This week the BBC obtained a rare video clip of Afghan warlord Gubadddin Hekmatyar leader of the notorious Hezb-i-Islami group. The appearance was hugely significant, not simply because Hezb-i-islami was the most brutal and radical of all the Afghan mujahaddin groups, but also because a number of other recent events, including terrorist attacks that Hez-i-islami have claimed responsibility for, suggest that he may be seeking to stage a come back. If so, it could potentially lead to a new front to the east and north of Kabul that coalition forces would have to fight.
Who is Hekmatyar and his Hezb-i-Islami faction?
Hekmatyar was one of the leaders of the original student Islamist movement in Kabul in the early 1970s and led most of the student demonstrations between 1965 and 1972. It was this student Islamist movement that was largely responsible for the initial spread of radical Islamism in Afghanistan.
However, the movement split over its response to the overthrow of the Afghan monarchy in 1974 when the King’s cousin Daud, with the assistance of the Communist Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan, seized power creating a republic. Within the Student Islamist movement, the more ‘moderate’ elements and Persian speakers led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (who later became Afghan president) planned to infiltrate the army until the country was ready for an Islamist revolution, while the radicals led by Hekmatyar and others attempted to start military uprisings. This split eventually formalised in 1976-77 into the Jamat-i-Islami party led by Rabbani whose most famous military commander was Ahmed Shah Massoud and the Hezb-i-Islami party led by Hekmatyer. These two parties each came to have their own quite distinct ethos.
Rabbani and Jamat-i-Islami pursued a policy of seeking the broadest possible coalition of all Muslims – a strategy he had learnt from the Muslim Brotherhood while studying at Egypt’s al-Azhar University. Jamat-i-Islami eventually formed the major component of the Northern Alliance that with the aid of western forces swept the Taliban from power after 9/11. Nonetheless, both Rabbani and Jamat-i-Islami were radical by traditional Afghan standards, Rabbani having translated the Egyptian radical Islamist Sayyed Qutb’s Milestones into Persian.
However, Hekmtayar and Hezb-i-Islami were not only more extreme, but also more narrow in their radicalism than Jamat-i-Islami. In fact, Hezb-i-Islami came to use the medieval Islamic concept of takfir quite freely to declare less radical groups, including Jamat-i-Islami, to be ‘non Muslims’ so that jihad could ‘legitimately’ be fought against them under the terms of sharia. The Hezb split again in 1979 with the more extreme radicalised group staying with Hekmatyar. (The more ‘moderate’ group were still fairly extreme and are now commonly referred to as the 'Haqani' after their current leader Jallaluddin Haqani. They are now allied with al Qaeda in fighting Afghan government and coalition forces).
Hekmatyar and Hezb-i-Islami’s record
During the war against the Soviet invaders Hezb-i-Islami became a by word amongst aid workers not just for extreme fundamentalism, but also for extreme brutality, butchery and extra judicial killings. Hezb-i-Islami were believed to be behind the murder of western aid workers and journalists, as well as acid attacks on women who worked as teachers in refugee schools. They were well known not just for extorting money at their roadside checkpoints, but also for brutally torturing people. In fact, in 2005 a former Hezb-i-Islami commander at Sarobi made legal history in the UK by being the first person to be convicted of torture in a British court, having been granted political asylum in Britain in 1998 claiming that his life was in danger from the Taliban (quite why our government thinks it should allow such people into the UK is simply beyond me). As an aid worker I had to negotiate with senior Hezb-i-Islami officials for permission to work in areas they controlled. On one occasion I was invited to have lunch with Hekmatyar who was visiting the area that day, I diplomatically gave our excuses, seeing nothing positive that could come out of such a meeting and knowing that as westerners we were putting ourselves in grave danger just meeting Hekmatyar.
When the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 the rivalry between the different mujahaddin groups, particularly between Jamat-i-Islami and Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami led to some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. In summer 1992 Hekmatyar turned down the post of prime minister in a coalition government with Rabbani as president, wanting to be president himself. However, he lacked sufficient men to take Kabul in a ground attack and so, in an attempt to create dissatisfaction with the government of President Rabbani, Hekmatyar instead chose to fire large numbers of artillery rounds and rockets into the city indiscriminately at civilian targets on a daily basis. His actions resulted in a total breakdown of both law and order and sanitation in the city, as well as large areas of Kabul literally being reduced to ruins. Estimates of the number of civilian deaths during those months vary wildly, but there were literally of thousands of civilians killed and tens of thousands wounded.
