Who is General Dostum? The Uzbek strongman who has declared war on Taliban

Former Afghanistan Vice President and ethnic Uzbek leader of the Junbish-e Milli political party, General Abdul Rashid Dostum declared war against Taliban this week. General Dostum, who once aligned himself with Ahmad Shah Massoud-led Northern Alliance to oust Taliban when it first came to power in the 1990s, said that he will soon begin the struggle for Afghanistan’s freedom. Dostum added that if he is killed upon entering Afghanistan at Hairatan — one of the outposts at Afghanistan-Uzbekistan border — he would not regret his actions. 

General Dostum was among the leaders who escaped Kabul days after Kabul fell to thew Taliban hardliners in August 2021.

Abdul Rashid Dostum: The ‘CIA asset’ who became Afghanistan’s vice president

Abdul Rashid Dostum had been the first vice president of Afghanistan (2014-2020), and marshal in the Afghan National Army is another key face in Afghan politics. After being run out of the country by the Taliban during their rise to power, he returned to the country, widely perceived as a ‘CIA asset’.

In 2018, Dostum was accused of killing hundreds of Taliban prisoners of war. The methods included stuffing the prisoners of war into shipping containers where they often suffocated.

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan Should Return Former Govt’s Helicopters to NRF Fighters: Dostum

Dostum recently called on Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to hand over the former government army’s helicopters to National Resistance Front (NRF) fighters. He said that these helicopters should be used by the NRF personnel in different provinces of Afghanistan.

At least 40 helicopters of the former democratically-elected government’s army were transferred to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Dostum said in London. Earlier, the defence ministry of the United States had announced that 46 flights had landed in Uzbekistan and 18 in Tajikistan until August 21, 2021, a week after Taliban took over Kabul.

ALSO WATCH | Afghanistan: NRF still remains a thorn at Taliban’s side

In April, Uzbek authorities had announced that helicopters and aircraft of Afghanistan’s former government will not be handed to the Taliban. Ismatullah Irgashev, Uzbekistan’s special representative for Afghanistan had said that the military equipment belongs to the United States . He said that these equipment will be kept in Uzbekistan in collaboration with Washington.

Abdul Rashid Dostum says that the Taliban kills former Afghan National Army with no mercy – the group conducts door-to-door search operations, find former army personnel, tortures them in the worst possible manner, and eventually kills them.

Dostum’s remarks come days after the US-based Brookings Institution released an investigative report that claimed NRF’s resistance would not pose any immediate threats to the Taliban regime.