Afghan Rebel Chief Defies Coalition Forces
US-led troops hunt down Herat warlord, but he’s proving to be an elusive foe.
Afghan Rebel Chief Defies Coalition Forces
US-led troops hunt down Herat warlord, but he’s proving to be an elusive foe.
If nothing else, Ghulam Yahya Akbari has had a colourful life. The onetime jihadi commander, who had a spell as the mayor of Herat before taking arms again, has fought against almost everyone during his 30 years of warfare. Now his main enemy may be the United States-led Coalition forces, which launched an airstrike against him on February 17.
“They tried to hit me but struck a family of Kuchis instead,” said Yahya, speaking to IWPR by telephone shortly after the attack.
Yahya has been the scourge of Herat for the past two years, ever since he was sacked from his job as head of the city’s department for public works.
In that time, he has gone from civil servant to insurgent, accused of kidnappings, murder, attacks on the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, and the Herat airport. He has threatened to hang any women he catches who work for non-governmental organisations and has made his fiefdom in Gozara district a no-go zone for anyone affiliated with the government.
He is popularly known as “Siyawooshan”, after his native village in Gozara.
Although rumoured to be linked at various times with the Taleban, al-Qaeda and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami faction, Yahya insists that he is acting on his own.
Sitting in his base in Gozara district, the 50-something man is virtually indistinguishable from a Taleban commander. He has a long beard, dyed black, a silk turban and the obligatory Kalashnikov.
Like many in the Taleban, he started out as a jihadi commander, fighting the Soviet occupation of his country in the 1980s.
“I have been fighting for thirty years,” he said. “My father was a mullah in a mosque. I never attended school. I reached my present position because of my experience.”
When the communist government fell in 1992, Yahya became the mayor of Herat, under the governor, a former comrade-in-arms, Mohammad Ismail Khan.
As mayor, he was reputed to have been a harsh ruler of Herat. He is said to have stamped out theft by shooting robbers in the foot, and kept merchants honest by allegedly humiliating them in public. Anyone who violated the government-issued price list was reportedly forced to stand in a public intersection with one of his ears nailed to a tree.
According to one Herati, there were a lot of butchers and bakers with holes in their ears.
When the Taleban arrived in the mid-1990s, Yahya fled to Iran. Sources close to him said he was a common labourer there, like many Afghan refugees. But he soon tired of that and came back to fight the Taleban.
Once the fundamentalists were gone, in 2001, he was once again installed in a government job, this time as head of the department of public works. He was also reunited with his old friend Ismail Khan, who resumed his role as “Emir of the West” once the foreign troops arrived.
But in 2004, Ismail Khan was appointed minister of energy and water management, and sent to Kabul. The new governor, Sayed Hussein Anwari, did not apparently share Ismail Khan’s enthusiasm for the brutal, semi-illiterate Yahya.
Yahya claimed that Anwari was illegally distributing state lands and other benefits to the Shia minorities in Herat; Yahya is an ethnic Tajik from the majority Sunni community.
So the civil servant became a rebel, taking up weapons against the Afghan government, the foreign forces, and operating a profitable kidnapping business on the side.
“I have kidnapped more than 100 Afghan citizens and one Indian,” he told IWPR, with some pride. “I’ve made over 100,000 US dollars, which I use to pay my men.”
The Indian citizen, Simon Paramanathan, was kidnapped in October, 2008. He died in early February. It is not yet clear whether Yahya and his men killed him, or whether he died of natural causes.
In early 2009, Anwari was removed as governor; the new man, Mohammad Yusuf Nooristani, made it a priority to negotiate with those in armed opposition to the government.
“We would like these men to cease their opposition to the government and go back to
their normal lives,” said Afghan national police general Ekramuuddin Yawar, commander of the western zone of Afghanistan. He confirmed that negotiations were underway between Yahya and the government.
“But if they are not open to dialogue, we will target their strongholds in Gozara district,” he told IWPR.
Judging by the February 17 airstrike, the time for negotiations has passed.
Gozara district, where Yahya got his start, is ten kilometres south of Herat city.
According to Yahya, he began with only 20 men. Now he claims to control ten times more, with the number constantly increasing. He insists that his influence has spread beyond Gozara to several other districts of Herat province.
While enforcing Sharia law, he does not share all the Taleban’s prohibitions. Television and music are not banned in areas under his control.
“But if they catch you watching pornography, they punish you very severely,” said Ahmad, from the village of Asiacha.
Criminals are also disciplined, added Ahmad. Yahya has reinstated his old practice of shooting thieves in the foot. As a result, say residents, they can leave their doors unlocked with no fear of robbery.
“Thieves do not dare to steal, because they will be punished in accordance with Sharia law,” said Ghulam Sayed, from the same village as Yahya, Siyawooshan.
But for many, the drop in crime is not enough to make up for the fear of kidnapping or worse at the hands of Yahya’s men.
Mahmad Gul, who sells real estate, told IWPR that a few months ago a relative of his died in Siyawooshan. “I did not dare to go to his funeral,” he said.
Basir Ahmad Hazim, a teacher at the Agricultural Lycee of Herat, said that he avoided the area at all costs. “Even when I go to the airport, I am keeping an eye out for two kilometers up ahead, looking for suspicious armed men,” he said.
Ghulam Mahboob Afzalzada, district governor of Gozara, confirmed that Yahya’s men had been involved in kidnappings, including that of Paramanathan. “It was the first time they managed to take someone right on the airport road,” he said.
Yahya is given to boasting of his exploits, and took responsibility for a helicopter crash in January that killed 13 Afghan army officers. But government officials at the time attributed the crash to bad weather: the helicopter ploughed into the side of a mountain in heavy fog.
He also hints that he may have links to foreign groups. “In past months we have had Arab brothers here fighting alongside us,” he told IWPR. “But they are gone now.”
He also said that he had links with the Taleban, although he was not one of them, “I agree with a lot of what the Taleban do, and I have even helped them out financially. I am in contact with one group of Taleban, but I am operating an independent front.”
Yahya is adamant that he will continue his resistance. “Until all foreign forces leave Afghanistan I will not lay down my arms,” he told IWPR. “I will fight against them and against their Afghan allies.”
“They tried to hit me but struck a family of Kuchis instead,” said Yahya, speaking to IWPR by telephone shortly after the attack.
Yahya has been the scourge of Herat for the past two years, ever since he was sacked from his job as head of the city’s department for public works.
In that time, he has gone from civil servant to insurgent, accused of kidnappings, murder, attacks on the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, and the Herat airport. He has threatened to hang any women he catches who work for non-governmental organisations and has made his fiefdom in Gozara district a no-go zone for anyone affiliated with the government.
He is popularly known as “Siyawooshan”, after his native village in Gozara.
Although rumoured to be linked at various times with the Taleban, al-Qaeda and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami faction, Yahya insists that he is acting on his own.
Sitting in his base in Gozara district, the 50-something man is virtually indistinguishable from a Taleban commander. He has a long beard, dyed black, a silk turban and the obligatory Kalashnikov.
Like many in the Taleban, he started out as a jihadi commander, fighting the Soviet occupation of his country in the 1980s.
“I have been fighting for thirty years,” he said. “My father was a mullah in a mosque. I never attended school. I reached my present position because of my experience.”
When the communist government fell in 1992, Yahya became the mayor of Herat, under the governor, a former comrade-in-arms, Mohammad Ismail Khan.
As mayor, he was reputed to have been a harsh ruler of Herat. He is said to have stamped out theft by shooting robbers in the foot, and kept merchants honest by allegedly humiliating them in public. Anyone who violated the government-issued price list was reportedly forced to stand in a public intersection with one of his ears nailed to a tree.
According to one Herati, there were a lot of butchers and bakers with holes in their ears.
