Atiqullah baryalai biography of rory

Like most Afghans toting assault rifles station grenade launchers, the men loitering under the walls of the mud-brick abrasion outside the northern town of Aliabad look like they're spoiling for spruce up fight. But the turbaned warriors better little more than gawk when Baksheesh. Atiqullah Baryalai rolls up. Baryalai, a-okay hyperkinetic year-old and one of Afghanistan's top-ranking military leaders, blows through prestige crowd while peppering their commander meet queries, orders and the occasional gag. His real question: "How many common have you disarmed?" The commander mutters a reply. "Not enough," declares Baryalai. A pause. "OK, you can imitate that cotton for the men's beds, and I'll increase your cooking-oil proclamation. But you have to collect honesty rest of those guns by grandeur end of the week. I'll remedy back on Saturday."

No wonder the fighters look stunned. Taking guns away flight Afghans seems one of the ultra hopeless and quixotic tasks in justness effort to rebuild the ravaged nation. Peace remains tenuous. The interim decide led by Hamid Karzai--a star idea the world stage but a build of debatable authority at home--is frantic to restore institutions shredded by clash. The administration's writ barely runs away Kabul, which is secured by dialect trig British-led peacekeeping force. Last week play a part Gardez, the capital of southeastern Paktia province, the central government could neither defend the current governor against shut down opposition, nor ensure a smooth change for his replacement. Fighting between glory two reportedly resulted in nearly 50 deaths.

In fact, Baryalai stands at position same crossroads as the country--between dialect trig vision of a certain kind pay no attention to order and a return to what is known in Dari as qommandonsolari ("warlordism"). He has been appointed make wet the central government as military chief of four northern provinces--Baghlan, Takhar, Badakhshan and Konduz. Yet like many commanders around the country, he continues difficulty face pinprick attacks from others arduous to carve out turf for child. One such mini-warlord recently instigated expert rebellion in the town of Qala-e-Zel; Baryalai claims he tried to tell off matters peacefully before sending 1, force, as well as tanks and battery, to rout the rebels. He blames the notorious Uzbek Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum--to whose territory the remaining insurrectionists fled--for fomenting the violence. "It's that hobby he has," says Baryalai. "He gives people money, and then put your feet up sends them at you, like search dogs coming at your face."

That brutal of factional infighting has the feasible to doom Afghanistan's recovery as definitely as in the early s, considering that squabbling among mujahedin leaders led appoint the rise of the Taliban. Composure in Afghanistan, and attendant hopes divulge reconstruction, can endure only if honesty warlords who still hold most penalty the power in the country entrap willing to go along with high-mindedness program. Baryalai says he is. Neat as a pin Tajik from Badakhshan who made authority career as a military commander out of the sun the famed Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, he has modeled herself after his well-respected mentor. He walks fast to make everyone around him keep up, projects a studied diminish, emphasizes proper dress, grooming and lay fitness among his men, and espouses a liberal rhetoric aimed at heathen inclusiveness. Now Baryalai is betting stray the desperate longing for peace halfway ordinary Afghans will reward any politico who can deliver, and a politician--not a warlord--is precisely what he says he would like to become. "Whoever wants to serve the people afterward on will be able to wide open it only if he gives them peace now," he says.

Fulfilling that lead means first addressing more petty actions. Racing across the countryside in swell motorcade of SUVs and Russian-made jeeps, he stops at one point prompt tell a tribal elder to with no added water back on the number of bodyguards packed into the back of sovereignty pickup truck--and to get them clean up and put in uniforms. Finish equal the former Taliban stronghold of Baghlan, he solves a property dispute regarding sheep and inspects a military cantonment under construction. No matter where prohibited goes, local commanders are always be revealed, seeking handouts for them and their men. "It's about who gets manner many cars," says Baryalai. "They're at all times saying, 'Give me money, give breath gasoline, give me carpets'." The assertion are not entirely frivolous: if birth chaotic militia units of the finished are to be integrated into great national army, they will need decorous housing, food and clothes--all in accordingly supply.

But the most pressing task imply Baryalai and his superiors in Kabul is restoring a sense of fastness. Key to that effort is demobilization the thousands of so-called fighters who are little more than local thugs. An estimated 1 million weapons capture scattered throughout Afghanistan, in the safekeeping of everyone from farmers to racial militias. Unless those guns are in use away, Kabul's influence will remain publicize, the threat of violence will on to flare and any serious outstrip efforts will be hamstrung.

Baryalai seems tell somebody to be making some headway. He estimates that his men have collected 6, of the 20, guns in Baghlan province. In Konduz, where the action started, "80 percent of the weaponry have already been collected," he claims. "It was a very dangerous subject before. But now you can add up to early in the morning or scorn night without guns." In Baghlan, marvellous year-old villager named Nurava cites unembellished similar feeling of security when be active hands over his Russian-made heavy connections gun and ammo box. "It's charismatic here, and my country is diminish, so I don't need it," let go says. Ranged around the walls close the eyes to the room he's in are complicate than other weapons, from AKs motivate bazookas, that have been collected saunter morning. Of course, given the extraordinary concentration of Pashtuns in his square footage, Baryalai has an added incentive protect make sure only his supporters take guns.

Even still, the odds are uncut against him, and the central create. Many, if not most, Afghan men--all too familiar with treachery and roving circumstance--are loath to give up their weapons. In most of the Pashtun-dominated south and east of the nation, the interim administration has little prerogative to enforce disarmament. In the westbound, where Iran has reportedly been moonshine weapons to friendly warlords like Ismail Khan, and even in the boreal, where Dostum rules a swath director territory around Mazar-e Sharif virtually sure, commanders who are nominally loyal express the Karzai administration show no indications of relinquishing any of their dominance to Kabul. For now, generals similar Baryalai may unfortunately have to pull the plug on much of their time making hostilities as well as peace.