Afghanistan

Last weekend I emailed Noah a copy of an article from Asia Times addressing the strategic situation in Afghanistan. There's a very bad man who lives there (sometimes, sometimes in Pakistan, sometimes in Iran) named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and he's the leader of Hezb i Islami (Islamic Party)

He's been killing people, starting with communists, then Russians, then Taliban for about thirty years. Sounds like our kind of guy...and he was. He got most of the funds the CIA was pumping into Afghanistan through Pakistan's intelligence agency during the Mujhadeen's war with the Russians in the 80's. He was also the favorite of the conservative Saudi clerics, and they gave him a lot of money too.

He was in the Mujhadeen government after the Russian pulled out in the early 90's, but had loyalty issues, jumping in and out of political alliances. Having the revolutionary's perspective, he knows peace and stability were not to be desired, until and unless he held complete power. He was the main protagonist in the Mujhadeen civil war in the early 90's, at one time being allied with and against all the other powerful Mujhadeen leaders, Massoud, Dostum, and Rabanni. The civil war contributed to the popularity of the Taliban, which people hoped would end the bloody fighting between the war lords.

When the Taliban took over he had to leave, and went to Iran. A lot of his Hezb i Islami followers joined the Taliban, but retain some loyalty to Hekmatyar. When the US invaded and drove out the Taliban in 2002, Hekmatyar snuck back in to Afghanistan and started objecting loudly to the organization of a puppet government by the US.
The US tried to shut him up with a missile attack on his headquarters in late 2002 which killed a dozen of his people but missed him.

Now, he's hiding out, probably in the northeast of Afghanistan. His followers are still politically active in that region, but are biding their time. They're waiting for the resurgent Taliban in the south to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of fighting the Coalition forces. but once the Kabul government is sufficiently weakened he'll pop up again, assassinating rivals, making and breaking alliances, and jockeying for leadership in an Islamic government, pointing out that unlike the other warlords he made no deals with the occupiers. Also, unlike Dostum and other warlords from the old Northern Alliance who are Uzbeks and Tajiks, he's a Pashtun, which is the largest ethnic grouping in Afghanistan.

So, anyway, while things are relatively calm in the area where Noah is stationed right now, that's the area where Hekmatyar will be the most powerful when he decides to make his move. So, I'm hoping Noah's home by then.