Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin

The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin is the larger of two factions of Afghanistan's Hezbi Islami Party. Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, (HIG) is considered a terrorist organization by Coalition Forces in Afghanistan.

The original Hezb-e-Islami was founded in 1977 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is now the head of Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, (HIG). The other faction is headed by Mulavi Younas Khalis who split with Hekmatyar and established his own Hezbi Islami in 1979. It is known as the Khalis faction, and its powerbase is in Nangarhar.

History

During the Soviet War in Afghanistan, Hekmatyar and his party operated near the Pakistani border against Soviet Communists. Areas such as Kunar, Laghman, Jalalabad, and Paktia were Hezb-e Islami's strongholds. The party is highly centralized under Hekmatyar's command and until 1994 had close relations with Pakistan, from which it received as much $600 million in U.S. aid money to fight the war with the Soviets. Despite its ample funding, it has been described as having

the dubious distinction of never winning a significant battle during the war, training a variety of militant Islamists from around the world, killing significant numbers of mujahideen from other parties, and taking a virulently anti-Western line. In addition to hundreds of millions of dollars of American aid, Hekmatyar also received the lion's share of aid from the Saudis. [Bergen, Peter L., "Holy war, Inc. : inside the secret world of Osama bin Laden", New York : Free Press, c2001., p.69]

Frustrated by the enormously destructive warlord feuding in Afghanistan, including the Hebi Islami shelling of Kabul in April 1992, Pakistan abandoned HIG for the Taliban in 1994. The bombardment of the capital by HIG in 1994, for example, is reported to have "resulted in the deaths of more than 25,000 civilians." cite news
url=http://www.jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=325
date=June 29 2008
title=Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Return to the Afghan Insurgency
author=Muhammad Tahir
publisher=Jamestown Foundation
accessdate=2008-07-02]

HIG was expelled from Kabul by the Taliban in September 1996 and many of its local commanders joined the Taliban "both out of ideological sympathy and for reason of tribal solidarity." ["The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism", Olivier Roy, Antoine Sfeir, editors, (2007), p.133] In Pakistan Hezb-e-Islami training camps "were taken over by the Taliban and handed over" to Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) groups such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). [Rashid, "Taliban", (2000), p.92]

After 2001

Hekmatyar opposed the 2001 American attack on the Taliban and continues to fight the American-supported Karzai government. Prior to Afghanistan's 2004 elections 150 members of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin party were reported to have defected to Hamid Karzai's administration.cite web
url=http://iwpr.net/?p=arr&s=f&o=153243&apc_state=heniarr2004
title=Commanders Line Up Behind Karzai
date=September 14 2004
accessdate=January 15
accessyear=2007
publisher="Institute for War & Peace Reporting"] Jamestown Foundation reports that according to Deputy Speaker of Parliament Sardar Rahmanoglu, HIA members "today occupy around 30 to 40 percent of government offices, from cabinet ministers to provisional and other government posts."

The HIG has previously had operations in Pakistan, and is now said to have allied with Mullah Omar and the remnant Taliban. One recent report estimated that HIG and the Taliban now command a comparable number of fighters. Fact|date=May 2007 "The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism" reports that having lost Saudi support when it supported Saddam Hussein and Pakistani support after 1994, "the remainder of Hizb-i Islmi merged into al-Qaeda and the Taliban." ["The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism", Olivier Roy, Antoine Sfeir, editors, (2007), p.133] Radio Free Europe reports that "in 2006, Hekmatyar appeared in a video aired on the Arabic language Al-Jazeera television station and declared he wanted his forces to fight alongside Al-Qaeda." [ [http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/07/6B452D3C-A2E0-459E-9CE9-939411D50A04.html Afghanistan: Skeptics Urge Caution Over Purported Hekmatyar Cease-Fire] July 19, 2007]

According to Le Monde newspaper it is currently active around Mazari Sharif and Jalalabad [ [http://www.lemonde.fr/web/infog/0,47-0@2-3216,54-905049@51-907647,0.html Le Monde.fr : Les zones d'influence talibanes en Afghanistan] ] .

In May 2008, the Jamestown Foundation reported that after being "sidelined from Afghan politics" since the mid-1990s, HIG "has recently reemerged as an aggressive militant group, claiming responsibility for many bloody attacks against Coalition forces and the administration of President Hamid Karzai."

Accused combatant prisoners at Guantanamo

Dozens of inmates at the United States prison at Guantanamo Bay faced allegations that they had been associated with the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin.

Originally the Bush Presidency asserted it was not obliged to let any captives apprehended in Afghanistan know why they were being held, or to provide a venue where they could challenge the allegations against them. However, the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul v. Bush required the institution of a review. The Supreme Court recommended the reviews be modeled after the Army Regulation 190-8 Tribunals that were ordinarily used to determine whether captives were innocent civilians who should be released, lawful combatants entitled to Prisoner of War status, or war criminals who could be tried, and who weren't protected by all the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

The Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants (OARDEC). OARDEC administered an initial Combatant Status Review Tribunal for the 558 Guantanamo captives who were still in the detention camp as of August 2004. Unlike the AR 190-8 Tribunals, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals were not authorized to determine whether captives were entitled to POW status, only whether they were "enemy combatants. OARDEC also administered annual Administrative Review Board hearings. The Boards were only authorized to make a recommendation as to whether captives might represent an ongoing threat, or might continue to hold intelligence value, and therefore should continue to be held in US custody.

Close to 10,000 pages of documents from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and Administrative Review Board hearings were released after contested Freedom of Information Act requests.

Dozens of captives faced allegations that they had been associated with the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin. Some of the documents just alleged that a captive was associated with Hezb-e-Islami, without explaining why this implied they were an "enemy combatant". Other documents did provide brief explanations as how an association with Hezb-e-Islami implied a captive was an "enemy combatant". Neither Hezb-e-Islami nor Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin are on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations and they never have been; [ [http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rpt/fto/2001/5258.htm "2001 Report on Foreign Terrorist Organizations"] , [http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2002/12535.htm "Fact Sheet: Foreign Terrorist Organizations List" October 23, 2002] , [http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2003/17065.htm "Fact Sheet: Foreign Terrorist Organizations List" January 30, 2003] , [http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2004/40945.htm "Fact Sheet: Foreign Terrorist Organization Designations Table" December 30, 2004] , [http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm "Fact Sheet:Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)" October 11, 2005] , [http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2005/65275.htm "Country Reports on Terrorism: Chapter 8 -- Foreign Terrorist Organizations" April 28, 2006] ] neither are they on the additional list called "Groups of Concern." [ [http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/April/20070425112939idybeekcm0.9128382.html "U.S. Designates Foreign Terrorist Organizations: List includes 42 groups, 43 others deemed “of concern”" April 30, 2007] ]

ee also

*Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin identity card

References