Ismatullah Muslim

Ismatullah Muslim, also called Ismatullah Achakzai or just Esmat, was an Afghan militia leader, who in 1979 joined the mujahideen opposed to the communist PDPA and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, before coming over to the side of the government in 1984. Despite his military successes, Ismatullah Muslim was known for the many abuses he committed against civilians, making him a much hated figure throughout Afghanistan, except within his own tribe.

Ismatullah, an Achakzai Pashtun from southern Kandahar, rose to the rank of major in the Afghan army, after having undergone training in the Soviet Union. In 1979 he led his tribe to join the mujahideen resistance against the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and due to his important tribal following, became one of the principal mujahideen commanders in the Kandahar area. As well as military operations, he also perpetuated the tribal tradition of smuggling various goods across the border, including heroin.

In 1983, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, which channeled international support for the insurgency, discovered that Ismatullah had compromised almost all of its agents in Quetta in a drug and weapon smuggling network. This led to a major reorganisation of the distribution of supplies to the mujahideen: in order to receive weapons all commanders were required to become affiliated with one of the resistance parties based in Peshawar.

Refusing to join any party, Ismatullah instead formed his own group, called the Fidayan-i islam. In 1984, having been cut off from the ISI weapons pipeline, he started attacking and ransoming arms convoys destined for other mujahideen formations. These groups retaliated, and heavy fighting broke out, before the ISI managed to arrange a ceasefire. After he had turned to threatening Pakistani diplomatic personnel, the ISI's commander, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, summoned him to Islamabad where he agreed to join Sayyed Ahmed Gailani's party, in exchange for a delivery of weapons. However, the ISI refused to give him any heavy weapons, and soon began to suspect him of being an agent of the KHAD or the KGB. Having got wind of his imminent arrest, Ismatullah fled to Kabul and defected to the government.

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