Mohammed Fahim

Prime Minister of India while emphasizing his role in fostering India-Afghanistan relations called him as "a brave and fearless military commander, whose contribution to Afghanistan’s stabilisation and reconstruction after over three decades of war and conflict will always be remembered. Marshal Fahim was also a close friend of India. We shall never forget his personal contribution to nurturing and strengthening the India Afghanistan strategic partnership." Ambassador James Cunnigham of the United States called him "a leader during the Jihad, and that he played a major role in moving Afghanistan toward moderation."

Mohammad Qasim Fahim (Pashto/Dari: محمد فهیم ‎), also known as "Marshal Fahim"; 1957 – 9 March 2014) was a politician in Afghanistan who served as Vice President from June 2002 until December 2004 and from November 2009 until his death. Between September 2001 and December 2004, he also served as Defense Minister under the Afghan Transitional Administration.

Fahim's last years were beset by health problems which required hospital treatment in Germany. He died of a heart attack on 9 March 2014..

In the end, it was decided that an international security force of a few thousand troops would be deployed, but that they would agree to Fahim's demands to not take control of Kabul and not start immediately disarming Afghan militias. Of the approximately 3,000 men that would be deployed, 2,000–3,000 men would be deployed in a garrison in the center of Kabul. Of the 30,000 men, only a third would be deployed for security reasons, the others would receive logistical and humanitarian tasks. Another important task for the British and Americans would be the training of the Afghan troops. Fahim expressed the wish to build an Afghan army of around 250,000 men. After the negotiations, The Telegraph described Fahim as someone who is popularly known as "the village and Pansher valley idiot," but who actually very shrewd.

On the celebrations of Nowruz, New Year's Day, of 1389 (21 March 2010) in Mazar-i-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan, Fahim reached out to militants. He declared that, with their input, a coming national conference would lay the foundations for a peace that would end the Taliban insurgency. He called on resistance forces to participate in a jirga, or assembly, planned for late April or early May. He pledged that the Afghan government "will try to find a peaceful life for those Afghans who are unhappy," a euphemism for militants, though he didn't mention the Taliban by name. Afghans had travelled from across the country to Mazar-i-Sharif united behind the wish that the advent of a new year would bring them peace. According to the police, up to half a million people are in the city to mark the spring equinox and the first day of the traditional Afghan new year and celebrated across Central Asia and Iran. Mazar is at the heart of one of the most peaceful regions of the country. City police chief Abdul Rauf Taj said that 4,000 security personnel had been deployed against insurgent attacks and that all visitors were being screened at seven check points around the city perimeter.

The Peace Jirga took place in Kabul on 2–4 June 2010.

In September 2010, an Afghan news agency reported that Fahim had died of cancer in Paris, France. An official statement was later released by Fahim, who said: "I am completely healthy. I request the Afghan people not to trust news published by irresponsible websites".

In 2009, Fahim was chosen by incumbent President Karzai as candidate for first Vice President in the 2009 presidential election. Fahim by then had a reputation as one of Afghanistan's most powerful, brutal and corrupt warlords. Karzai's decision to include him on his ticket therefore dismayed international observers. Many in Kabul alleged Marshal Fahim was at the time involved in criminal activities, including kidnapping for ransom. By choosing Fahim as his Vice-President, Karzai was said to have stained his own credibility even further.

Fahim survived another assassination attempt in the northern Kunduz province. Only 26 July 2009, as the running mate of President Karzai for the 2009 elections, his convoy was attacked in an ambush staged by the Taliban. The Taliban attacked Fahim's convoy using automatic rifles and rocket propelled grenades.

In 2009, he was one of Karzai's running mates in the presidential election, bringing a lot of Tajik votes to the ticket. The selection was condemned by Human Rights Watch.

In June 2007, Fahim stated that his advisory role was merely symbolic and that he never had the chance to advise the President. He further said that after the 2004 elections President Karzai formed a "one-sided" cabinet and began to employ unilateralism as his main policy driver. Fahim argued that without the backing of foreign forces, President Karzai's regime would not last longer than a week.

Although Fahim lost his formal role in the government, he remained a powerful and influential figure in Afghanistan. In 2006, Karzai, faced with a resurgent Taliban, returned Marshal Fahim to Government as an advisor.

