a house divided, 1933–73between the Rabbani–Mas‘ud network on the one hand and Hikmatyar’s
and Khalis’s Hizb-i Islami factions on the other. A month later a coalition
of Pushtun mujahidin, encouraged by the isi and the cia, tried to take
Jalalabad by storm, only to be defeated with the loss of more than 3,000
men, the heaviest loss of life in a single battle in the whole war. In addi-
tion, several thousand civilians died when the mujahidin shelled Jalalabad.
Remarkably, President Najib Allah managed to cling on to power for
more than three years after the Soviet withdrawal, but only because the
ussr supplied the country with everything from weapons to food and fuel.
In an attempt to regain control over outlying regions, Najib Allah encour-
aged the formation of regional militias, guaranteeing their commanders
autonomy in exchange for not fighting against the government. The most
effective of these militias was commanded by ‘Abd al-Rashid Dostam, an
Uzbek from Khwaja Du Koh, near Shibarghan. 53 Dostam had served as
an army conscript during the era of President Da’ud and later worked in
the Shibarghan gas plant, where he joined Parcham. In the autumn of
1978 he rejoined the army and proved his military prowess by retaking
Sar-i Pul from the mujahidin. He then persuaded his Khalqi superiors to
let him form an irregular Uzbek cavalry brigade and proceeded to throw
Hikmatyar’s Hizb-i Islami out of Darra-yi Suf. By 1989 Dostam held the
rank of general and commanded the 53rd Infantry, which consisted of
20,000 Uzbeks, mostly farmers from Faryab and Jauzjan. Nicknamed gilim
jam‘ (carpet-gatherers) by their detractors – Uzbeks are famous for their
carpets – Dostam’s militia earned a fearsome reputation for their reckless
cavalry charges and ruthlessness.
Dostam, though, was also an astute negotiator who managed to
persuade several Uzbek and Tajik commanders in the provinces of Jauzjan
and Faryab to change sides by appealing to Uzbek nationalist sentiment.
Among them were seven brothers and half-brothers from Maimana and
Sar-i Pul known as the pahlawans (wrestlers). Another mujahidin faction
that changed sides was the Itihad-i Islami-yi Samt-i Shamal-i Afghanistan
(Islamic Union of the Northern Region of Afghanistan), a pan-Turkic,
neo-basmachi organization led by Azad Beg, a Pakistan-educated Uzbek
who was a descendant of the Khan of Kokand.
Despite these defections in the north, the war in the south raged
unabated. In March 1990 General Shah Nawaz Tana’i, Najib’s Minister
of Defence, cut a deal with Hikmatyar and tried to depose Najib Allah
in a military coup. When the putsch failed Tana’i and his Khalqis fled
to Peshawar, where they joined forces with Hizb-i Islami. At the end of
1990 President Najib Allah’s grip on power was undermined even more