When the Taleban arrived in the mid-1990s, Yahya fled to Iran. Sources close to him said he was a common labourer there, like many Afghan refugees. But he soon tired of that and came back to fight the Taleban.
Once the fundamentalists were gone, in 2001, he was once again installed in a government job, this time as head of the department of public works. He was also reunited with his old friend Ismail Khan, who resumed his role as “Emir of the West” once the foreign troops arrived.
But in 2004, Ismail Khan was appointed minister of energy and water management, and sent to Kabul. The new governor, Sayed Hussein Anwari, did not apparently share Ismail Khan’s enthusiasm for the brutal, semi-illiterate Yahya.
Yahya claimed that Anwari was illegally distributing state lands and other benefits to the Shia minorities in Herat; Yahya is an ethnic Tajik from the majority Sunni community.
So the civil servant became a rebel, taking up weapons against the Afghan government, the foreign forces, and operating a profitable kidnapping business on the side.
“I have kidnapped more than 100 Afghan citizens and one Indian,” he told IWPR, with some pride. “I’ve made over 100,000 US dollars, which I use to pay my men.”
The Indian citizen, Simon Paramanathan, was kidnapped in October, 2008. He died in early February. It is not yet clear whether Yahya and his men killed him, or whether he died of natural causes.
In early 2009, Anwari was removed as governor; the new man, Mohammad Yusuf Nooristani, made it a priority to negotiate with those in armed opposition to the government.
“We would like these men to cease their opposition to the government and go back to
their normal lives,” said Afghan national police general Ekramuuddin Yawar, commander of the western zone of Afghanistan. He confirmed that negotiations were underway between Yahya and the government.
“But if they are not open to dialogue, we will target their strongholds in Gozara district,” he told IWPR.
Judging by the February 17 airstrike, the time for negotiations has passed.
Gozara district, where Yahya got his start, is ten kilometres south of Herat city.
According to Yahya, he began with only 20 men. Now he claims to control ten times more, with the number constantly increasing. He insists that his influence has spread beyond Gozara to several other districts of Herat province.
While enforcing Sharia law, he does not share all the Taleban’s prohibitions. Television and music are not banned in areas under his control.
“But if they catch you watching pornography, they punish you very severely,” said Ahmad, from the village of Asiacha.
Criminals are also disciplined, added Ahmad. Yahya has reinstated his old practice of shooting thieves in the foot. As a result, say residents, they can leave their doors unlocked with no fear of robbery.
“Thieves do not dare to steal, because they will be punished in accordance with Sharia law,” said Ghulam Sayed, from the same village as Yahya, Siyawooshan.
But for many, the drop in crime is not enough to make up for the fear of kidnapping or worse at the hands of Yahya’s men.
Mahmad Gul, who sells real estate, told IWPR that a few months ago a relative of his died in Siyawooshan. “I did not dare to go to his funeral,” he said.
Basir Ahmad Hazim, a teacher at the Agricultural Lycee of Herat, said that he avoided the area at all costs. “Even when I go to the airport, I am keeping an eye out for two kilometers up ahead, looking for suspicious armed men,” he said.
Ghulam Mahboob Afzalzada, district governor of Gozara, confirmed that Yahya’s men had been involved in kidnappings, including that of Paramanathan. “It was the first time they managed to take someone right on the airport road,” he said.
Yahya is given to boasting of his exploits, and took responsibility for a helicopter crash in January that killed 13 Afghan army officers. But government officials at the time attributed the crash to bad weather: the helicopter ploughed into the side of a mountain in heavy fog.
He also hints that he may have links to foreign groups. “In past months we have had Arab brothers here fighting alongside us,” he told IWPR. “But they are gone now.”
He also said that he had links with the Taleban, although he was not one of them, “I agree with a lot of what the Taleban do, and I have even helped them out financially. I am in contact with one group of Taleban, but I am operating an independent front.”
Yahya is adamant that he will continue his resistance. “Until all foreign forces leave Afghanistan I will not lay down my arms,” he told IWPR. “I will fight against them and against their Afghan allies.”
