Sayed Mansur Naderi is the traditional leader (Sayed of Kayan) of a community of Afghanistan Ismaili Shi'a Muslims centred in Baghlan Province. Unlike other Ismaili communities in Afghanistan and worldwide, the Baghlan Ismailis do not defer to the nominal leader of Ismailis worldwide, the Agha Khan, leading Naderi to be described as a "renegade local Ismaili leader".[1] This community, not accepted by the Sunni mainstream nor by the more powerful Twelver Shi'a Hazaras, has been historically discriminated against.[2]
Naderi served the Afghan monarchy, later the communist government in the 1980s, was expelled from his region by the Taliban, and returned to Baghlan following the fall of the Taliban. He was elected to the Wolesi Jirga (lower house of the Afghan Parliament) in 2005, and was the founder of the Ismaili-based National Solidarity Party of Afghanistan (Paiwand Milli).[3] His son Sayed Jafar Naderi also achieved note as a leader in Baghlan, becoming a warlord and later governor of Baghlan. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
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During the Afghan monarchy, Sayed Mansur served as Vice President of Parliament under King Mohammed Zahir Shah.[4]
Following the transition to the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet invasion, while the Tajiks and Pashtuns of Baghlan aligned themselves with the insurgent Jamiat-e Islami and Hizb-e Islami Gulbuddin, Sayed Mansur received government funding and arms to form a local militia of his traditionally marginalised Ismaili supporters. He became a general and governor of the province with his militia reaching 13,000 troops by 1989, but at the same time collaborated with insurgent groups, allowing them to operate in Baghlan provided they did not interfere with logistics transport in the region.[5]
During the 1990s Taliban period, Sayed Mansoor Nader and his son Jafar Naderi took refuge in Bamiyan Province, a heavily Shi'a (though non-Ismaili) area, while sending other family members to France.[6] Mansoor apparently later took refuge in Uzbekistan, as he returned from there to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, in 2002.[7]