Hekmatyar opposed the US led invasion in late 2001 and when the Northern Alliance forces drove the Taliban out of Kabul and the surrounding region, Hezb-i-Islami retreated to their traditional strongholds – parts of Laghman and Parwan, Baghlan and Kapsia provinces to the north of Kabul and Laghman to the east (click map to enlarge). Hekmatyar himself went into temporary exile in Iran, before forming an alliance with the Taliban and al Qaeda in November 2002 and initially mounting some significant attacks on coalition forces. However, in 2007 he put out a statement announcing that he was ending his alliance with the Taliban.
Why Hekmatyar and Hezb-i-Islami is a serious threat
Since his return form exile in Iran seven years ago, little has been seen or heard directly from Hekmatyar, that is why it may be particularly significant that he is suddenly seeking to make himself known: In April 2008 Hezb-i-Islami claimed responsibility for an assassination attempt on President Karzai; in August 2008 they claimed responsibility for killing 10 French soldiers in Sarobi, an hour’s drive east of Kabul on the Jalalabad road; In October, they were blamed by the Taliban for the shooting of two DHL workers in Kabul, one of them British; At the end of December they claimed responsibility for the car bombing of a US convoy entering the provincial governor’s compound in Charikar to the North of Kabul, a new development in an area of Afghanistan that had until then been relatively peaceful; Not long after that, Hekmatyar broke his customary silence to give an interview published on the Afghan internet site Afghan Voice; now he has broken his silence again to give the videoed answers to questions submitted by Associated Press that the BBC have just broadcast. In these he stated:
“If international forces continue the war we will have no alternative but to fight, all they have achieved in the past 8 years is carrying coffins”.
In May this year it was rumoured that Barack Obama’s new US government was seeking to bring Hezb-i-Islami into President Karzai’s coalition government. However, this is not a group to bring into a coalition, it is led by a man who wants power for himself at all costs and will use extreme brutality to achieve it. This man is evil, it may not be politically correct to say that, and I do not say it lightly, but on some occasions it simply needs to be said. The actions of some one who has acted with such brutality, including murdering thousands of innocent civilians speak for themselves.
Hezb-i-Islami is not strong in terms of numbers, at its greatest extent it is probably no more than a few thousand men. However, it does have the potential to, and the track record for, causing untold carnage and suffering in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar’s record is one of using extreme brutality and savagery – including deliberate targeting of large numbers of civilians when he lacks the military strength to achieve his ambitions.
The danger Hezb-i-Islami poses is that its heartlands lie not in the south of Afghanistan, where coalition forces are currently involved in fighting, but to the north of Kabul – Baghlan province, Ghorband in Parwan province, Kapsia province and to the east – Laghman province which lies to the north of the Kabul-Jalalabad road. These are areas where Hezb-i-Islami commanders became battle hardened ambushing the Soviets. Not only could an increase in terrorist attacks in these regions stretch already thinly spread coalition forces, it could also disrupt the main overland supply route between Kabul and Pakistan – the Grand Trunk Road which runs from Peshawar in Pakistan, through the Khyber Pass to Jalalabad and on to Kabul. This threat is particularly severe, as Hezb-i-Islami has strongholds in Kapsia at the Kabul end of the road, Laghman - to the West of Jalalabad near the road's mid point and there are still many Hezb-i-Islami members in the area around Peshawar in Pakistan who have now settled in what were once refugee camps.
Hekmatyar, having fallen out with the Taliban, may well now be hoping that coalition forces will at least occupy, if not severely weaken the Taliban, leaving a vacuum that he hopes to fill. Whilst no one can predict exactly when he will make his move, the signs now begin to look as if they may be the first rumblings that could foreshadow a later eruption.
Just the very possibility that a new front could open up in a different part of Afghanistan that would require additional coalition forces, perhaps puts into context some of the debate that has happened in the last week about how long we will be fighting in Afghanistan for.
Make no mistake, the Taliban were and are brutal – I know I lived in Afghanistan when they were in charge – but even their brutality and the amount of carnage they caused to the civilian population of Afghanistan did not sink to the depths that Hezb-i-Islami inflicted and are still capable of inflicting on Afghanistan. That is one more reason why the British government needs to be much firmer in its resolve to give wholehearted support to the military campaign our armed services are fighting on our behalf in Afghanistan.