US joins the battle of
Kabul By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KABUL - On the face of it, all the
elements of the Bonn Agreement have been
accomplished in Afghanistan, in accordance with
the blueprint that was hammered out following the
ousting of the Taliban government in 2001.
The country has a new constitution, an
elected president and parliament, a judiciary and
all the other social, political and economic
infrastructure.
Yet the situation is
reminiscent of the early 1990s following the
withdrawal of Soviet troops and the ousting of the
communist government, when fractious mujahideen
groups fought for power
and
virtually brought the country to its knees.
The only difference in 2006 is that allied
forces occupy parts of the country, and bombers
and fighters prowl the skies. And while mujahideen
factions have entered Kabul, they have done so
through elections, and not by the barrel of the
gun. Nevertheless, divisions run deep, and the
potential for political chaos is as acute as it
was more than a decade ago.
No single
group dominated last year's parliamentary
elections, though 85% of the members of the
parliament are former mujahideen.
The
Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), an element of the
Afghan resistance, is now a registered
organization, after apparently dismissing its
leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The HIA has 40 seats
in the 249-seat assembly, the biggest bloc.
Newly elected member of the lower assembly
(olsi jirga) and the chief
of HIA, Khalid Farooqui, told Asia Times Online:
"I would call
it
a great victory in the circumstances as the party
was completely in a shambles. We did not have any
money and the party was not really organized, yet
we have 40 members in the parliament, among which
some are more active than others, but I am sure
that soon we will reorganize ourselves and play a
lead role in the parliament."
Several
former Taliban were elected, but they don't have a
single forum like the HIA. Secondly, Hekmatyar did
not call for a boycott of the elections, while
Taliban leader Mullah Omar denounced the polls and
insisted on a boycott. Those former Taliban who
have been elected can thus at best be described as
defunct Taliban.
Representation from
northern Afghanistan is also scattered. There is
some from the Hazara community (Shi'ites),
Panjshirs, Tajiks and Uzbeks. As with the Pashtun
south, the north does not have a unifying
political ideology to bind people. Rather, ethnic
and sectarian divisions keep them apart. There are
also no strong leaders to pull them together.
Royal spiritualism The son of Pashtun leader Pir
(spiritual leader) Sayed Ahmed Gailani, Sayed
Hamid Gailani, failed to be elected from the
Pashtun heartland of Paktia. His rival
was the new chief of the HIA, Khalid Farooqui.
Instead, Gailani was elected to the senate, where
he was appointed deputy speaker.
Political
pundits and diplomatic circles in Kabul agree that
the Americans have invested everything in Gailani
and his followers to pitch them as a
countervailing force against the Islamists in
general and the Taliban in particular. This
despite the fact that Gailani calls himself a
mujahid and pleads for the implementation of
Islamic laws in Afghanistan.
"I don't
agree with the term warlords for mujahideen,
though there might be some bad people, but in
general the mujahideen were the people who gave
great sacrifices for Afghanistan. I am also one
among them and proudly call myself a mujahid,"
Gailani told Asia Times Online as a military
aircraft waited to take him to the US, where he
had been invited by First Lady Laura Bush for an
official breakfast.
"There is also no harm
in the implementation of Islamic laws. There are
some wrong interpretations of Islam by some
scholars, which are disseminated and arouse some
suspicions in the West, otherwise, nobody would
object to the moderate and tolerant teachings of
Islam," Gailani said.
As the dust settles on the
parliamentary elections - the results of which
only came out last month - moves are underfoot to
elevate
people such as Abdul Jabbar
Naeemi, at present governor of Wardak province and
a disciple of Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani. He is being
tipped for a central role in the capital.
Gailani's followers, who are pro-US, are
generally well-educated and enlightened people,
and are often given foreign postings as a result.
But in the current political climate, Naeemi and
his like are considered more valuable on the
domestic front.
From the US viewpoint,
Naeemi is considered a success story as he has
established order in his province, even though it
was a stronghold of the Taliban and the HIA.
Speaking in the governor's office in
Maidan Shehr, 30 kilometers from Kabul, Naeemi
told Asia Times Online, "I adopted a policy of
reconciliation with all. People are Afghans first,
and if they are Taliban or members of the HIA, I
request their cooperation in rebuilding
Afghanistan. Without any fight or any controversy,
450 big and small arms were surrendered, while all
international agencies witnessed that poppy
cultivation was eliminated from the province."
All the same, Mosa Hotaq, a former member
of Taliban leader Mullah Omar's cabinet, was
elected as a member of the parliament in Kabul.
With the Taliban poised for an intense
summer campaign against US-led forces in
Afghanistan, people such as Naeemi and other
spiritual followers of Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani are
seen by the US as the only chance to bring
political stability to Afghanistan.
Historical precedent Such a
spiritual connection has had miraculous success in
past. Former King Zahir Shah could not establish
his writ in the Pashtun heartland, were tribes
were at each other's throats.
Clerics and
Sayeds (those who claim direct descent from the
Prophet Mohammed) have always been respected in
Afghan society. Therefore, a solution was explored
in Baghdad in which the direct descendants of
Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gailani (or Jailani), founder
of the Qadri school of Sufis, which is the largest
Sufi school in the Muslim world, was invited to
Kabul and given Afghan citizenship.
This
was the father of Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani. The
experiment was successful, and the bickering
tribes held back their guns when a revered Sayed
stepped in, and finally royal writ was
established.
During the resistance against
the Soviets in the 1980s, Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani
established his own National Islamic Front. The
family is still very respected, but the question
remains whether it is still as big a force as it
was 35 years ago.
Whether it is in Somalia
or Afghanistan or any other ethnically non-Arab
Muslim country, Sayeds are greatly respected, yet
they are ultimately considered as strangers in the
political structure of the society and non-native.
They don't have the power base of tribal
clans, therefore, their political aspirations
often die down. All political segments of Afghan
society respect the Gailani family, but they won't
necessarily give up their positions for them.
The Taliban's summer offensive will test
these loyalties, as well as the newly born
political structure that is centered on disparate
mujahideen groups.
Next: The
brothels of Kabul
Syed Saleem
Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times
Online. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing
.)
it
a great victory in the circumstances as the party
was completely in a shambles. We did not have any
money and the party was not really organized, yet
we have 40 members in the parliament, among which
some are more active than others, but I am sure
that soon we will reorganize ourselves and play a
lead role in the parliament." 
Pashtun heartland of Paktia. His rival
was the new chief of the HIA, Khalid Farooqui.
Instead, Gailani was elected to the senate, where
he was appointed deputy speaker. 
people such as Abdul Jabbar
Naeemi, at present governor of Wardak province and
a disciple of Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani. He is being
tipped for a central role in the capital.
