AFP
10/21/2003
By

KABUL - The Afghan government may pull rival warlords Atta Mohammad and Abdul Rashid Dostam out of their northern strongholds and transfer them to Kabul in a bid to curtail fighting, a senior official said yesterday. “Atta and Dostam could be withdrawn from the north and they’ll be given positions in Kabul, that is under consideration by the national security council,” the official, who could not be identified, said.

Dostam, who holds the post of deputy defence minister, also heads the Uzbek-dominated Junbish faction, while Atta heads the seventh military corps and the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-i-Islami faction. Atta is based in the main northern city Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh province, and Dostam is based in Shiberghan, 120 kms to the west. Both profess loyalty to President Hamid Karzai’s central administration but have long competed for control of the north.

Frequent clashes between their militia forces have been the main source of unrest in northern Afghanistan. The most recent clashes early October left at least 10 fighters dead and 30 injured, according to a British colonel based in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Atta’s spokesman General Abdul Sabor said a delegation of Afghan, British and US officials who travelled to Mazar at the height of the fighting and brokered a ceasefire had decided to transfer the northern strongmen.

“In the meetings it was discussed and decided that both General Dostam and Atta and some other key personnel of the north should be transferred to the capital,” Sabor told AFP by phone from Mazar-i-Sharif.

“The government has appointed a security commission which will discuss the transfer of these two key personnel in the north, and the appointment of some other figures for these posts in Balkh province.”

The delegation, led by Interior Minister Ali Ahmed Jalali with British ambassador Ron Nash, US and Afghan officials, made recommendations to the national security council in Kabul on steps to prevent further clashes.

Karzai’s spokesman Jawed Luddin said the security council had agreed military and political changes may be necessary in the north. “The only thing that has so far been agreed in the security council is that everything will be done to make sure security comes and that may involve making changes in the military ranks as well as political appointments there,” Luddin said.