Esmat (Ismat, Ismatullah) Muslim, an individual connected to the Najibullah government (1986-1992) [AFG31991.E]

According to Barnett Rubin's The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, General Ismatullah Muslim was the leader of a militia composed of members of the Achakzai tribe (1995, 158). Rubin provides a detailed biography of Ismat Muslim:

Ismatullah Muslim was a Soviet-trained army major at the time of the 1978 coup. He was from a chiefly family of the Achakzai tribe from the area between Qandahar and the Pakistan border. The tribe was known for its raiding and smuggling activities since at least the time of Elphinstone, and Ismat Muslim was no exception. He had engaged in smuggling at least since the days when he was trained in the USSR, where he had the distinction of becoming the first Afghan military officer to be imprisoned there. As early as 1979 he led his tribe into the resistance and was conducting both military and smuggling operations (including heroin trade) in the area between Qandahar and Quetta. A member of the Afghan royal family mentioned Ismat Muslim to a U.S. diplomat in Tehran in 1979 as one of the most important mujahidin leaders around Qandahar, and even after his defection, the military commander of one of the resistance parties spoke with admiration of his combativeness in the resistance.
In 1984, following a dispute with the ISI [Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence] over his smuggling activities and his refusal to join one of the Islamic parties, Ismat Muslim defected to the regime, which made him a general. His principal role was control of transit points and roads between Pakistani Baluchistan and Qandahar. In January 1986 he was appointed to the Revolutionary Council. He established a large house in Kabul, where he had many parties featuring alcohol, drugs, dancers and prostitutes. A U.S. diplomat living nearby once observed Ismat Muslim torturing a prisoner in his garden. The general also competed with the interior minister for the affections of a leading singer on Afghan radio. At the November 1987 Loya Jirga [Grand National Assembly] that adopted the new constitution, Ismat Muslim tried to enter the hall with his armed bodyguards, setting off a full-scale gun battle in which he was wounded. He later tried to defect back to the other side, but the ISI refused to meet his conditions, one of which was that they return the two Mercedes Benzes they had confiscated from him. Ismat Muslim's militia suffered a bloody defeat at Spin Boldak after the Soviet withdrawal, and he died in a Soviet hospital in 1991, apparently from the effects of drug and alcohol abuse (ibid., 158-9).

A less detailed account of Ismat Muslim's career appears in Asta Olesen's Islam and Politics in Afghanistan. It differs on a number of points: (i) Olesen states that Ismat Muslim defected in 1987; (ii) according to Olesen, Ismat Muslim was barred from the Loya Jirga because his lifestyle conflicted with the Islamic character that the new regime sought to protect; (iii) Olesen states that Ismat Muslim left for the Soviet Union on 3 December 1987 with two of his wives; (iv) Olesen's description contains no reference to the alleged torture incident described by Rubin, no references to a battle at Spin Boldak and no reference to how or when Ismat Muslim died (1996, 267).

The 1987 Loya Jirga shooting incident is corroborated by several media reports (Reuters 30 Nov. 1987; ibid. 4 Dec. 1987; Chicago Tribune 1 Dec. 1987). No further information concerning Ismat Muslim could be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Response.

References


Chicago Tribune. 1 December 1987. "Afghan General Fires on Security Men: Two Die." (NEXIS)

Olesen, Asta. 1996. Islam and Politics in Afghanistan. Richmond, BC: Curzon Press.

Reuters.4 December 1987. "Afghan Leader Seen Distancing Himself from Kremlin." (NEXIS)

_____. 30 November 1987. "At Least Two Reported Dead in Kabul Gun Battle." (NEXIS)

Rubin, Barnett R. 1996. The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Additional Sources Consulted


Human Rights Watch/Asia Watch. February 1991. Afghanistan: The Forgotten War.
Laber, Jeri and Barnett R. Rubin. 1988.

"A Nation is Dying": Afghanistan Under the Soviets, 1979-87.

Maley, William and Fazel Haq Saikal. 1992.

Political Order in Post-Communist Afghanistan.

Mousavi, S.A. 1998.

The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study.

Roy, Olivier. 1995. Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War. Princeton: Darwin Press.

Rais, Rasul Bakhsh. 1994. War Without Winners: Afghanistan's Uncertain Transition After the Cold War. Karachi: Oxford University Press.

Rashid, Abdul. 1987. "The Afghan Resistance: Its Background, Its Nature and the Problem of Unity," in Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited. Edited by Roseanne Klass. Freedom House.

Roy, Olivier. 1995. Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War. Princeton: Darwin Press.

Rubin, Barnett. February 1996. Afghanistan: The Forgotten Crisis. WRITENET. (REFWORLD).

Unsuccessful attempts to contact an oral source.

Electronic sources: IRB databases, LEXIS/NEXIS, Internet, REFWORLD, CISNET, WNC.