3. Biodata:
Azizullah was born 1980 in Urgun District. The head of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission Nader Nadery has urged Hamid Karzai’s government and Nato to investigate allegations that the Afghan strongman Commander Azizullah in Paktika Province, who is employed by United States Army Special Forces embarked on a spate of war crimes, including rape, the summary execution of children, and torture (20110323).
The Independent (London) published claims made by a number of independent witnesses – and backed up by several leaked reports including two drafted by UN officials – that Commander Azizullah had exploited his patronage by US Special Forces to wage a campaign of violence against civilians he suspected of sympathising with, or harbouring, the Taliban.
Although a Nato spokesman said the coalition had looked into the allegations 2010 and found nothing, human rights experts say the security force is too often willing to brush aside claims of rights abuses.
Commander Azizullah’s relationship with US Special Forces began in 2001 when he was hired as a mercenary to protect a Special Forces base in Paktika, and by 2007 he had become a commander of some sway. Battlefield reporting published by WikiLeaks noted that he acted with a degree of autonomy, contradicting his own claims.
Azizullah who hails from Paktika Province is operating together with US Special Operations Forces – CIA, Army or Navy is not clear – in the triangle of his hometown Urgun, Barmal and Sarobi, based in Forward Operations Base Shkin south of Barmal and close to the Pakistani border and has ‘launched a two-year spate of violence involving burglary, rape and murder of civilians, desecration of mosques and mutilation of corpses’. Azizullah’s unit is labelled ‘Afghan Security Guard(s)’ (ASG), a term well-known in the areas – sometimes slightly differently called ‘Afghan Guard Force’ (AGF).
A Pashtun cleric said that friction between the Tajik and Pashtun communities in eastern Paktika province, where Azizullah operates, had never been so high.
A Western contractor with first-hand knowledge of the area said: “Tajiks… say the guy is a national hero. [However] they also say, ‘We’ll pay for that’. If the coalition leaves they’ll have to leave too. They disapprove of his actions. If you send a Tajik as sheriff to a Pashtun area you’re bound to fail. It’s a very ethnically polarised area.”
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