Later in the year 2006, Karzai said, "Marshal Fahim is one of the sons of our [mujahedin], a patriot and [a man who loves] his country. I have a great deal of respect for Marshal Fahim. He has been my close friend and confidant. He has his own unique place in Afghanistan. He has been a respectable military man. He is a five-star general. And he is a senator." Regarding his decision in appointing Marshal Fahim as one of his advisors, Karzai added that "I hope that officially as my adviser, he will continue to cooperate with me. He comes to all of the National Security Council meetings. He is my dear brother. No one can ever reduce the respect that Marshal Fahim has earned for himself." (Azadi Radio, 5 April 2006) Throughout his time as a public figure, he has had persistent accusations of corruption and human rights abuses. When he died, the American-led coalition simply expressed condolences to Fahim's family.

Some Afghan analysts attest that, despite losing his military position, Fahim remained a very powerful figure in the country. "[He] is particularly popular among people in the north, because he had fought Soviet Russia, and later the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. He spent many years fighting aggressors." (Erada, 2005)

In 2004, many expected Karzai to name Fahim or Qanuni as candidate for vice-president in the upcoming presidential election, but he named Ahmad Zia Massoud instead. Subsequently, Fahim backed the candidacy of his fellow Tajik, Yunus Qanuni for president.

After Karzai's victory, Fahim was not reappointed Defense Minister and was succeeded by his deputy Abdul Rahim Wardak. Karzai dropped Fahim from his cabinet to rebalance the Ministry of Defence, and as a result of intense pressure from various foreign organizations who viewed Fahim as a major bottleneck in the disarmament process. He was dismissed in August 2004. Fahim also had no higher education, and article 72 of Afghanistan's constitution states that an appointed Minister to the President's cabinet should have a higher education. In a decree made in December 2004, Karzai, who called Fahim his "close friend and confidant" confirmed that Fahim would hold the rank of Marshal, Afghanistan's highest, for life. Years after his death, at a gathering of Fahim's supporters and Afghan politicians, Marking the 5th anniversary of his death, Hazara leader Muhammad Mohaqiq, defending Fahim's military title arguing "When he was given the title of Afghanistan's Marshal by the former president, he deserved it. Because the Mujahideen had won the war against the occupier forces."

While holding the position, he continued to command his own militia which he inherited from the United Front or more commonly known as the Northern Alliance. However, on 10 December 2003, he ordered part of his militia to transport their weapons to an Afghan National Army installation near Kabul.

On 12 September 2003, Miloon Kothari, appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate housing rights in Afghanistan, announced that many of the government ministers including Fahim and Education Minister Yunus Qanuni were illegally occupying land and should be removed from their posts. However, three days later, Kothari sent a letter to Lakhdar Brahimi, the head of the UN in Afghanistan, saying he had gone too far in naming the ministers.

In June 2003, a bomb was found in front of his home. Later in the year, the head of his personal security died at the hands of a suicide bomber.

As Minister of Defence in his first months, Fahim traveled extensively to neighbouring countries to build relations between the new government and Afghanistan's most influential neighbours. When US-envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said in January 2002 that Iran might be backing Afghan fighters in an attempt to unsettle the Karzai-government, Fahim, who visited the Iranian minister of Defense half January, stated that there was no sign of Iran "creating insecurity". At the end of January 2002, Fahim set in on a meeting of Karzai met with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and spoke with the two of them about security issues.

During the 2002 loya jirga, where a new transitional government was formed, Fahim supported the candidacy for president of Karzai. In turn he retained as vice-president and defense minister.

In the summer of 2002, American officials are said to have picked up intelligence that Fahim was considering an attempt to assassinate Karzai, as a result of which, in July 2002, US Special Forces wrested presidential bodyguard duties away from soldiers loyal to Fahim. The move followed the assassination earlier in the month of one of Karzai's vice presidents, Abdul Qadir, a powerful Pashtun warlord and Karzai ally.

Fahim survived several assassination attempts. His convoy was targeted when a mine exploded underneath the central car in Fahim's convoy. He had been on an official visit to the eastern city of Jalalabad "to discuss a new government campaign to stop farmers growing poppies for the opium trade and other issues with local commanders and tribal leaders." (BBC, 8 April 2002)

Fahim survived another attack later in 2002. This time, the man behind the attack was arrested by the intelligence agency. The alleged person carried with him "22 pounds of explosives in the pockets of his jacket, attached to wires and apparently ready to explode." (The New York Times, 24 November 2002)

As military commander of the Northern Alliance, Fahim captured the Afghan capital Kabul in the fall of 2001 from the Taliban government. In 2004, President Hamid Karzai provided Fahim the honorary title Marshal and a year later, he became member of the House of Elders. He later became a recipient of the Ahmad Shah Baba Medal. Fahim was a member of Afghanistan's Tajik ethnic group. He was affiliated with the Jamiat Islami (Shura-e Nazar) party of Afghanistan.

