Afghan Vice President, Ex-Northern Alliance Commander, Dies
KABUL: (MEP) – Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim of Afghanistan, a formidable power broker and former warlord who played a crucial role in ousting the Taliban and shaping the political order that followed, died on Sunday, less than a month before Afghans were to elect a new leader.
Mr. Fahim, who was said to be either 56 or 57, died of a heart attack, according to a close friend and political ally, Maulavi Ata ul Rahman Salim.
His sudden death created a rift at the center of the Afghan political power structure, removing a crucial player from the factional and ethnic landscape as well as cabinet politics. Mr. Fahim was a foremost leader of the country’s ethnic Tajik minority, and a powerful and early voice in bringing the support of northern warlords to President Hamid Karzai and helping keep peace with Afghan Pashtuns.
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“It is with deep sadness that we learn of the passing away of Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim,” Mr. Karzai’s office said, declaring three days of national mourning.
Now, on the brink of new presidential elections, Afghan and Western leaders had again been looking to Mr. Fahim as a potential peacemaker amid a critical leadership transition in wartime. But his legacy is a controversial one, and his Western backers and other former allies distanced themselves from Mr. Fahim in recent years amid continuing accusations of corruption and human rights abuses.
Like many here, Mr. Fahim was catapulted to power by the American-led invasion of Afghanistan.
He came to lead the Northern Alliance, a group of militias struggling against the Taliban, just before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and after assassins for Al Qaeda killed the coalition’s founder, Ahmad Shah Massoud. The alliance’s forces were embattled and outgunned, and Mr. Fahim’s position as their leader was hardly secure.
But by the end of that month, the United States turned Mr. Fahim into its first proxy in the fight against the militants, and operatives for the Central Intelligence Agency were giving him backpacks stuffed with dollars as American jets bombed the Taliban government’s forces. Within a year, Mr. Fahim had parlayed his ties to the United States into a dominant role in the nascent Afghan government and begun building a vast patronage network that would enrich his family and his standing within the Tajik faction. He would also solidify his reputation for violently taking on rivals and critics.
A statement from Mr. Karzai’s office said Mr. Fahim had died of an unspecified “illness.” Mr. Salim, Mr. Fahim’s close friend, said the vice president, a diabetic, had been experiencing chest pains for the past three days, and had been in declining health after heart surgery a few years ago.
“He died of his heart disease; it was a heart attack,” Mr. Salim said in an interview. He said Mr. Fahim was 56, though other reports said he was 57.
His death raised questions about the politics surrounding the presidential election and the country’s leadership as Afghans prepare to face the Taliban insurgency without the help of American troops.
Mr. Fahim had not publicly backed any candidate, but he was widely believed to favor the leading opposition candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, a fellow member of the now-defunct Northern Alliance. Mr. Abdullah is half Tajik and widely identified with that ethnic group. Both he and Mr. Fahim are from the Panjshir Valley, a narrow sliver north of Kabul where the Northern Alliance was based.
But Mr. Fahim had privately assured Mr. Karzai that if Mr. Abdullah lost, he would use his influence to keep Tajiks from rejecting the winner and provoking a political crisis at a dangerous time, according to Afghans and Western officials with knowledge of internal Afghan government discussions. Most observers expect that the next Afghan president will most likely be Pashtun.
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In confirming Mr. Fahim’s death, the presidential palace made no mention of who would replace Mr. Fahim, whose formal title was first vice president. Mr. Fahim also held the honorary military rank of field marshal, which Mr. Karzai had bestowed on him for his service fighting the Taliban and battling Soviet troops in the 1980s.
After the news began circulating on Sunday, heavily armed police officers cordoned off Mr. Fahim’s neighborhood in Kabul, and a carpet was laid out on the street leading to his house. Throughout the day, politicians, military officers and tribal elders from across Afghanistan made their way up the carpet to pay their respects, and ordinary Afghans milled about outside the house.
Foreign officials and Western diplomats (many had been sharply critical of Mr. Fahim and wary of the accusations surrounding him) paid their respects, as well, though some were more effusive than others.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan called him “a good and trusted partner.”
Sir Richard Stagg, the British ambassador, said in a statement that he was “shocked to hear of the untimely death earlier today of First Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim.”
But the statement appeared carefully worded not to offer direct praise of Mr. Fahim. “Marshal Fahim was a major figure in Afghanistan’s recent history, not least during the Mujahedeen struggle against Soviet occupation, and will be missed by many,” it said.
The American-led coalition was even more restrained. It offered condolences to Mr. Fahim’s family and said its “thoughts and prayers” were with them and the Afghan government.
Jawad Sukhanyar and Hares Kakar contributed from Kabul
