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Afghan power brokers
Toll-taker kingpin
HERAT, AFGHANISTAN - The warlord Ismail Khan holds court in the great hall of his governor's mansion, a palace with ornate Louis XV chairs, Turkmen carpets, and brightly burning chandeliers, in the cultural center of Herat.
By returning from Iran to help evict the Taliban last year, Mr. Khan – a Tajik who prefers to be known as a Farsifan, a Persian speaker – basically regained control of the jugular vein of Afghanistan's economy. This is the point through which all goods, legal and otherwise, come into Afghanistan from Iran and Turkmenistan.
At the customs post on the road that leads from Herat to Iran, some 150 trucks loaded with tires, television sets, and other goods from Iran, as well as 500 mainly reconditioned cars from Dubai destined for Pakistan are processed every day. A similar but smaller form of cross-border activity occurs along the Turkmenistan frontier.
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The Herati leader reportedly earns some $60 to $80 million a year – much of it from the customs duties from these vehicles entering Afghanistan.
As a result, Herat's unofficial governor has become financially independent, far more than any other of Afghanistan's warlords. And with a provincial government whose budget stands at roughly $1 million a month, according to aid sources, this means that he is in the position to purchase significant military support to bolster his region's autonomy.
Both UN and other observers maintain that Khan's financial independence will enable him to continue rebuffing any attempts by the government in Kabul to assert itself in his areas of control, which include portions of at least four other provinces in the so-called Western Region. They believe that the only way to force Khan into accepting the democratic process is through concerted action by all concerned, the Europeans, the Iranians, and, in particular the United States.
"It is clear that unless the United States is willing to play a firmer role in pressuring these warlords nothing is going to happen. They're not going to listen to the EU or the UN," says one international observer.
As one of Afghanistan's most effective commanders during the war against the Soviets in the 1980s, Khan clearly considers himself a man of the people. After that war, in which he gained national recognition by turning on the Soviets and killing several hundred of their soldiers and families, most locals and many observers here considered Khan as moderately peaceful and progressive.
He built a university, for example, and opened trade with Pakistan and Iran, thereby creating many jobs. He imposed a moderate form of Islamic law, which required women to cover their hair, but allowed them to both work and attend segregated schools.
But when the Taliban captured Herat in 1995, Khan fled to Iran. He returned in 1997, declaring he would retake his domain. But he was betrayed by a local commander who handed him over to the Taliban. Khan spent three years in a Kabul prison – reportedly chained to a pipe – before escaping with the help of a loyal supporter.
But many Heratis say that Khan is not the moderate man he once was. Some point to his decision to reestablish a Taliban-like religious police. Women say they are not regarded as active partners in the reconstruction process and are still prohibited from appearing in public without their all-encompassing burqas. And, unlike in Kabul, there is not a single woman working at the city's state-run Radio and Television station.
"One of the big problems is Ismail Khan is not focusing on our needs and our rights," says Permimah, a high school teacher and participant at a recent meeting in western Herat Province where women demanded more seats in the
loya jirga. "We want full rights with men."
"He was once good for Afghanistan," agrees Nuria, a health worker, speaking about Khan, "but now he is only in power because he and his men have guns."
"Something must have happened to him during this period," says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and author of the seminal book "Taliban." Mr. Rashid, who has interviewed Khan repeatedly over the past 20 years, remembers him as a moderate with the interests of his people close at heart.
Khan agrees that Afghans want recovery, particularly peace and security, but he vehemently dismisses any notion that Heratis might be afraid of him.
"The people are desperate to find a way out of their poverty," he says, pointing to a group of women, cloaked in bright blue burqas, sitting in his great hall. "Look at those women who have come to see me in the middle of the night. They are not afraid of our rule. They are afraid of poverty," he says.
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