In recent weeks, Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has been leaving his fingerprints on a series of attacks on civilians, institutions, and American and coalition forces throughout Afghanistan. These attacks include car bombs in downtown Kabul, a massive bridge explosion in Kandahar province, an assassination attempt on the interim Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and deadly exchanges of gunfire with U.S. troops at Spin Boldak. Such incidents suggest a galvanized commitment and growing confidence on the part of Hekmatyar and his cabal in destabilizing Karzai's transitional government through violent means. Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister, has repeatedly vowed jihad, or holy war, against not just the Karzai regime, but also the foreign military presence in the country, and anything else that blocks his goal of an Islamic Afghanistan under sharia jurisprudence.

The forceful reemergence of Hekmatyar and the ideologically-aligned elements of al Qaeda and the Taliban that are apparently regrouping under his patronage presents a long-term threat to peace and stability in Afghanistan. Current events, as well as those of past months, seem to forecast uneasy times to come. Some of the more deadly attacks that Hekmatyar is suspected of being involved in include:

• A Sept. 5, 2002 car bombing in downtown Kabul that killed 25 civilians. In what appeared a classic 'come-on' operation, explosives hidden in carrier bag on a bicycle were detonated in an effort to lure in more civilians, and members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) — who were sure to be among first-responders — for the larger car bomb minutes later. This was the deadliest attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban government.
• Also on Sept. 5, 2002, an assassination attempt on Karzai was thwarted by the U.S. Special Forces guarding him, who quickly returned fire on the assassin and killed him outside the governor's palace in Kandahar.
• A Jan. 26, 2003 attack on a UN convoy in Nangarhar province resulted in the violent deaths of two Afghan security men.
• A Jan. 27, 2003 gun battle near Spin Boldak pitted U.S. and coalition forces against 80 heavily-armed rebels. Coalition troops had to call in heavy air-support from B-1 bombers and F-16s, resulting in the deaths of 18 rebels. This was the fiercest fighting since Operation Anaconda, roughly 10 months earlier.
• A Jan. 31, 2003 explosion on the Rambasi Bridge six miles south of Kandahar that killed eight civilians traveling on a bus. The victims were heading to the bazaars of Kandahar on a planned shopping trip.
• The kidnapping on Feb. 7, 2003 of two Afghan Army soldiers and the murder of five other soldiers from the same base in Helmand province.
• A Feb. 10, 2003 rocket attack on a U.S. base in Khost, as well as rocket attacks against the German ISAF base in Kabul.

Hekmatyar's Hezb-I-Islami party — a mujahadeen Sunni-fundamentalist movement was one of the most active in fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Moreover, the Afghan warlord and his organization were the beneficiaries of millions of dollars of American aid during that period, as the CIA and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency found them brutally effective in fighting Soviet occupation troops. Today, Hekmatyar and his followers still oppose the presence of foreign militaries in Afghanistan, and seek to kill as many of them as possible. They also viscerally oppose the transitional government led by Karzai, which they see as a puppet of the Americans, and through their terror attacks seek to destabilize the country and force the Western powers to rethink their long-term commitment to Afghanistan's peace and security. Hekmatyar and his organization use violent means to serve their sought end of establishing an Afghanistan under Hezb-I-Islami's fundamentalist ideology — one that embraces Islam's Hanbali School of Jurisprudence and accepts a version of Islam similar to that of the Taliban. This vision for Afghanistan would see the country once more become a pariah state sympathetic to Islamic terrorists — something that is antithetical to U.S. national security interests.

