," he reportedly said at a gathering for former resistance commanders in Herat. "They collected all our weapons, our artillery and tanks, and put them on the rubbish heap.
"Instead, they brought Dutch girls, French girls, girls from Holland, they armed American girls, they brought white-skinned Western soldiers, and black-skinned American soldiers, and they thought by doing all this they would bring security here but they failed," he added.
Mr Khan said the Afghan president was fully aware of the plans. He said: "We have had detailed discussions with President Hamid Karzai. We are planning on this strategy and the registration of people is under way."
The international community spent billions first trying to disarm the Mujahideen after 2001 and then building an Afghan army and police force. Mr Khan's comments are not the first time former Mujahideen commanders have hinted they are rearming and reorganising.
Leaders from the remnants of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban during the 1990s, have warned they were preparing to fight again if a peace deal with the insurgents was imposed on them.
