09:55 – Afghanistan: Dostum warlord waited in Kabul after one year of exile

General Abdul Rashid Dostum, feared warlord of northern Afghanistan and first vice-president, is expected Sunday in Kabul after a year of exile in Turkey, officially for health reasons.

Accused of bad on a rival late 2016, Dostum had left the country in May 2017 to escape justice. He will be greeted by a delegation of Afghan officials at Kabul airport, the authorities said.

"At 4:00 pm today (11:30 GMT), General Dostum will land at Kabul International Airport," he said. his spokesman Jamal Nasir Farahmand to AFP. His arrival was also announced to the press by the spokesman of the president, Haroon Chakhansuri.

His portrait sits prominently Sunday morning in the streets of Kabul, along the road to the airport and around the palace presidential: in military uniform, in traditional "chapan" (padded coat) and turban, or in suit and tie – which he rarely wears – his photos are accompanied by "Welcome" in Dari and English

His return has been announced several times, since its departure and discussed between the Afghan presidents Ashraf Ghani and Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Of Uzbek ethnicity, about sixty years old, Dostum collects for decades the facts of war and the worst abuses – as the death of 2,000 Taliban locked up in containers in 2001.

An investigation was opened against him in January 2017 by the Afghan justice under pressure from Westerners after he ordered A personal guard to capture his rival Ahmad Ishchi, a then 63-year-old governor, from sequestering him on his property, then torturing and sodomizing with an AK-47 badault rifle.

– Indignation – [19659002] At the time, the Ministry of Justice had promised "an impartial and transparent investigation into these facts".

Embarrbaded, because Dostum is vice-president of a power with delicate balances, Ashraf Ghani had had to resolve this investigation after the indignation of officials from the United States, the European Union and Canada. [19659002DostumisthesecondAfghanwarlordtoreturntothecapitalwithhonors

In May 2017, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, nicknamed by the press "the butcher of Kabul" for having martyred him by merciless bombing in the 90s, had returned to the Afghan capital after 20 years of absence at the end of an agreement with the government of Ashraf Ghani guaranteeing him impunity.

The Afghan government is in a delicate situation in the north with the push of the Islamic State group in the province of Jawzjan, the stronghold of Dostum and that of the Taliban in the province of Faryab.

Civil unrest has also recently broken out, resulting in several deaths, following the arrest in early July of a relative of Dostum, Nizamuddin Qaisari, commander of the local police also leading a militia of several thousand. men. Accused of insults and death threats to the authorities, he was transferred to Kabul, triggering a series of demonstrations in the province of Faryab.

From Turkey, General Dostum had denounced the arrest of his ally "on the base of false accusations "and warned that the defense of the north and that of the province of Faryab" may now collapse "in the face of Taliban insurgents and IS.

" We are in the street since 20 days now, the government is trying to silence us, but we will continue until Dostum himself comes to tell us to stop, "said Sunday to AFP one of the organizers of the protests and deputy head of the party by Dostum, the Junbish

With the approach of the October parliamentary and presidential elections planned for 2019, Ashraf Ghani needs to bring a minimum of stability to the country, but his offers of peace to the Taliban have remained until present no effect.