Afghanistan: Sheberghan captured, prisoners freed – Taliban

A video circulating on social media shows hundreds of inmates leaving a prison which is allegedly located in Sheberghan, Jowzjan.

The Taliban had attacked the city earlier today and are now claiming to have freed all of the prisoners. Sheberghan being the second major city now under Taliban control after Zaranj fell on Friday.

Sheberghan is also the stronghold of the infamous warlord Rashid Dostum who had returned to Afghanistan from Turkey and the minute he landed, Taliban fighters went outside his mansion to take pictures and send him a message.

Dostum’s supporters led by his son were defending the city but have seemingly failed as the Taliban have claimed victory.

They had already taken the Governor’s compound on Friday, which was then reclaimed in a counteroffensive but now the city has finally fallen, and Rashid Dostum who has been accused of shooting and suffocating about 2000 Taliban fighters in 2001 is now counting his options against the Taliban who have blood in their eyes.

The Taliban to this day have not forgotten the Dasht-e-Leili massacre, where their fighters had dropped arms and surrendered to Dostum but he ordered them to be transported inside locked shipping containers, resulting in their deaths.

Dostum was also involved in skirmishes with other ethnicities and warlords in the Northern region of Afghanistan after the Taliban’s ouster.

He also survived an assassination attempt in 2003 and mainly lived in Turkey. When he was past of the Karzai Administration, he was accused of kidnapping and torturing a political rival, the accusation resulted in his suspension.

Later on in 2009, Dostum looked to garner US support for himself when he returned to Afghanistan from Turkey. In a bid to revive his political career and come to power, he said in a speech that the US needs strong friends like him.

He succeeded in coming to power, at least as the first VP of Afghanistan with Ashraf Ghani as President after the latter won the 2014 Presidential Elections.

Dostum then issued an apology in the media for the “mistakes” that were made during the civil war and to apologize to the people who suffered from the violence and the civil war in general. But it wasn’t long before Dostum returned to his old ways, in 2016 it was reported that forces loyal to Dostum had targeted and killed over a dozen civilians who they claimed were supporters of the Taliban.

Later in the same year Dostum had his political rival beaten up, then abducted and raped with a gun during the abduction that lasted for 5 days. The entire incident being filmed. Dostum denied all of this but then took refuge or was forced into exile in Turkey.

Since then, Dostum has survived three assassination attempts, and with the Taliban now seizing control of his city in his province, it is unclear what Dostum is now looking for.

With the Afghan forces’ inability to efficiently fight the Taliban it looks like dialogue would be the only useful option left for him unless he can gather support from the outside World, an outside World that very much knows Rashid Dostum and what he has done, an outside World which would eventually work with the Taliban if they come into power peacefully.

Rashid Dostum’s fate is uncertain, he remained a warlord all his life and just like how he didn’t forget the massacre of “his people” at the hands of other warlords, the Taliban too still remember what he has done. Judging by their recent actions it doesn’t look like they have modernized their way of thinking to forgive Dostum and his people, but violence begets violence, which of course is something none of the Afghan groups understand.

Taliban and Afghan forces, along with Dostum’s men are battling near and around the army base. With the rest of the city under Taliban control, the fighters would have the key checkpoints to stop or slow down incoming reinforcements.

Having captured their second provincial capital, it is only a matter of time or days before the Taliban seize control of all of Afghanistan and surround Kabul, then waiting for the Ghani Administration to surrender or broker a peace deal, which some optimists still hope for.

We will never know about the hidden violence that has spiked across Afghanistan, and after the Taliban takeover if a civil war ensues then we will once again see the ethnic cleansings, religious persecution, draconian laws, tribal warfare and the worst kind of communal violence, etc. Ever recorded.

Afghanistan is heading towards another uncertain future and the only way out for its people to find everlasting peace is if all the groups drop arms and resolve issues at the table. Issues that one must admit may never be resolved unless the groups and their leaders are all educated enough to tolerate each other and exit the feudal mindset that has plagued them for so long.