Abdul Malik Pahlawan is an Uzbek politician based out of Faryab Province

Faryab Province

Fāryāb is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. It is in the north of the country. Its capital is Maymana. The majority of the population is Uzbek.-History:...

 in northern Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

. He is currently head of the Afghanistan Liberation Party and was heavily involved the factional fighting that consumed Afghanistan throughout the 1990s. His rival for control of the Uzbek north is Rashid Dostum, and their militias have clashed several times since the fall of the Taliban.

Betrayal and Capture of Mazar-e Sharif

Initially, Abdul Malik was one of Dostum's subordinates, but in 1996 he blamed Dostum for the murder of his brother Rasoul. He then entered into secret negotiations with the Taliban, who promised to respect his authority over much of Northern Afghanistan, in exchange for the capture of Ismail Khan

Ismail Khan

Ismail Khan is a politician and former mujahideen commander from Afghanistan. Born in the western Afghan city of Herat, he rose to become a powerful rebel commander during in the Soviet War in Afghanistan, and then a key member of the Northern Alliance until finally becoming the Governor of Herat...

, one of their most powerful enemies. Accordingly, on May 25, 1997 he arrested Khan and handed him over and let the Taliban enter Mazari Sharif, giving them control over most of Northern Afghanistan. Because of this treason, Dostum was forced to flee to Turkey. However Malik quickly realized that the Taliban weren't going to keep their promises as they started to disarm his men. He then rejoined forces with the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan

United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan

The United Islamic Front , known in the West and Pakistan as the Northern Alliance, was a military-political umbrella organization created by the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 1996 under the leadership of Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud...

 (the Northern Alliance), and turned against his erstwhile allies, helping to drive them from Mazari Sharif.

In October 1997, Dostum returned from exile and defeated Malik, briefly regaining control of Mazari Sharif, and forcing him to escape to Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

.

After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Malik organized his Hezb-e Azadi-ye Afghanistan political party, whose military wing has often clashed with members of Dostum's Junbish party.

External links

• Pahlawan, Abdul Malik - MIPT terrorism knowledge database
• BBC profile