Mohammed Fahim - obituary

Mohammed Fahim, who has died of a heart attack aged 56 or 57, was a controversial figure in Afghanistan, where his title was first vice president; for critics of western involvement in the country, he illustrated the futility of trying to introduce liberal democracy into a society riven by ethnic and tribal divisions.

When he was chosen by Hamid Karzai as his running mate in the presidential election of 2009, Fahim had a reputation as one of Afghanistan’s most powerful, brutal and corrupt warlords. Karzai’s decision to include him on his ticket dismayed international backers on a drive to put Afghanistan on the road to stability.

In 2005 Human Rights Watch had described Fahim as “one of the most notorious warlords in the country, with the blood of many Afghans on his hands”. The charity implicated Fahim in abuses - including torture and murder - in the civil war that erupted in the 1990s between Mujahideen factions that had driven out the Soviets and their communist allies.

Fahim, who had subsequently served as defence minister then vice president in the Afghan Transitional Administration established in December 2001, was also alleged to be behind a string of more recent abuses, including assassinations and involvement with Kabul criminal gangs involved in abductions, weapons and drugs smuggling.

Many Afghans were suspicious of the wealth Fahim had accrued since the ousting of the Taliban, thanks to his access to power and foreign aid. He made no attempt to disguise his riches, maintaining a large “security detail” and building a series of homes where visitors would be treated to private games of Buzkashi, in which men on horseback fight for control of a headless goat.

But for Karzai such considerations were trumped by Fahim’s status as a leading member of Afghanistan’s Tajik minority (the second largest ethnic grouping after Karzai’s Pashtun community), which helped to split the Tajik vote which might otherwise have gone to Karzai’s Tajik rival, Abdullah Abdullah.

Despite the allegations against him, Fahim is thought to have played a generally positive role in helping to unite Tajiks and Pashtuns in Afghanistan’s multi-ethnic government, but he was also thought to have been behind a crackdown in 2010 on the country’s media following mounting criticism over corruption. A series of scandals, including a run on Kabul Bank, in which brothers of Karzai and Fahim had stakes but which turned out to be little more than a Ponzi scheme, had shaken Afghans’ confidence in their government – a resentment exploited by the Taliban insurgency.

^{Fahim delivering a speech in Kabul in 2012 (AFP)}

The Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan, published earlier this year, described Fahim as “a semi-literate, self-appointed field marshal, and one of the principal obstacles to Afghan unity because of his alleged ruthless threats, beatings and general thuggery”. But the United Nations, perhaps reflecting international nervousness in the run-up to presidential elections next month, struck a more conciliatory note after his death, describing him as a “good and trusted partner” of the UN mission in Afghanistan.

The son of a Muslim cleric, Mohammed Qasim Fahim was born in 1957 in a small village in the Panjshir Valley, and went on to study Islamic law in Kabul.

He first came to prominence as a Mujahideen commander for the Northern Alliance coalition of guerrilla fighters led by Ahmed Shah Massood during the campaign against Soviet occupation from 1979.

After the collapse of the pro-Soviet regime in 1992, he became a key figure in Massoud’s United Front government, heading its intelligence operations. He was known to use torture and, on one occasion, ordered the arrest of his future ally, Hamid Karzai, then the deputy foreign minister, on suspicion of spying for a rival faction within the government. The future president managed to escape when a rocket hit the prison where he was being held.

After the Taliban took power in 1996, Fahim retreated to the Panjshir to continue the campaign against the Taliban, both in the valley and in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where fighting erupted in 1997.

He emerged into the international limelight in September 2001 after Massoud’s assassination by Tunisian Islamist militants posing as journalists two days before the 9/11 attacks in the United States. By the end of the month, as commander of the Northern Alliance, Fahim had become America’s main proxy in the fight against the Taliban.

Fahim backed Hamid Karzai to lead the new UN-brokered interim government and in exchange was named defence minister. But within months American officials are said to have picked up intelligence that Fahim was considering an attempt to assassinate Karzai, as a result of which, in July 2002, US Special Forces wrested presidential bodyguard duties away from soldiers loyal to Fahim. The move followed the assassination earlier in the month of one of Karzai’s vice presidents, Abdul Qadir, a powerful Pashtun warlord and Karzai ally.

^{Mohammed Fahim with Hamid Karzai in 2011 (AP)}

Karzai was criticised for bringing Fahim into government. However his defenders argued that he had little choice after the international community deprived him of the resources he needed in the years immediately after 2001. One revealing story tells how when Karzai flew in a US military aircraft to Kabul after the defeat of the Taliban, Fahim arrived to greet him on the tarmac with nearly 100 bodyguards, all bristling with weapons. As Karzai emerged from the plane with just four companions, Fahim looked confused. “Where are your men?” he asked. “Why General,” replied Karzai, “you are my men — all of you are Afghans and are my men — we are united now — surely that is why we fought the war and signed the Bonn agreement?”

But Fahim remained unconvinced and, as defence minister, was accused of delaying reforms that would have required him to replace his Tajik generals with a more ethnically balanced officer corps – a precondition for carrying out a $200 million UN-sponsored plan to pay off and disarm 100,000 militiamen loyal to the warlords.

When Afghans finally got a chance to elect their president for the first time, in 2004, Karzai bowed to international pressure not to put Fahim on his ticket, though he later gave the man he called “my close friend and confidant” the honorary title of “marshal for life”. But Fahim remained a powerful figure and in 2006 Karzai, faced with a resurgent Taliban, returned him to government as an adviser.

Fahim survived several Taliban assassination attempts, but in later years was beset by health problems which required hospital treatment in Germany.

His death, which comes only a few weeks before Karzai is due to step down from the presidency, and as Nato forces pull out of Afghanistan , has added to the prevailing atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

Fahim is survived by his wife, Nahid, and by four children.

Mohammed Fahim, born 1957, died March 9 2014

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