Abdul Ali Mazari

Abdul Ali Mazari
File:Mazari2.jpg
Born	1946 Chahar Kint, Balkh, Afghanistan
Died	March, 1995 Somewhere in the outskirts of Ghazni, Afghanistan
Occupation(s)	Hazara leader, Leader of Hezbe Wahdat during the Soviet-Afghan War and Afghan Civil War
Notes
Known for his political and military leadership of the Hazaras.

Abdul Ali Mazari (1946 - March 1995) was a militia commander and a political leader of the Hezbe Wahdat during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and after it. He was financed and supported by the Iranian regime and was receiving significant amount of weaponry from them. He spent quite a few years in Iran and Iraq as a student and then a worker for the Revolutionaries who revolted against the Shah or Iran.

Early Life

An ethnic Hazara, Ustad Mazari was born in the village of Charkent, south of the northern city of Mazari Sharif. Hence, his surname is "Mazari". He began his primary schooling in theology at the local school in his village, then went to Mazari Sharif, then Qom in Iran, and then to Najaf in Iraq. Like most of the Hazaras of Afghanistan, Mazari grew up in poverty.

Political Life

In Iran, Mazari was imprisoned and tortured after being accused of conspiracy against the Shah of Iran in assistance with Iranian Shi'ite clerics.

Simultaneously with the occupation of Afghanistan by the Red Army, Mazari returned to his birthplace and gained a prominent place in the anti-Soviet resistance movement. During the first years of the resistance, he lost his young brother, Mohammed Sultan, during a battle against the Soviet-backed forces. He soon lost his sister and other members of his family in the resistance. His uncle, Mohammad Ja'afar, and his son, Mohammad Afzal, were imprisoned and killed by the puppet regime in Kabul. He also lost his father, Haji Khudadad, and his brother, Haji Mohammad Nabi, in the rebellion and resistance movement.

Hizb e Wahdat

Mazari was one of the founding members and the first leader of Hezbe Wahdat Islamic Afghanistan (Islamic Unity Party). In the first Congress of the party, he was elected leader of the Central Committee. During the second Congress, he was elected Secretary General of the Wahdat Party. Mazari's initiative led to the creation of the Jonbesh-e Shamal (Northern Movement), in which the country's most significant military forces joined ranks with the rebels, leading to a coup d'etat and the eventual downfall of the regime in Kabul. Then president of Afghanistan Burhanuddin Rabbani, his closest ally Ahmed Shah Masoud and a wahabi commander Abdurrasul Sayyaf were responsible for the deaths of nearly 800 innocent women and children in the west Kabul district of Afshar, predominantly resided by the Hazara ethnic group. The ethnic genocide was followed by the loss of the district by Hizb-e-Wahdat party which until then had provided the area with utmost internal security and peace. They ordered the heads of his victims to be chopped off and placed on spikes to display the cruelty and merciless nature that others should expect from them.

Civil War

The fall of Kabul to the Mujahideen led the foundation stone of the Afghan Civil War among various factions, parties and ethnic groups. During this period, Mazari led the forces of Hizb e Wahdat who were based in West Kabul. More than twenty-six fierce battles were fought between the Hizb e Wahdat and the forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Abdur Rasool Sayyaf and Abdul Rashid Dostum and ahmad shah massuod. Thanks to the Pashtuns, the result was total destruction of Kabul city and the death of more than 50,000 civilians. More than 900 civilians were massacred in the Hazara dominated district of Afshar in Kabul and many more in Karte Seh, by the invading forces of Abdur Rasool Sayyaf assisted by mainly Sayed traitors in Hizb e Wahdat.

The Massoud-Hekmatyar-Sayyaf triangle never considered Hazaras to be of significance in the Afghan government. Though events in history have always caused political strife, the Hazaras like to group leaders together in such "triangles." The Hazaras had been and have been targets of mass scale ethnic and religious persecution. The Hazaras have often taken their frustrations out on innocent groups and people. It was the Pashtuns who have always enslaved and oppressed the Hazaras. Majority of the Hazaras are followers of the Shi'ite branch of Islam in contrast to the majority faction of Sunnis, which has followers in all the other ethnic groups of Afghanistan. It wasn't until the battle for West Kabul that Hazaras came to global consideration as a potential power in Afghanistan.

The resistance of West Kabul against the occupation forces of Hekmatyar, and Sayyaf lasted until Saturday, 21 Hoot (11 March, 1995). The West Kabul resistance was unique considering the imbalance of forces, weaponry, training and experience between the two sides.

Taliban betrayal and death

Abdul Ali Mazari, right before his death.

Mullah Burjan, the Taliban leader, requested a personal meeting with Mazari. Mazari set off towards Chahar Asiyab in the company of a group of the Central Committee members in a convoy of two cars, whereupon they were betrayed, disarmed and arrested. His forces were disarmed, and soon the whole of West Kabul came under Taliban rule.

Though Mazari and his companions were intended to be transferred in helicopters to Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold. During this last flight the pilots and the helicopter crew were instructed by Taliban commanders, who viewed the Shi'a Hazara leader as an apostate, to take the helicopter to the service ceiling height and ordered to throw the warlord over the solid hills. He was thus brutally murdered somewhere close to the city of Ghazni by being thrown out of the helicopter he was travelling in.