Kunduz, Afghanistan---The commander known as Pakhsaparan, or the "wall breaker", barked out commands at his bandolier-draped fighters, part of a patchwork of anti-Taliban militias in northern Afghanistan seeking to augment hard-pressed Afghan forces in a strategy fraught with risk.
The Taliban recently came close to overrunning Kunduz city, in the most alarming threat to any provincial capital since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, as the insurgency spreads across the north beyond its traditional southern stronghold.
With Afghan forces suffering record casualties as foreign troops pull back, Kabul is increasingly relying on former mujahideen strongmen with chequered pasts as a bulwark against the insurgents -- a gambit observers say is akin to fighting fire with fire.
Powerful among them is Mohammed Omar -- popularly known by his battlefield moniker Pakhsaparan for his touted ability to flatten walls -- who controls hundreds of fighters in his fiefdom on the banks of the Khanabad River in Kunduz province.
"This is a people's uprising," said Pakhsaparan, with a trimmed snow-white beard and a deep booming voice as he showcased his militia to AFP in Kunduz city, wielding assault rifles, lugging rucksacks with RPG warheads and draped in bandoliers of ammunition.
"The people are prepared to send their sons to the frontlines to fight against the Taliban, to defend their home, their country, their honour and their government."
Kabul has denied arming militias, but Pakhsaparan admitted receiving ammunition from the government and the venue for the interview -- inside the provincial governor's compound -- was testament to the support he draws from local officials.
The mobilisation of militias represents a complete departure from previous government efforts to disarm these groups, blamed for devastating Afghanistan during the civil war in the 1990s and setting the stage for a Taliban takeover.
It also lays bare the shortcomings of the multi-billion dollar US-led effort to develop self-reliant Afghan forces, suffering large daily casualties and struggling to rein in an ascendant insurgency on their own as the war expands on multiple fronts.
"Afghan military and police are incapable of fighting without us," a sub-commander under Mir Alam, an ethnic Tajik and one of the most influential militia leaders, told AFP at his base near Kunduz city.
"They don't have an intimate knowledge of these lands as we do. Without militias Kunduz will fall to the Taliban," he said, sporting a fat gold ring studded with a turquoise gemstone.
AFP
