Haji Abdul Qadir was born around 1954. He was the former commander in Hezb-e Islami (Khalis faction) during the Soviet war, prominent member of UNIFSA as well as the former governor of Nangarhar province.

He ruled his mountainous home province of Nangarhar from 1992 to 1996. When the Taliban movement grew stronger around 1996 he chose to fight them in eastern Afghanistan. October 2001 brought the fall of the notorious Taliban movement and he was eventually made Vice Chairman of Afghanistan's interim administration after the Bonn Conference.

Pivotal in the relationship between the vital eastern province and Kabul, he was already urban development minister, following the formation of Afghanistan's preceding interim adminstration.
Karzai's policy has been to strengthen his central authority, and supposedly generate security and stability, by gathering powerful regional leaders in Kabul. Elevating Qadir was also part of that complex process of providing ethnic balance within the government, after complaints from Pashtuns that they were being sidelined.

Qadir fitted Karzai's bill. Energetic, dynamic and moderate, he had been vice-chairman of the Northern Alliance delegation at the Bonn talks, sponsored by the United Nations last December, which established Afghanistan's post-Taliban interim administration. Unhappy about what he saw as inadequate Pashtun representation, Qadir briefly stormed out of those discussions; but he returned and, indeed, became a minister while still retaining his hold on power in Nengarhar.

His vice-presidential appointment helped Karzai to win Pashtun support in the June loya jirga (or great gathering) of leaders and elders. In the wake of his death, Karzai has not only lost a key ally in the centre but faces a potential power vacuum in the east. Qadir was a veteran mojahedeen commander, and a controversial military and political figure. A Pashtun from the Ahmadzai tribe, he belonged to one of the most influential , affluent and prominent families in the east of Afghanistan.

His involvement in Afghan politics predated the 1979 Soviet invasion but, during the ensuing war, he was a key commander with the Hezb- I-Islami (Islamic party) led by conservative cleric Younis Khalis. It was after the fall of Dr Najibullah's government in 1992 - the final legacy of the pro-Soviet era - that he was appointed governor of Nengarhar province. But he was driven out of that power base when the fundamental ist Islamic Taliban began its relentless ascent to power after 1994.

Qadir took refuge in neighbouring Pakistan in 1996, but soon ran into trouble with the authorities because of his anti-Taliban stand and left for Germany. For three years he shuttled between Dubai, where he ran a successful trading business, and Germany until he returned to Afghanistan to join the Tajik and Uzbek-dominated Northern Alliance, fighting the mainly Pashtun Taliban. His presence in the alliance ensured its influence in the Pashtun east.

At a time when the Taliban had taken control of most of the country, Qadir was a vital figure. Active on different fronts with the Northern Alliance, he was close to its Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Masood (obituary September 17 2001), whose murder, attributed to Al Qaeda, came two days before September 11 2001. The death of Qadir's younger brother, the legendary rebel Abdul Haq (obituary, October 29 2001), followed soon afterwards.

Haji Abdul Qadir was assassinated in 2002 at the age of 48. The Government blamed Taliban for the assassination though Taliban have not claimed responsiblity.




Source: User uploaded. Edited and updated by Safis Web.


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The End. March 31st 2006