PESHAWAR, Oct 24: A key commander went into Afghanistan with a force of men to try to open the first Pashtun front against Taliban as an Afghan Shura met here on Wednesday to reach a consensus on the future setup for Afghanistan, Pakistani and Afghan sources said.
Highly credible sources told Dawn that Commander Abdul Haq had gone into Afghanistan on Sunday with hundreds of supporters to mount a military offensive against the Taliban in Nangrahar.
A source close to the former Mujahideen commander said that an attack on Taliban was imminent. “He has gone in with a large force,” the source claimed. “He said that he would go for the jugular,” the source quoted Mr Haq as referring to Jalalabad.
Commander Haq’s office in Peshawar, however, denied that he had gone into Afghanistan and said he was still in Peshawar.
Pakistani sources, meanwhile, confirmed that Abdul Haq had crossed into Afghanistan and positioned somewhere in Spingar mountainous range north of Jalalabad that divides Paktia and Nangrahar. “It was hard to cross (into Afghanistan) and harder once he got there,” the source close to Abdul Haq said.
Former Mujahideen commanders say Abdul Haq has good influence in Sarobi and Kabul regions since the 1980s and could make good use of his contacts among his former comrades-in-arm in the area to cause problems for the Taliban.
An Afghan source said the Taliban had got wind of Mr Haq’s presence in Nangrahar and had mounted an operation to track him down but it failed.
The 43-year-old Abdul Haq has been associated with Hezb-i-Islami of Maulawi Yunis Khalis and was commander of the Kabul region during and after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
He was appointed commander of security in the Afghan capital soon after the Mujahideen took over power from the communist regime in 1992 but quit to return to Pakistan. “Because I did not want to become a part of the power struggle,” he told Dawn in a recent interview. He remained in Dubai for a long time to run his own business and returned to Pakistan early this month to organise uprising and armed opposition against the Taliban.
“The next 10 days are very important,” his office in Peshawar said.
He is widely being tipped for an important slot in the future dispensation under former king Zahir Shah, though Abdul Haq has denied that he was interested in any office.
Dawn has learnt on good authority that the United States did offer some help to the commander over the weekend, a day before he went into Afghanistan, but he had turned it down saying it was peanuts.
Abdul Haq’s efforts coincide with similar moves by other former commanders, who are actively organising troops to fight off the Taliban and engineer defections and desertions apart from encouraging public uprising.
SHURA MEETING: Also, Mr Haq’s attempt to militarily dislodge the Taliban, at least from the eastern provinces, comes just when a Shura of Afghan leaders met in Peshawar to arrive at a consensus on the future setup of Afghanistan and narrow down mutual differences.
“The objective is how to bring peace in Afghanistan and remove differences,” Pir Syed Ahmad Gillani, head of the Assembly for Peace and Unity of Afghanistan said here in an interview.
Pir Gillani said that efforts were being made to evolve a consensus on an interim setup, which would draft a constitution and make other recommendations for convening the Loya Jirga in Afghanistan.
The Jirga, he said, would then endorse the constitution and elect the future head of state. He supported the former king as an elderly distinguished person who, he added, was a ‘legitimate contender’. “His majesty would be a component of a leadership council,” Mr Gillani, who recently met with the exiled former king in Rome, said.
