Afghan warlord offered government post
01/03/2005 - 11:47:26Afghan President Hamid Karzai will offer a government post to an anti-Taliban warlord with a history of alleged human rights abuses, it was revealed today.
Abdul Rashid Dostum, a veteran of Afghanistan’s civil wars and a loser in last year’s presidential election, is expected to take on a senior military position.
An ethnic Uzbek strongman, Mr Dostum led a faction which helped the US overthrow the Taliban in late 2001, and served as a special adviser on security in Karzai’s interim government.
He led a unit which protected Afghanistan’s communist government from mujahedeen rebels in the 1980s.
More recently, his forces were blamed for the suffocation of scores of Taliban prisoners who had been herded into metal shipping containers as the hard-line regime crumbled.
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