On 9 September 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan's most important resistance leader and Defense Minister of the ousted but international recognized government, was assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives posing as journalists. Two days later, Fahim was confirmed as the new defence minister of the United Islamic Front (Northern Alliance), succeeding Massoud. Fahim was a close ally and protégé of Massoud.

In the wake of building pressure of the US against the Taliban regime after September 11, 2001, as general commander of the mujahideen resistance forces, Fahim became America's main proxy in the fight against the Taliban. He was anxious to start a military offensive and even pledged to launch an attack against the Taliban, without waiting for US military action, saying: "Today we have a chance to defeat the Taliban and the terrorists, and we will use it whatever the cost." On 7 October, the day the US started bombing Taliban targets, he proclaimed an offensive on the northern and western fronts.

During these three months, the international community sponsored a conference on Afghanistan in Bonn to decide about the future leadership of the country. With crucial US military help, the opposition forces had captured virtually all of Afghanistan from the Taliban in the beginning of December 2001, and in Bonn the formation of an interim administration was discussed.

As the US started bombing Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, it became clear that the United Islamic Front of Fahim would play an important role in the transition government that would emerge after the Taliban was ousted. However, since Fahim lacked Massoud's magnetism, his role as opposition leader was generally seen as temporary. When in the first weeks of US bombardments Fahim's forces did not make any large breakthroughs, it was speculated that he was struggling with his role and he appeared wooden and awkward in front of his troops. But although Fahim was described as colorless, it was clear that as the leader of the main military forces that were fighting the Taliban, Fahim had to play a central role in any possible government that would succeed the Taliban.

After the inauguration ceremony on 22 December 2001, where Fahim was installed as minister of Defence and Vice-Chair of the interim government, he requested that international forces leave the capital. He "would no longer accept foreign troops in Afghanistan operating without a UN mandate," Fahim said. Later he demanded that 100 British servicemen who just had entered the country leave Bagram Air Base. "The British forces perhaps have an agreement with the UN but not with us," said Fahim. He also stated that a UN force should not exceed 1,000 men and should play a very limited role in Afghan politics and that his own forces could eradicate sources of instability. His own Northern Alliance forces should police Kabul, said Fahim, because he said that his troops in Kabul were security troops, not military.

When the first foreign troops of the peacekeeping mission arrived on 20 December 2001, Fahim said "They won't be needed for security." "They are here because they want to be," and because the United Nations Security Council sent them to Afghanistan to prevent another civil war, Fahim said, but insisted that their presence was merely symbolic and that the foreign troops were not supposed to use force. "Some ministers in the new government who have always lived outside the country are worried about security and they feel they need the peacekeepers for protection, but when they arrive here they will see that the situation is OK and that it is not necessary" Fahim added, possibly hinting at Chairman Karzai who lived for years in Pakistan. The heavily armed units of northern alliance soldiers who swept into Kabul will be withdrawn from the streets, Fahim added, but they will not leave the capital.

In 1996, Fahim personally offered to evacuate former President Mohammad Najibullah, then in custody in Kabul, from the advancing Taliban forces, but Najibullah refused to be evacuated and was captured and executed by a Taliban mob. Fahim continued to serve as head of the Intelligence and Minister of National Security of the internationally recognised United Islamic Front Government, even when it was ousted and the Taliban took the power over most provinces of Afghanistan in the second half of the 1990s. During this time of Taliban-reign in Afghanistan Fahim was active as military commander for the United Islamic Front in the north of Afghanistan, especially in Panjshir and Mazar-i-Sharif.

When the Soviet-backed Afghan government collapsed in 1992, Fahim became a key member in the new government. He was appointed head of the Afghan intellgicence service KHAD, under interim president Sibghatullah Mojaddedi. He continued to serve as the country's head of intelligence under president Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Fahim was born in Omarz, a small village in the Panjshir Province of Afghanistan. He was the son of Abdul Matin from the Panjshir Valley. He is reported to have finished his studies in Islamic Sharia law at an Arabic institute in Kabul in 1977. Most reports show that he had been fighting the Communist rulers since the late 70s.. A TOLOnews video chronicling his life reports that Fahim joined the Muslim Youth Movement of Afghanistan while he was still in college. He fled Afghanistan after the Communist coup of 1978, he became a refugee in Peshawar. He returned to Panjshir and began to work under Commander Ahmad Shah Masood.