Abdul Rashid Dostum

This eventually became a regiment and later became incorporated into the defense forces as the 53rd Infantry Division.

Abdul Rashid Dostum (Uzbek Latin: Abdurrashid Do'stum, Uzbek Cyrillic: Абдуррашид Дўстум, ; born 25 March 1954) is an Afghan exiled politician, former Marshal in the Afghan National Army, founder and leader of the political party Junbish-e Milli.

Dostum was born in 1954 in Khwaja Du Koh near Sheberghan in Jowzjan province, Afghanistan.

Coming from an impoverished ethnic Uzbek family, he received a very basic traditional education as he was forced to drop out of school at a young age.

From there, he took up work in the village's major gas fields.

Dostum began working in 1970 in a state-owned gas refinery in Sheberghan, participating in union politics, as the new government started to arm the staff of the workers in the oil and gas refineries.

The reason for this was to create "groups for the defense of the revolution".

Because of the new communist ideas entering Afghanistan in the 1970s, he enlisted in the Afghan National Army in 1978.

Dostum received his basic military training in Jalalabad.

His squadron was deployed in the rural areas around Sheberghan, under the auspices of the Ministry of National Security.

As a Parcham member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), he was exiled by the purge of the party's Khalqist leaders, living in Peshawar, Pakistan for a while.

After the Soviet invasion (Operation Storm-333) and installation of Babrak Karmal as head of state, Dostum returned to Afghanistan where he started commanding a local pro-government militia in his native Jawzjan Province.

By the mid-1980s, he commanded around 20,000 militia men and controlled the northern provinces of Afghanistan.

While the unit recruited throughout Jowzjan and had a relatively broad base, many of its early troops and commanders came from Dostum's home village.

He left the army after the purge of Parchamites, but returned after the Soviet occupation began.

During the Soviet–Afghan War, Dostum was commanding a militia battalion to fight and rout mujahideen forces; he had been appointed an officer due to prior military experience.

He achieved several promotions in the army and was honored as a "Hero of Afghanistan" by President Mohammed Najibullah in 1988.

By this time he was commanding up to 45,000 troops in the region under his responsibility.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Dostum played a central role in the collapse of Najibullah's government by "defecting" to the mujahideen; the division-sized loyal forces he commanded in the north became an independent paramilitary of his newly founded party called Junbish-e Milli.

He allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud and together they captured Kabul, before another civil war loomed.

Initially supporting the new government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, he switched sides in 1994 by allying with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but he backed Rabbani again by 1996.

During this time he remained in control of the country's north which functioned as a relatively stable proto-state, but remained a loose partner of Massoud in the Northern Alliance.

A year later, Mazar-i-Sharif was overrun by his former aide Abdul Malik Pahlawan, resulting in a battle in which he regained control.

In 1998, the city was overrun by the Taliban and Dostum fled the country until returning to Afghanistan in 2001, joining the Northern Alliance forces after the US invasion and leading his loyal faction in the Fall of Mazar-i-Sharif.

After the fall of the Taliban, he joined interim president Hamid Karzai's administration as Deputy Defense Minister and later served as chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Afghan Army, a role often viewed as ceremonial.

His militia feuded with forces loyal to general Atta Muhammad Nur.

Dostum was a major army commander in the communist government during the Soviet–Afghan War, and in 2001 was the key indigenous ally to U.S. Special Forces and the CIA during the campaign to topple the Taliban government.

He is one of the most powerful warlords since the beginning of the Afghan wars, known for siding with winners during different wars.

Dostum has also referred to as a Kingmaker due to his significant role in Afghan politics.

An ethnic Uzbek from a peasant family in Jawzjan province, Dostum joined the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) as a teenager before enlisting in the Afghan National Army and training as a paratrooper, serving in his native region around Sheberghan.

Soon with the start of the Soviet–Afghan War, Dostum commanded a KHAD militia and eventually gained a reputation, often defeating mujahideen commanders in northern Afghanistan and even persuading some to defect to the communist cause.

Much of the country's north was in strong government control as a result.

Dostum was a candidate in the 2004 elections, and was an ally of victorious Karzai in the 2009 elections.

From 2011, he was part of the leadership council of the National Front of Afghanistan along with Ahmad Zia Massoud and Mohammad Mohaqiq.

He served as Vice President of Afghanistan in Ashraf Ghani's administration from 2014 to 2020.

In 2018, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was reported to be considering launching an inquiry into whether Dostum had engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan.

In 2020, he was promoted to the rank of marshal after a political agreement between Ghani and former Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

Dostum is a controversial figure in Afghanistan.

He is seen as a capable and fierce military leader and remains wildly popular among the Uzbek community in the country; Many of his supporters call him "Pasha" (پاشا), an honorable Uzbek/Turkic term.

However he has also been widely accused of committing atrocities and war crimes, most notoriously the suffocation of up to 1,000 Taliban fighters in the Dasht-i-Leili massacre and he was widely feared among the populace.