Ironically, Haji Abdul Qadir, who was assassinated on July 6th aged around 50, was reluctant to accept one of Afghanistan's five vice-presidential posts in the government that President Hamid Karzai formed last month.
Already a prominent Pashtun, he did not want to give up his powerful position. He had been governor of his mountainous home province of Nangarhar from 1992 to 1996, and, after the fall of the Taliban last November, sped back to the regional capital Jalalabad to resume the post. Pivotal in the relationship between the vital eastern province and Kabul, he was already urban development minister, following the formation of Afghanistan's preceding interim administration.
Karzai's policy has been to strengthen his central authority, and supposedly generate security and stability, by gathering powerful regional leaders in Kabul. Elevating Qadir was also part of that complex process of providing ethnic balance within the government, after complaints from Pashtuns that they were being sidelined.
Qadir fitted Karzai's bill. Energetic, dynamic and moderate, he had been vice-chairman of the Northern Alliance delegation at the Bonn talks, sponsored by the United Nations last December, which established Afghanistan's post-Taliban interim administration. Unhappy about what he saw as inadequate Pashtun representation, Qadir briefly stormed out of those discussions; but he returned and, indeed, became a minister while still retaining his hold on power in Nengarhar. His vice-presidential appointment helped Karzai to win Pashtun support in the June loya jirga (or great gathering) of leaders and elders. In the wake of his death, Karzai has not only lost a key ally in the centre but also faces a potential power vacuum in the east.
Qadir was a veteran mujahedeen commander, and a controversial military and political figure. A Pashtun from the Ahmadzai tribe, he belonged to one of the most influential, affluent and prominent families in the east of Afghanistan.
His involvement in Afghan politics predated the 1979 Soviet invasion but, during the ensuing war, he was a key commander with the Hezb-I-Islami (Islamic Party) led by conservative cleric Younis Khalis. It was after the fall of Dr Najibullah's government in 1992 - the final legacy of the pro-Soviet era - that he was appointed governor of Nengarhar province. But he was driven out of that power base when the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban began its relentless ascent to power after 1994.
Qadir took refuge in neighbouring Pakistan in 1996, but soon ran into trouble with the authorities because of his anti-Taliban stand and left for Germany. For three years he shuttled between Dubai, where he ran a successful trading business, and Germany until he returned to Afghanistan to join the Tajik and Uzbek-dominated Northern Alliance, fighting the mainly Pashtun Taliban. His presence in the Alliance ensured its influence in the Pashtun east.
At a time when the Taliban had taken control of most of the country, Qadir was a vital figure. Active on different fronts with the Northern Alliance, he was close to its Tajik leader, Ahmad Shah Masood, whose murder, attributed to Al-Qaeda, came two days before September 11th, 2001. The death of Qadir's younger brother, the legendary rebel Abdul Haq, followed soon afterwards. Haq had secretly entered Afghanistan from north-west Pakistan. He was involved in the campaign to topple the Taliban, and had agreed to try and whip up a rebellion in late October during the start of the US bombing campaign against Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
He was been attempting to rally anti-Taliban support among the Pashtuns when he was captured by Taliban intelligence in the eastern region and hurriedly executed as US forces made an unsuccessful bid to rescue him. This coincided with another rebellion in the south led by Karzai, who was more fortunate in evading Taliban attempts to capture him.
Qadir is survived by his three wives and children.
Haji Abdul Qadir: born circa 1950; died, 2002
