mediacongo.net – News – Afghanistan: Strong explosion at Kabul airport after General Dostum returns

The Uzbek warlord had been leaving the airport for a few minutes when the bomb exploded. The explosion caused by a suicide bomber made " eleven dead and 14 wounded ", according to a new report given by the spokesman of the Kabul police, Hashmat Stanikzai. It occurred at the gates of the airport as the official convoy left in the middle of a dense crowd.

There was a crowd this Sunday at Kabul airport to welcome General Dostum, this veteran of decades of Afghan wars, leader of the Uzbek community, who had fled to Turkey to escape prosecution for kidnapping, torture and rape of a political opponent in 2016.

Despite the crimes with which he is accused, Vice-President was welcomed by a government delegation and many supporters came to greet their leader.

No sooner did he board an armored vehicle escort than a very loud explosion sounded, a powerful suicide bombing kills many civilians, including a child and members of the security services

His return reportedly negotiated with Afghan authorities after several days of unrest and demonstrations in the north-west of the country, mostly populated by Uzbeks. The protesters demanded the return of Dostum and the release of a warlord next to the general who was arrested on Monday and transferred to Kabul for insults and death threats against the Afghan authorities.

General Dostum was on board a plane specially chartered by the government. He is the second warlord to return to the capital with honors, after Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, returned triumphantly to the country after 20 years of exile.

Back on the route of General Dostum

Abdul Rashid Dostum is a warlord and the charismatic and controversial leader of the Uzbek community, the majority in the northern provinces of Afghanistan.

Sixty years old, Dostum fought with and against the forces Soviet Union and participated in the formation of the Northern Alliance against the Taliban in the late 1990s. It collects since the late 70s, the facts of war as the worst abuses. He is responsible, among other things, for the deaths of 2,000 Taliban prisoners in 2001, who were suffocated in containers in which they had been locked up in the middle of the desert.

Unhappy candidate for the presidency in the 2004 elections, he held the position of leader Army Staff and is currently Vice-President of Afghanistan and Leader of the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan. He and other opposition leaders are launching an ephemeral alliance called the Ankara Triangle .

In 2017 an investigation is opened under pressure from the US European Union and Canada following a sordid affair of rape . The general would have ordered his personal guard to capture his rival Ahmad Ishchi, a former governor. The latter was reportedly kidnapped, tortured and finally sodomized with the cannon of a Kalashnikov.

To escape justice, Dostum left his country in May 2017, taking refuge in Turkey, officially for health reasons. After several weeks of unrest and demonstrations by his supporters, President Ashraf Ghani finally authorized Abdul Rashid Dostum to return to the country.