AN INVESTIGATION into claims a notorious Afghan warlord led a drunken raid on his neighbour's home, kidnapped its occupants and slapped the owner's wife are threatening to split the country's key power brokers along ethnic lines and plunge its only peaceful region into civil war.
The whisky-swilling warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum was stripped of his position as the army's chief of staff yesterday, amid allegations he had laid siege to a rival commander's home in Kabul.
A spokesman for the interior ministry said: "The
re is no doubt it was an illegal act."
But the ministry has passed responsibility for the investigation to the attorney-general.
Gen Dostum's allies in the Northern Alliance – which includes the country's senior vice-president – have threatened to break away from Kabul if the prosecutor's office pushes ahead with plans to bring him to justice.
The Uzbek commander allegedly led more than 50 armed militiamen in the booze-fuelled attack against the neighbour – one of his former lieutenants.
Police said Gen Dostum's men stormed the home of Akbar Bai, in the diplomatic district of the city, before beating up his children and shooting one of his guards.
Mr Bai, who led Gen Dostum's doomed presidential campaign in 2004, claims he was then dragged back to the warlord's compound in the same neighbourhood and held hostage. He was released and taken to hospital only after a tense stand-off in which police gunmen surrounded Gen Dostum's home.
The attorney-general, Abdul Jabar Sabit, threatened to arrest Dostum unless he answered questions about the attack. He said: "Anyone who commits a criminal act must be brought to justice."
He admitted, however, that the investigation might spark fresh factional fighting in northern Afghanistan.
Gen Dostum has denied the allegations, and his spokesman warned the inquiry could start a new civil war.
Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai's office tried to distance themselves from the row, by claiming Mr Sabit was acting on his own and not on the president's orders. Mr Karzai is mockingly called the "mayor of Kabul" by detractors, who claim his influence stretches no further than the city limits.
Afghan politics is often divided along ethnic lines. Mr Karzai is a Pashtun. His support comes mainly from the east and south, which are also the areas most affected by the insurgency. Afghanistan also has sizeable Tajik, Hazara, Turkmen and Uzbek populations.
The Taleban are also Pashtun. The United States relied on their ethnic enemies to defeat the regime in 2001. As a result, a lot of the warlords behind the bitter civil war were given positions in the new government.
But they continue to operate along sectarian lines. Experts say the Dostum fiasco has shed an unwelcome light on the murky dealings and daily horse-trading that goes on behind the scenes to maintain a semblance of coherent government.
Gen Dostum fought on both sides of the jihad during the Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989. He also swapped sides during the civil war that followed Russia's retreat.
From his stronghold in the north, he resisted the Taleban until 1997, and he was instrumental in helping to oust them from power in 2001.
He is now the leader of a political party and most of his men have been disarmed or incorporated into Afghanistan's army.
Mr Bai, an ethnic Turkman, worked on Gen Dostum's election campaign when he ran against Mr Karzai in 2004, but he has since angered his old boss by setting up a rival party.
The full article contains 591 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
