Source: paktribune.com
Published: September 24, 2005
KABUL, September 24 (Online): The warlords of Afghanistan will be well represented as a result of the country's election on Sunday that seemed to indicate growing disillusionment among a large part of the population.
Among the 150 warlords who used the election to retain their influence included some who were implicated in the civil war of the early 1990's that devastated so much of the country: Islamic fundamentalist Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, Hazara warlord Mohammad Mohaqiq and important leaders of the Jamiat-Islami faction, among them Younis Qanooni. Other warlords used women to stand in for them as proxies.
When the Taliban were first overthrown in November 2001 the news mentioned that Iran may have found some of them useful. In the meantime Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai realizes that although Washington installed him as President, without Tehran's support he would have no future except perhaps in exile.
Among the Taliban leaders Tehran has found useful and had Karzai urge to run: Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, former Foreign Minister for the Taliban, and Maulavi Qalamuddin who was head of the Department for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, that was noted for abusing men and women for breaches of the Taliban's primitive Islamic codes.
While Karzai claims, "It's opening a new life, a new avenue to the Afghan nation to participate..." In reality it is Tehran that has opened up a new way of luring more NATO units into the country, especially its south and south-east, by increasing its military support of Islamic groups who are attacking the 30,000 Allied troops.
Tehran's Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar realizes that the more the West is forced to commit to Afghanistan the less he will have to face on other fronts. He is continuing Iran's and the Jihad's preparation to engage the West on several fronts simultaneously to eliminate any chance of a coordinated attack on Iran by the West.
In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, Washington-London are protecting a government controlled by their enemy. As mentioned recently, resistance fighters in Afghanistan are learning lessons from the successful attacks conducted against the occupation in Iraq.
To further solidify relations between the two capitals, Tehran-Kabul, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met his Afghan counterpart Abdullah Abdullah during the UN General Assembly meeting. He stated the purpose of increasing joint projects and emphasized the need for continued promotion of commercial and economic relations between the two countries.
Kabul realizes that when the foreign occupation is called elsewhere, due to other international crisis Iran is going to create, the rest of Afghanistan will be eligible to receive the same amount of investment Tehran has been making in and around Herat, western Afghanistan and close to Iran's border. Tehran's massive economic presence has stabilized that area.
