Asia Times: Islamabad plays its wild card


	October 5, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Islamabad plays its wild card
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Behind the scenes horse trading continues apace over the composition of a post-Taliban administration in Afghanistan, with Pakistan expressing its strong objections to the United States to any government formed by a belligerent former monarch or by a volatile, fractious Northern Alliance.

The US is believed to favor a government headed by former king Zahir Shah, with support from the various groups within the Northern Alliance, which is fighting in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban, and which favors India rather than Pakistan.

Initially, Pakistan wanted to cultivate the less radical leadership within the Taliban to replace the hardline hierarchy of Mullah Omar. However, after receiving signals from the US that it would not accept any form of Taliban government, with or without Mullah Omar, the decision-makers within the Pakistani military regime began to scout around for someone with whom they had long-standing connections and who would also be acceptable to the majority of the Afghan factions, as well as to the US.

And they have come up with Syed Ahmed Gialani of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, one of the groups within the now defunct seven-member Islamic alliance that fought against invading Soviet forces for 10 years until they left the country in 1989. Gialani remained on the scene in Afghanistan until the emergence of the Taliban in the mid-1990s.

Former Pakistan president Sardar Farooq Ahmed Leghari has played a key role in identifying Gialani, convincing President General Pervez Musharraf that there is no better compromise choice as prime minister of a new Afghanistan. Leghari's mother was related through marriage to Gialani.

Gialani would appear to be a good candidate. He comes from the spiritual Syed family, which migrated from Baghdad in Iraq three generation ago and in a short time gathered a huge following of disciples across Afghanistan. He is considered a relative liberal, and importantly, he could head off the former king's challenge without too much acrimony.

Gialani's family has been close to Zahir Shah's family for generations. Gialani's father, who was popularly known as Sher Agha (Agha is the supreme title of the Syed family in Afghanistan) was a confidante and trouble-shooter for the king during tribal wars during his reign, which ended in 1973. The king knew that Sher Agha could reconcile warring factions because many of them were his spiritual disciples. As a result, there is a strong chance that with these bonds, the former king will gather his support around Gialani.

The Pakistan government prefers Gialani even though he was at odds with the groups who were supported by its Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) during the Afghan war against the Soviets. This is because of Zahir Shah's stance on the issue of a separate Pashtun state. The majority of the Afghan population is ethnic Pashtun, while the restive tribal areas on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan are also mostly Pashtun. The former monarch promoted the concept of a separate state at the behest of the Soviet Union and India, with whom Afghanistan, under the king, had very strong trade ties. Pakistan is bitterly opposed to a Pashtun state.

Gialani, meanwhile, has maintained good connections with successive Pakistani governments, even though he has not been given as much importance as leaders of other groups by the ISI. This is because he has had only a small number of fighters in Afghanistan, and because the ISI resents his family ties with Zahir Shah.

Gialani has already met with many senior army officials in Islamabad. According to sources, another important person from the Afghan resistance movement during the Russian invasion, commander Abdul Haq, is also in the capital for talks with officials. Similarly, Nabi Mohammedi of the Harkatul Inqalab-i-Islami, another member of former Islamic alliance, is meeting with top army officials.

Sources say that the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdus Salam Zaeef, has gone to Kandahar with a message from Islamic scholars for Mullah Omar in which they agree that the Taliban should send a high-level delegation to Islamabad to participate in talks on the future set-up for Afghanistan.

If such a delegation arrives in Islamabad on Friday, it will be on the same day that British Prime Minister Tony Blair pays a four-hour visit.

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