Female Afghan Outlaw Comes in From the Cold

   

The government has finally won over a woman who made her name as a militia commander – but plans to give her a job to keep her out of trouble are proving controversial.

By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 296, 09-Jul-08)

The Afghan government scored a minor victory last month by reeling in a rebellious “warlord” who led a band of warriors over nearly three decades. What really set this case apart is that the militia commander is a woman.

The authorities’ decision to co-opt rather than capture Bibi Aysha, who goes by the nickname Kaftar (“the pigeon”), has upset locals who say that given her record, she is unlikely to accept the strictures of civilian life, still less a job as a public servant.

Kaftar probably never meant to strike a blow for gender equality, but over the years she has shown that an Afghan woman can make just as tough and ruthless a warlord as her male counterparts.

Now 55, Kaftar has fought almost everyone from the Russians and the Taleban to the present government of President Hamed Karzai.

Until recently, she had the dubious distinction of being the only paramilitary commander – outside the Taleban and its allies – still in open confrontation with the Afghan state.

Last month, she surrendered to the government together with five armed men, most of them her relatives. It was the second time she had laid down her weapons since the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001.

Kaftar is a well-known figure in her native Baghlan province, which lies due north of the capital Kabul.

Legend has it that she became a fighter by accident, when she grabbed a gun to kill the Soviet soldiers who had shot her son during the mujaheddin war of the Eighties.

Her success later led to her appointment as local commander for the Jamiat-e-Islami faction, whose military leader was Ahmad Shah Massoud. After Taleban forces captured Kabul in 1996 and pushed north, Kaftar claims to have commanded 2,000 armed men resisting their advance.

After the United States-led invasion sent the Taleban running, Kafter surrendered her weapons under a government-run demobilisation programme. She even entered political life briefly, representing Baghlan’s Nahrin district during the Emergency Loya Jirga, the 2002 assembly that hammered out a structure for government and confirmed Karzai as head of state pending an election.

But apparently she was missing the thrill of the fight.

“After I defeated the Taleban militants, I surrendered all of my arms to the government,” she told IWPR and other reporters recently. “Then I had to sell my cows to buy back weapons."

In recent years, Kaftar has been accused of mounting an armed rebellion against the government, as well as other crimes such as robbery, extortion and drug trafficking.

Speaking to the reporters, she denied involvement in robbery or any other security problems.

This year, the government ran out of patience, and in May the security forces launched an operation to capture Kaftar.

She slipped away and holed up in the mountains with some of her men.

General Ghulam Mujtaba Patang, commander of the Afghan National Police in the northern provinces, issued a warning that his men would annihilate her and her associates unless they gave themselves up.

Since Patang had the backing of the Afghan army as well as NATO forces, Kaftar decided the time was right to come in from the cold.

But now that the government has got her, they have to decide what to do with her.

“Because she surrendered, the government will forgive her for her rebellion,” said Baghlan police chief General Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili. “But if someone accuses her of any other crime, she will have to answer for it in court.”

Baghlan’s provincial governor Abdul Jabar Haqbeen was even more conciliatory, saying, "She ended her opposition and surrendered to the government, thanks to dialogue and efforts pursued by provincial officials."

Haqbeen said his provincial administration was considering offering Kaftar an official post.

Local residents insist Kaftar is still dangerous and should be locked up.

"Kaftar is allied with a local Taleban commander Mullah Dad-e Khuda, who has recently escaped from Bagram prison,” said one resident, speaking on condition of anonymity. “She also has ties to another local warlord called Imam-e Sabz [the Green Imam]. They control all the drug trafficking routes."

According to this man, the trio have been operating in opium poppy-growing areas, offering farmers protection and fighting off the police.

“If she is not imprisoned, she will come back as she’s done before,” he said..

The whereabouts of the rest of Kaftar’s militia remains a mystery. According to local residents and officials, she had more than 200 armed men under her command.

“It absolutely true that she commanded dozens of armed men,” said a resident of Nahrin. “If she hadn’t, the government would have captured her before now.”

He speculated that Kaftar may have transferred her men to her ally Dad-e-Khuda.

“Kaftar is familiar with the techniques of warfare, and she won’t surrender all of her men at once,” he said. “This may just be one of her tactics. She may rejoin her men in the mountains.”

Officials are downplaying Kaftar’s significance, and told IWPR her life as an outlaw was over.

"These are all rumours. Where could she get hundreds of men?” said police chief Sayedkhili. “She only led some of her sons and grandsons, all of whom surrendered. She was running a few nests of robbers in the mountain areas.

“But now she has no power and can live like an ordinary Afghan citizen.”

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.