A 'global terrorist' comes in from the cold: Afghan warlord was ally of CIA, then Osama bin Laden

He  was a CIA ally against the Soviet Union, a friend of Osama bin Laden and a ruthless insurgent leader whose forces killed thousands of civilians during the Afghan civil war.

Now the inveterate militant Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is trying to open a new chapter by making peace with the Afghan government.

Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-i-Islami militant organization, is reportedly close to a truce that would end nearly two decades in exile for one of the most enduring and controversial figures in the long Afghan conflict.

Now in his 60s, Hekmatyar has been exiled since the Taliban came to power in 1996 and drove him out of the country. Hezb-i-Islami is often described as the second largest insurgent group in Afghanistan, but his fighters have little presence on the battlefield and many of Hekmatyar’s former loyalists have defected to the much larger Taliban.

Still, a deal would be a slight boost for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, whose effort to make peace with Afghanistan’s insurgent groups has been flagging while the Taliban continues to battle government forces.

The outlines of an agreement, which were reported by multiple sources on Saturday, would require Hezb-i-Islami’s military wing to lay down its arms, respect the Afghan Constitution and cut off ties with any other armed opposition groups.

“Hekmatyar has not been a major force in the war in quite a while,” Daudzai said.

Once one of the favorite clients in Afghanistan for U.S. and Pakistani intelligence, Hekmatyar gained a reputation as a power-hungry extremist who came to denounce his U.S. patrons. After taking CIA support to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, he battled his fellow mujahideen commanders during a bloody civil war in the 1990s.

His forces and other factions shelled Kabul indiscriminately during those years and are accused of causing thousands of civilian deaths. He negotiated his way to the prime ministership before the Taliban pushed him out when it came to power.

The talks between Hekmatyar’s group and the government’s High Peace Council were reportedly held in Kabul over the last two months. In an interview with the Pajhwok news agency, Mohammad Amin Karim, the group’s lead negotiator, said Hekmatyar’s return to Afghanistan was up in the air but the group asked for Kabul to seek the removal of his name from the U.S. blacklist. 

“Many Afghans revile Hekmatyar because his forces relentlessly and indiscriminately rocketed and shelled Kabul in the early 1990s,” said Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch. “His forces weren’t the only ones to do it, but they carried out some of the worst attacks, killing and wounding thousands.”

“They are ending their lives,” the Afghan first lady told an audience at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington over the weekend. “If they want to come to Afghanistan and finish their lives where they were born, I think it is only the human way to say, ‘OK, you come, but we put some conditions.’” - Read More at the latimes

A 'global terrorist' comes in from the cold: Afghan warlord was ally of CIA, then Osama bin Laden