In Afghanistan, Most Politics Is Still Local

MAZAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan, Jan. 15 -- As the anthem of neighboring Uzbekistan blared across a muddy courtyard, Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum stood proud and straight in a military uniform with four stars on each epaulet. The Uzbek flag inched slowly up a pole, polite applause broke out, and the Uzbek consulate in Mazar-e Sharif was open for business.

Presiding over international relations is all in a day's work for Dostum, a 47-year-old warrior who has become what amounts to the lord of northern Afghanistan. Since Taliban rule was defeated in an alliance with U.S. air power this past fall, Dostum's word has been law across a swath of the country comprising four northern provinces -- Samangan, Balkh, Jowzjan and Faryab.

In collaboration with a local militia leader who pays him fealty, Attah Mohammad, Dostum names the regional administration and tends to its affairs, including collection of customs duties. He travels the region in a black, bulletproof Audi sedan, tailed by a caravan of his own heavily armed fighters. His own regional currency is preferred in many shops over the national notes.

While Afghanistan's interim administration and its U.S.-promoted leader, Hamid Karzai, build a central government in Kabul, most of Afghanistan has fallen under the sway of Pentagon-backed militia commanders, such as Dostum, who have acknowledged the Kabul administration but run their zones with wide autonomy.

U.S. and U.N. officials have expressed hope that funneling international aid money through the Karzai administration and its successor in the months ahead will build authority for the central government. But it remains to be seen whether the military commanders who have acquired vast political and economic power in their regions will be willing to relinquish it to Kabul.

Dostum, named deputy defense minister three weeks ago, made it clear he expects to be treated as the regional leader he is when the country holds a loya jirga, or grand council, to pick the next government, which is to take over in June. That choice, he told a half-dozen reporters after the consulate opening here today, should give rise to "regional structures that take account of the reality."

"For 23 years I have been fighting," he explained. "But besides a military role, I have always had a political activity also. I want to remind you that after the collapse of the Communist government in Afghanistan [in 1992], I took command of the National Islamic Movement. So I have already been busy with political affairs in constructing this movement."

The people of Mazar-e Sharif, the region's main city, about 50 miles south of the Uzbek border, seem to recognize Dostum as their political leader. For them, it is a renewal of the Dostum rule that prevailed between the fall of the Communist government in Kabul and the Taliban's arrival here in 1997, a time of civil war that ripped the country apart.

"Everybody knows that Gen. Dostum is a popular man in Mazar-e Sharif. He was, and he is," said Sayed Mohammed Alem Labib, a comparative literature professor and part-time poet who has become president of the city's desolate, gutted Balkh University.

Dostum is an ethnic Uzbek, so his zone's close ties with Uzbekistan make sense in the world of ethnic politics. That country moved to reopen its consulate here without first opening an embassy in Kabul.

Saeed Noorallah, a foreign affairs official for Dostum's regional authority, welcomed the consulate opening alongside Dostum today. But Sadyk Safaev, Uzbekistan's deputy foreign minister, who was also in attendance, was careful to pay his respects to Karzai's administration at every opportunity, referring to Dostum's administration as "the operative authorities of Mazar-e Sharif and northern Afghanistan."

But in many ways, the zone seems like its own country. Residents of Mazar-e Sharif often do business in "movement" afghanis, a currency printed by Dostum before he lost his zone to the Taliban. Although it is worth about half of what people here call "state" afghanis -- those printed in Kabul -- Dostum's currency is more stable and thus preferred in the bustling shops and money-changing stalls of Kifayat Street.

"If people bring me the state afghani, I give them goods according to the rate of the day with the dollar," said Abdulaziz Guindi, 30, who runs a dry goods shop on Kifayat Street. "But if it's movement money, it's fine; I don't have to check."

Kasam-u Din, intelligence chief at the Kabul government's defense ministry, said the country has come out of the U.S. war on Osama bin Laden and his Taliban protectors with a half-dozen other zones like this one, all headed by guerrilla chieftains who have been given the title of governor but run their zones with feudal power.

In the west, Din said, Ismail Khan rules over Herat, Farah, Nimruz, Ghowr and Badghis provinces, a slice of territory that runs along the border with Iran and traditionally has maintained close trade and religious ties with the neighboring nation. The Bush administration already has voiced concern that some Iranian officials are bypassing Kabul and dealing directly with Khan's authorities.

"I think everyone is aware of the potential for mischief there," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during a visit to Afghanistan last week.

Farther east, Din said, Gul Agha Shirzai has taken over in Kandahar, Uruzgan, Helmand and Zabol provinces. Gul Agha also has raised concern in Washington, negotiating a deal with six former Taliban officials, including former justice minister Nooruddin Turabi. In the bargain, the six turned in their arms but were allowed to go free, despite publicly voiced U.S. desires to take Turabi in for questioning.

The area around Jalalabad, comprising Nangahar, Laghman, Nurestan and Konar provinces, has come under the control of Abdul Qadir, seconded by two sometimes rival militia commanders, Hazrat Ali and Mohammed Zaman Ghun Shareef. This area, along with the Kandahar region under Gul Agha, is considered particularly lucrative because of the border trade -- often gray-market smuggling -- with Pakistan.

In the northeast, including Kunduz, Takhar, Badakhshan and Baghlan provinces, a commander who goes by the single name Daoud has been the local ruler since the battle for Kunduz in November, which he fought in coordination with Dostum.

The central eastern provinces, where U.S. warplanes have continued bombing against cave complexes believed to house holdout pockets of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, have been ruled by councils of tribal chiefs for the past two months, often embracing the same elders who held sway under Taliban rule, Din explained. These include, among others, Wardak, Ghazni, Paktia, Khost and Paktika provinces.

"They are in contact with the central government, but they have not yet agreed on new leaders," he said. In the provinces closest to Kabul, including Parwan, Logar, Bamian and Kapisa, the central government has named governors, giving Karzai's administration a little patch of authority.

Except in the still unsettled central eastern provinces, the local chieftains for the most part worked closely with U.S. forces in gaining their power and continue to do so. Dostum, for example, travels frequently with U.S. Special Forces and other U.S. officers and hosts some of them at his Shebergan headquarters 90 miles west of here.

With Dostum's cooperation, U.S. investigators have systematically questioned Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners held in a fort near Shebergan since the fall of Mazar-e Sharif and Kunduz, 90 miles to the east. Although some of the prisoners have been transferred to a U.S.-built prison at Kandahar, Dostum said between 3,000 and 3,500 prisoners remain at the fort. He declined to say what he plans to do with them.

As for his own fighters, he said, they will be enlisted in the future Afghan army.

Dostum said he has not been back to Kabul since he was named deputy defense minister under Gen. Mohammed Fahim. Fahim is the paramount commander of the Northern Alliance, the country's largest militia group in which Dostum and his fighters are also partners. But Dostum said he talks to Fahim every other day by satellite telephone and also occasionally with Karzai.

Although land-line telephones in Mazar-e Sharif work for local calls and around the northern territory under Dostum's control -- and even to Termez in Uzbekistan -- they do not connect the city to Kabul.

Labib, the university president, has not been paid for five months. He said he has had written communication with the central government and hopes he can get some budget funds eventually. But realistically, he added, Dostum might come through faster.

"I expect assistance from both," he said, wearing a heavy coat and sweater against the cold of his vast, barren office. "But since the movement is closer to us, I expect help from them first."