In the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, journalists scattered across northern Afghanistan would periodically gather in a mud-walled compound in the small and sand-blown village of Khwaja Bahauddin to attend press conferences hosted by a well-dressed ophthalmologist with thin hair brushed straight back from his forehead and a close-trimmed black beard.
His English was flawless and devoid of slang or colloquialisms. Years earlier, during the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad, he had been taught English by agents in Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service. He was patient with the questions thrown at him, but his back seemed to stiffen when asked how much the Americans and British were sharing intelligence they had gathered on the Taliban with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, of which he was a member.
“We don’t need any advice,” he replied. “We know our enemies. The international allies have been striking the Taliban for two weeks. We have been fighting them for years.”
The man was Abdullah Abdullah. He was a long-time friend and envoy of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the iconic leader of the Northern Alliance known as the Lion of Panjshir, whose reputation and nickname derived from his long and ultimately successful battle to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Massoud, whose rump government controlled the northeast of Afghanistan, was murdered by agents of al-Qaeda posing as journalists two days before September 11, making Abdullah, with his fluency in English and practiced diplomacy, the most visible face of the Northern Alliance.
Abdullah had good reason to be cynical about America’s new-found interest in his country. Only weeks before 9/11, he had been in Washington trying to impress on members of Congress the dangers posed by the Taliban and their links to Osama bin Laden. He got nowhere. Some of those he pleaded with had barely heard of bin Laden.
But American intervention, when it finally came, brought good fortune for the anti-Taliban Afghan resistance. By December, the Taliban had been driven from power and the mostly Tajik Northern Alliance occupied Kabul. Some veteran Northern Alliance warlords were intent on solidifying their authority. They, after all, had done most of the fighting against the Taliban and felt control of the country was their due.
Others, a younger generation that included Abdullah, wanted to unite with the Pashtuns of the south to form a government with broad legitimacy. Abdullah’s faction prevailed. Hamid Karzai, a southern Pashtun, was chosen interim leader and then president of Afghanistan’s transitional administration. Karzai was officially elected president in 2004. He appointed Abdullah as his foreign minister.
Today the relationship between Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah has taken an adversarial turn.
Abdullah, who was removed from Karzai’s cabinet in March 2006, declared his candidacy for the office of president in Afghanistan’s elections this week. Going in to the Aug. 20 vote, he was the only candidate with a realistic chance of defeating Karzai, whose popularity has suffered with the resurgence of the Taliban and allegations of corruption within his government. And if the voting follows the polls—which showed Karzai with a clear lead over Abdullah, but short of 50 per cent support—a second-round runoff may be necessary. Abdullah, whose surging campaign drew large and enthusiastic crowds in recent weeks, has an outside chance of an upset. But regardless of the election results, Abdullah has already emerged as a powerful figure on Afghanistan’s political landscape, the first serious democratic opponent Karzai has faced.
Abdullah, whose beard is now more grey than black, has moderate politics. He has promised to defend rights Afghan women gained after the fall of the Taliban and to extend educational opportunities for women into rural areas, where they are currently rare to non-existent. He also says he will fight corruption and decentralize Afghanistan’s government by allowing provincial leaders to be directly elected.
