A voice for the Afghan
insurgency By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
HERAT, Afghanistan - At first
sight, this bustling city near the border with
Iran gives a clear signal that it wants business
and not violence.
Since the fall of the
Taliban in 2001, this is one region of Afghanistan
that has experienced a boom in trade and commerce:
new construction is rampant and real-estate prices
have skyrocketed.
Nevertheless, amid the
wheeling-dealing in the multicultural,
multi-ethnic city, the Taliban-led insurgency that
is creeping closer from
the
southeast cannot - and will not - be ignored,
certainly if al-Haaj Farooq Hussaini has anything
to do with it.
Hussaini is the very vocal
and influential right-hand man of the former
governor of Herat and current minister for energy,
Ismail
Khan, an ethnic Tajik. Hussaini uses Friday
prayers to foment support for the insurgency and
to stir up people to force the withdrawal of
foreign forces from the country.
His
outspoken views have earned him warnings from the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan
(UNAMA) and the NATO-led International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF).
"I speak against
the occupation forces and Iranian intervention in
Afghanistan every Friday sermon. I have been
intimidated several times by UNAMA and ISAF, but I
am not scared at all. All the prayer leaders of
Herat are strongly behind me," Hussaini told Asia
Times Online. He cut a formidable figure as he sat
cross-legged on the floor of his office along with
some followers and gave every indication that he
is strong enough to achieve his goals.
During the Taliban regime (1996-2001),
Hussaini went into exile in Khozistan, Iran, where
he preached the Sunni sect and even converted some
Shi'ite Muslims to Sunni Islam. As a result, he
was arrested by the Iranian authorities and jailed
for three years.
After the sacking of the
Taliban, he returned to Herat along with Khan and
now heads the powerful
Anjuman-i-Munadyan-i-Tauheed organization, besides
representing Khan's Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan in
Herat.
Last year during Ashura (an
important day on the Shi'ite calendar) there were
major clashes in Herat between Shi'ites and
Sunnis, leaving 185 people dead. Since Hussein
Anwari, Khan's replacement as governor, is a
Hazara Shi'ite, Hussaini is bitterly opposed to
him and does his best to marshal Sunni support
against the governor. Hazaras constitute about 15%
of Herat province.
Hussaini proudly
related how he led Sunni rioters against Shi'ites.
"I am not particularly against the Shi'ite
religion, but when they are sacrilegious towards
elders of our faith, serious differences brew."
What prompted Kabul to install a minority
Shi'ite as governor remains an unanswered
question, although international agencies working
in Kabul say that Anwari is well qualified and
does not play the Hazara or Shi'ite card.
Nevertheless, this is not the way people in a
tribal society think or function - they work under
their own paradigms in which religion and
ethnicity are key factors.
Changing
allegiances Khan has always been believed
to have been supported by the Iranians, but he has
visibly changed in recent months by hitting out at
"foreign intervention" in Herat, a clear reference
to Tehran.
At the same time, the US-backed
administration of President Hamid Karzai has also
distanced itself from the hardline Sunnis of the
Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan, even though its
leader, Khan, is a cabinet minister.
As a
result, foes of the past - the Pashtun Taliban and
ethnic Tajiks loyal to Khan - have drawn closer
together.
Hussaini stresses that he
supports any force working against the withdrawal
of foreign forces.
"Whether it is
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or the Taliban, whoever fights
against occupation forces, I support them,"
Hussaini said. "I have the same views on most of
the things in which the Taliban believe. We follow
the same school of thought, but I disagree with
brutalities, like beheading people.
"At
the same time, suicide attacks are not permissible
in Afghanistan. Top Muslim scholars like
[Egyptian] Yosuf al-Qardawi sanctioned suicide
attacks, but only against Israelis. Here in
Afghanistan it is not allowed because it is a
Muslim country."
Hussaini would not be
drawn into commenting on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden other than to say that he respects him
because he fought against the Soviets in
Afghanistan in the 1980s, otherwise he "never got
a chance to meet him and therefore I do not know
much about him".
Commenting on the
insurgency, Qazi Bismal, a teacher at the
University of Herat and the head of the
Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan, Herat province, said,
"There is no armed resistance anywhere in Herat
city, but there is a lot of political resistance
against foreign forces through the words of people
like Farooq Hussaini. We cannot say right now what
the outcome of this sort of resistance will be."
UNAMA believes that the insurgency is
multi-faceted and poses a serious challenge.
"The Taliban are not the only component of
Afghanistan's insurgency. There is factional
fighting in parts of the country, insecurity
caused by drug traffickers and those fighting
because they have been intimidated or paid to do
so," said Aleem Siddiqui, a spokesman for UNAMA.
"They all form important elements of this
insurgency. We are seeing concerted action to deal
with all these elements. As we have made clear,
defeating the insurgency will require more than
military might, we need to see increased
development, improved governance and better
coordination of efforts between Afghanistan and
its neighbors to deal with cross-border fighters,"
said Siddiqui.
Syed Saleem
Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau
Chief. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
(Copyright
2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Khan, an ethnic Tajik. Hussaini uses Friday
prayers to foment support for the insurgency and
to stir up people to force the withdrawal of
foreign forces from the country. 