Contributing to the current upsurge in destabilizing attacks in Afghanistan is Hekmatyar's growing cooperation with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the elusive, former Taliban leader who was driven from power by U.S forces in November 2001. Recent reports indicate that the two men have formed an alliance, ostensibly sharing fighters, materiel, and intelligence in their common jihad against the leadership in Kabul and the foreign military presence across Afghanistan. Western diplomats in the region have suggested the growing control of Hekmatyar over regrouping Taliban and al Qaeda elements is the result of a new command structure among the Taliban, one in which Omar plays a lesser role and Hekmatyar is therefore allowed a larger influence. Recent sightings of Hekmatyar and Omar, both Pashtun, appear to confirm their apparent anschluss. Hekmatyar, in addition to being spotted in at least six Afghan provinces in recent months, seems to favor the ethnic Pashtun corridor of Pakistan and Afghanistan as a redoubt. This is an area stretching from the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Logar, to Pakistan's Tribal Areas, Waziristan, and areas of Baluchistan province. Omar himself has reportedly been in and out of Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan provinces, while also traveling in and out of Pashtun border areas in Pakistan, undoubtedly finding ideological refuge with the conservative elements that emerged victorious in the October 2002 elections there. The ideological connection between these two men, their geographic proximity, as well as an apparent cooperative relationship could explain, in part, the success and frequency of recent attacks in Afghanistan.

Other factors may also be contributing to Hekmatyar's reemergence as a deadly figure in Afghanistan. As an ethnic Pashtun, he is well-positioned to exploit the resentment among some of southern Afghanistan's Pashtun communities with Kabul's transitional government, which is dominated by ethnic Tajiks — something Kabul has sought to rectify with a recent reshuffle of the Defense Ministry. These Pashtun areas can provide bases for those wishing to overthrow the Kabul government and it is believed Hekmatyar plays heavily on some Pashtuns' bitterness to illicit support for his jihad. However, despite his shared ethnicity with these communities, there is a limit to his popularity there. Hailing from northern Kunduz province, Hekmatyar lacks widespread support in the south, despite Pashtun kinship with the locals. In a country such as Afghanistan, ethnic factionalism and strong regional identity can breed a mistrust of outsiders. Moreover, the brutal reputation Hekmatyar earned fighting the government of Burahnuddin Rabbani following the 1992 collapse of Mohammed Najibullah's communist regime may also account for his lack of a broad mandate. Despite his enjoying some support in the south, such factors, along with a general Afghan fatigue of war, hurt Hekmatyar's mass-appeal.

The challenge posed by Hekmatyar and the Taliban and al Qaeda regrouping under his auspices is quickly becoming the greatest threat to Afghanistan's long-term peace and security. A CIA Predator unmanned aerial vehicle attempted, unsuccessfully, to assassinate him in early May 2002. On Feb. 19, 2003, America designated Hekmatyar an official global terrorist by mandate of Executive Order, freezing his assets in the United States, if any, and criminalizing any U.S. support for him. With the pace of reconstruction aid into the country and the training of the Afghan National Army and police going slower than expected, the deadly threat posed by Hekmatyar is by no means the only problem Kabul and the West must contend with.

In addition, Afghanistan's opium production, refugee crisis, endemic ethnic fragmentation and regional warlordism still continue to present dire problems to the interim government. Twenty-three years of civil war have resulted in a surfeit of problems for the country. However, if the Western powers rethink their security plan for Afghanistan — specifically deciding to finally expand ISAF beyond Kabul, the gathering threat posed by Hekmatyar could be mitigated greatly. Such a move would ensure a stronger peacekeeping presence throughout the country, provide a bulwark against Hekmatyar's deadly violence, and ideally, ensure a stable transition for the elections the Bonn Agreement mandated for the middle of next year.

Sources

Ahmed Rashid, "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia," Yale University Press, 2000

Rory McCarthy, "Old Warlord Threatens Afghan Peace: Taliban and al-Qaeda Rebels Link Up With Fundamentalist," The Guardian (London) Feb. 10, 2003

Scott Baldouf, "Afghan Army Gets Ahead By Getting Along," The Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 11, 2003

Unattributed, "Afghanistan's Powerbrokers: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar," BBC News, Feb. 11, 2003

Unattributed, "Exiled Warlord in Talks With Taliban," BBC News, Oct. 26, 2001

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