Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

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Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Prime Minister of Afghanistan
In office 17 June 1993 – 28 June 1994
Preceded by	Abdul Sabur Farid Kuhestani
Succeeded by	Arsala Rahmani

Born	1947 Kunduz, Afghanistan
Political party	Hezbi Islami

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (born 1947 in Imam Saheb, Kunduz province, Afghanistan) is an Afghan warlord and former Prime Minister of Afghanistan. He is a Ghilzai Pashtun of the Kharoti tribe.^[1] Hekmatyar speaks several languages (including English), has four wives and several children.

He served as prime minister twice in the 1990s.

1 Early life
2 Soviet Invasion and Civil War
3 Post September 11 activities
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early life

Gholam Serwar Nasher, Khan of the Kharoti, thought of Hekmatyar as a bright young man and sent him to a military school and then to Kabul University's engineering department in 1968, where Hekmatyar earned the nickname of "engineer Hekmatyar" frequented among his followers.

However, he started his political life against the Soviet influence and opposed Daud Khan's government and escaped to Pakistan.

In Pakistan, he founded the Hezbi Islami party (1975). He is well known for his measures in defeating Soviet occupation and as well building hundreds of schools for both men and women in different provinces of Pakistan and was favored by Pakistani leader Zia ul Haq. He actively participated in the war against U.S.S.R., got injured several times and lost many family members. He was well known for protecting the rights of ordinary Afghans in Pakistan by one way or the other.

[edit] Soviet Invasion and Civil War

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Hekmatyar received billions of dollars in military assistance from Pakistan's ISI and funds the CIA channeled to the mujahadeen through the ISI.

The ISI decisions to allocate the highest percentage of covert aid to Hekmatyar were certainly based on his record as an effective anti-Soviet military commander in Afghanistan. However, as the war began to appear increasingly winnable for the Mujahedeen, Islamic fundamentalist elements in ISI became increasingly motivated by their desire to install the fundamentalist Hekmatyar as the new leader of a liberated Afghanistan.

Even during the Soviet occupation, Hekmatyar ordered frequent attacks on other rival factions to weaken them in order to improve his position in the post-Soviet power vacuum. An example of his tendency for internecine rivalry is his involvement in arranging the 1976 arrest of Ahmed Shah Massoud in Pakistan on spying charges.^[2]

The Hizb-i Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar espouses Islamic ideology. At various times it has fought and allied itself with almost every other group in Afghanistan. Hizb-i Islami received some of the strongest support from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and attracted thousands of foreign mujahideens to Afghanistan. On the role of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the emergence of the Taliban, see Human Rights Watch, Backgrounder on Afghanistan: History of the War, October 2001.^[3]

After the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Hekmatyar signed a peace agreement with Ahmed Shah Massoud on May 25, 1992, which made him Prime Minister. However, the agreement fell apart when Hekmatyar was blamed for a rocket attack on President Mujaddidi's plane.^[4] The following day, Burhanuddin Rabbani's and Ahmed Shah Massoud's Jamiat and Abdul Rashid Dostum's Junbish forces resumed fighting against Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami forces. In 1994 Hekmatyar would shift alliances, joining with Dostum as well as Hizb-e-Wahdat, a Hazara Shi'a party.^[5] Together they laid siege to Kabul, fighting Rabbani and his Defense Minister Massoud mainly to prevent the country from division.

From 1992 to 1996 the warring factions destroyed 70% of Kabul and killed at least 50,000 people, most of them civilians during the Afghan civil war. The devastation and factionalization allowed the Taliban to take control in 1996, even when, a few months before the Taliban captured Kabul in September of that year, Rabbani and Hekmatyar finally formed a power-sharing government in which Hekmatyar was prime minister. Hekmatyar fled to Iran where he continued to lead the Hezbi Islami party.

[edit] Post September 11 activities

On September 18, 2001 Hekmatyar stood against US invasion of Afghanistan and soon warned Pakistan for siding with the United States. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban, Hekmatyar rejected the U.N.-brokered accord of December 5, 2001, saying the pact negotiated in Germany amounted to a U.S.-imposed government for Afghanistan.

On February 10, 2002 all the offices of Hezb-e-Islami were closed in Iran. Hekmatyar was expelled from his Iranian exile. His whereabouts became unknown.

The United States accuse him of urging the Taliban to re-form and fight the United States. He is also accused of offering rewards for those who kill U.S. troops. He has been labelled a war criminal by members of the U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai's government. He is also a suspect behind the September 5, 2002 assassination attempt on Karzai that killed more than a dozen people.

Some reports have located him inside Tunisia, but in May 2002 the U.S. claimed that a CIA-operated Predator drone attacked Hekmatyar near Kabul, missing him but killing some of his followers.

In September 2002 Hekmatyar released a taped message calling for a jihad against the United States.

On December 25, 2002 the news broke that American spy organizations had discovered Hekmatyar attempting to become a member of al-Qaeda. According to the news, he had said that he was available to aid them. However, in a video released by Hekmatyar September 1, 2003, he denied forming alliances with the Taliban or al-Qaeda but praised attacks against U.S. and international forces.

On February 19, 2003 the United States State Department and the United States Treasury Department jointly designated Hekmatyar a "global terrorist".^[6] This designation meant that any assets Hekmatyar held in the USA, or held through companies based in the USA, would be seized. The USA also requested the United Nations Committee on Terrorism to follow suit, and designate Hekmatyar an associate of Osama bin Laden.

In October 2003 he declared a ceasefire with local commanders in Jalalabad, Kunar, Logar and Sarobi, and stated that they should only fight foreigners.

In May 2006 he released a video to Al Jazeera in which he accused Iran of backing the US in the Afghan conflict and said he was ready to fight alongside Osama bin Laden and blamed the ongoing conflicts in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan on US interference.^[7]

In September 2006, he was reported as captured, but the report was later retracted.^[8]

In December 2006 a video was released in Pakistan, where Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claimed "the fate Soviet Union faced is awaiting America as well."

In January 2007 CNN reported that Hekmatyar claimed "that his fighters helped Osama bin Laden escape from the mountains of Tora Bora five years ago." and BBC news reported a quote from a December 2006 interview broadcast on GEO TV, "We helped them [bin Laden and Zawahiri] get out of the caves and led them to a safe place."^[9]

Preceded by Abdul Sabur Farid Kuhestani	Prime Minister of Afghanistan June 1993 – June 1994	Succeeded by Arsala Rahmani
Preceded by Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai	Prime Minister of Afghanistan June 1996 – September 1996	Succeeded by Muhammad Rabbani