Abdul Momim
Encyclopedia
During the Civil war in Afghanistan
Civil war in Afghanistan
The Afghan civil war began when the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan took power in a military coup, known as the Saur Revolution, on 27 April 1978. Most of Afghanistan subsequently experienced uprisings against the unpopular Marxist-Leninist PDPA government. The Soviet Union...

, General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 Abdul Momim or Abdul Mumin(?-January 5, 1994), was an ethnic Tajik officer who played a crucial role in the downfall of the government of Mohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai , originally merely Najibullah, was the fourth and last President of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is also considered the second President of the Republic of Afghanistan.-Early years:Najibullah was born in August 1947 to the Ahmadzai...

. In January 1992 he joined Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Rashid Dostum is a former pro-Soviet fighter during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and is considered by many to be the leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community and the party Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan...

 to form the Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan
Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan
The National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan is an Uzbek political party in Afghanistan. Its leader is General Abdul Rashid Dostum....

.

During the 1990s Najibullah's regime had grown to rely on pro-government militias to fight the Mujahideen insurgency. Abdul Momim was a trained army officer who had proved capable of winning over members of the insurgency and had been given command of a militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...

 unit. Officially called the 70th division
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...

, this unit was based at Hairatan
Hairatan
Hairatan is a border town in the north of Balkh province, Afghanistan, on the Amu Darya river. The river forms the border with Uzbekistan, and the two nations are connected by the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge. The city of Termez in Uzbekistan is close to Hairatan...

, the strategic border crossing in northern Afghanistan. Despite being nominally loyal to the Kabul regime, Momim used his position to divert supplies to fellow militia leader Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Rashid Dostum is a former pro-Soviet fighter during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and is considered by many to be the leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community and the party Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan...

, while at the same time giving intelligence to guerilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.

In January 1992, Najibullah tried to reassert his command over his supply lines by replacing the non-Pashtun
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...

 militia leaders with Pashtun officers. His first move was to replace Abdul Momim with General Rasul, a Pashtun Khalqi notorious for his brutal tenure as commander of the Pul-e-Charkhi prison
Pul-e-Charkhi prison
Pul-e-Charkhi , also known as Afghan National Detention Facility, is the largest prison in Afghanistan east of Kabul. Construction of the jail began in the 1970s by order of former president Mohammed Daoud Khan and was completed during the 1980s...

. Momim refused to leave his post, and quickly garnered support from Dostum, who arranged an alliance with Ismaili
Ismaili
' is a branch of Shia Islam. It is the second largest branch of Shia Islam, after the Twelvers...

 militia commander Sayed Mansur Naderi
Sayed Mansur Naderi
Sayed Mansur Naderi is the leader of Afghanistan's Ismaili Shi'a Muslim community, holding the traditional position of Sayed of Kayan based in Baghlan Province. He is a member of the parliament of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan since 2005. His son Sayed Jafar Naderi also achieved note as a...

. This coalition, which became the Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan
Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan
The National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan is an Uzbek political party in Afghanistan. Its leader is General Abdul Rashid Dostum....

(National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan), allied with Massoud and overrran much of northern Afghanistan with little fighting. On March 19, they captured Mazar-i-Sharif.

After the demise of Najibullah, a new phase in the civil war began. Momim's division was still stationed in Hairatan, but he also had some forces in Kabul. He remained within Junbish, but he also had good relations with Massoud, and in 1993 he began to expand his influence by creating other military units. In January 1994, he died in a mysterious helicopter crash, which was widely blaimed on Dostum. His death came at a time when Junbish's Tajik commanders fiercely opposed Dostum's decision to ally with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan Mujahideen leader who is the founder and leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party and paramilitary group. Hekmatyar was a rebel military commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and was one of the key figures in the civil war that followed the...

's Hezbi Islami
Hezbi Islami
Hezbi Islami , meaning Islamic Party is an Islamist organization commonly known for fighting in the Marxist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union. Founded and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it was established in Pakistan in 1975...

 against Massoud. Following Momim's death, most of his forces joined Junbish, but some of those stationed in Kabul joined Jamiat-e Islami
Jamiat-e Islami
Jamiat-e Islami , is an Islamic political party in Afghanistan along the line of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Jamiat-e Islami means "Islamic society" in the Persian language and is also known as just Jamiat for short. Jamiat is the oldest Islamic political party in Afghanistan...

.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK