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KABUL, Afghanistan — Around 20 guests gathered in a dusty corner of northern Afghanistan on Sunday night to break bread in celebration of a miraculous truce: the coming together of two bitter enemies who had been on opposite sides of the war.
The
centerpiece of the meal was roasted goat, a sacrifice by a father
offered upon the return of his son, for that was what was happening.
Just three months before, the host, Abdul Basir, a government
militia commander, had fired his rifle in the dark of the night
at his son Said Muhammad, a hardened Taliban fighter, and was
sad not to have killed him.
Now, after trying several times to fulfill their vows to kill
each other, the father and son were embracing and exchanging garlands
of plastic flowers in the northern province of Faryab, where their
battle had played out.
“He was my son — but he had been a coward out there
fighting me,” said Mr. Basir, a lanky, cleanshaven commander
in his 40s who has known little but combat since he was 15. Several
of his children and five of his brothers serve in his militia.
“Now I am very happy that he has returned to us. I hugged
him and I said, ‘No matter what you did, you are my son.’”
It was an extraordinary twist, and perhaps not the last, in a
story about how Afghan families have been fodder for a perpetual
war, framed by grand ideologies but more truly depicted in misery
and loss.
Suddenly,
a new chapter was starting. The celebratory feast was cut short
as Mr. Basir’s outposts came under Taliban fire, seemingly
in retaliation for Mr. Muhammad’s switching sides and bringing
with him a couple of his comrades, as well as precious weapons
and ammunition. In a telephone interview, Mr. Basir proudly described
how he and his son hurried to the fight together, with Mr. Muhammad
turning his gun against his old comrades.
Since then, multiple interviews with both father and son, as well
as relatives and officials in Faryab Province, detailed the family’s
ordeal.
For much of his life, Mr. Basir has been a commander in the
northern militia of Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former warlord who
now serves as Afghanistan’s vice president while continuing
to draw accusations of human rights abuses.
Photo
Mr. Basir and his son Mr. Muhammad during an interview with a
television station in Maimana, the capital of Faryab Province,
on Monday after they made peace. Credit Hassan Serdash
Mr. Basir crossed paths with the man who would turn his son against
him in the 1990s, while the Taliban were in power. That man, Mawlawi
Said Hafiz, was a Taliban military commander in Faryab Province,
and Mr. Basir was a militia commander fighting him on behalf of
Mr. Dostum.
After
the 2001 American invasion, Mr. Basir gained the upper hand, but
he forgave Mawlawi Hafiz on the condition that he give up his
links to the Taliban. Mr. Basir said he made Mawlawi Hafiz the
imam of a village mosque, having the congregants pay him a tithe
of wheat for his salary.
Mr. Basir himself tried to take up a civilian life, though he
maintained his cache of weapons and ammunition.
Mawlawi Hafiz was keeping his powder dry, too. He secretly maintained
his links to the Taliban and rose to become a senior judge for
the insurgents’ shadow government in Faryab. After the Taliban
grew stronger in the province in recent years, Mawlawi Hafiz was
in a position to exact revenge.
First,
he recruited Mr. Basir’s teenage son. Mr. Muhammad stole
thousands of his father’s bullets, more than 40 magazines
and a Kalashnikov rifle, and joined the Taliban. “The mullahs
told us: ‘Your father is an infidel — he is supported
by the Americans. You should come join our jihad,’”
Mr. Muhammad recalled. “I had decided to kill him.”
More than three years ago, Mr. Muhammad arrived at home with two
pistols, set to gun down his father. But other villagers had tipped
off Mr. Basir, who overpowered him.
“I wanted to kill him right there, but my relatives said:
‘Let him be. He is your son,’” Mr. Basir recalled.
“I let him live, and convinced him not to return to the Taliban
but join the army.”
Mr.
Muhammad enlisted and joined an army unit sent to the eastern
province of Paktia. But his loyalties had remained with the Taliban.
Every month, he said, he would send his salary of about $202 to
the Taliban, depositing it into an insurgent account.
Back home, Mr. Basir said, he found out about the arrangement
and warned Mr. Muhammad’s superiors to be on watch in case
the young man tried to surrender a post to the insurgents. But
then Mawlawi Hafiz’s Taliban came directly for Mr. Basir.
He was arrested, and only narrowly avoided execution. He and his
second wife and children fled their home, in the Qaisar District
of Faryab.
“We paid money for his release, and all of us left the area,”
said Mr. Basir’s brother Said Abdul Rahim. “But Taliban
continued to burn our five houses and cut down our trees. Then
Basir decided to fight them.”
When
Mr. Muhammad returned from his army base in the east last year,
he went straight to Mawlawi Hafiz in Faryab and rejoined the Taliban
there. As Mr. Muhammad was making his way back to Faryab, Mr.
Basir learned of his son’s plans and set up ambushes.
Mr. Muhammad managed to avoid the traps, but Mr. Basir had made
it his mission to kill his son.
“It is up to God, but I think his blood is legitimate for
me,” Mr. Basir told The New York Times in May, after an unsuccessful
raid to kill his son. In the middle of the night, Mr. Basir’s
men had surrounded their ancestral home village of Zyaratgah,
which remained under Taliban control.
“My mother came and said someone had shot the dog,”
Mr. Muhammad said about that night. “I picked up the weapon
and fired a couple times, but realized they had me surrounded.”
Mr. Muhammad flung himself out a window and ran into the orchards.
Mr. Basir shot some rounds, chased him in vain and then left when
other Taliban arrived to drive off the attack
At the heart of the blood feud, the women of the family were caught
on opposite sides — especially Mr. Muhammad’s mother,
Mr. Basir’s first wife. She remains in Taliban territory,
and could not be reached by telephone this week for comment.
Mr. Rahim, Mr. Basir’s brother, suggested that she was potentially
a factor in Mr. Muhammad’s joining the Taliban.
“Basir’s wife has complained that he married another woman and did not take care of her,” Mr. Rahim said. “So she convinced her son to join the Taliban.”
Mr. Basir insists that his first wife is not angry with him. “Such things happen,” he said. “But I love that wife of mine — she has put up with a lot.”
Mr. Muhammad said: “My mother was on both sides. Sometimes she was on my side, sometimes on my father’s side.”
Mr. Basir could not say what finally changed his mind about his son since trying to ambush him in May. In the months since, he began reaching out to try to persuade Mr. Muhammad to return. The men’s reunion was secured by shuttle diplomacy, with relatives going back and forth between the two. They sought to convince Mr. Muhammad that he was, in effect, burning his own property — seeking to destroy the orchards and home he stood to inherit.
Mr.
Muhammad said he had slowly realized that the Taliban were not
the holy warriors they had portrayed themselves to be. Top commanders
were getting payments, and none was trickling down to fighters
like him.
“I told Muhammad: ‘Your father is a serious enemy of
the Taliban. If the father is an enemy, the son cannot be a friend,’”
said Said Qayum, one of Mr. Basir’s cousins who served as
a go-between.
For now, Mr. Muhammad is fighting on his father’s side. Still,
some in the family and their home district remain skeptical that
someone who was once so determined to kill his own father, and
who barely survived his father’s gunfire, could put it all
behind him. What if he is an infiltrator?
Mr. Basir said he had no doubts.
“I believe him now — he was ignorant. My friends there
told him that your father has killed 300 to 400 Taliban, they
will kill you eventually. They will not leave you alive,”
Mr. Basir said. “I told him, ‘I want to get you married.’”
When asked about that plan, Mr. Muhammad — who years ago
explicitly chose the Taliban rather than bow to his family’s
pressure to marry — had only a hesitant answer: “It’s
not clear now — I can’t say if I will marry.”
