Zeeshan Haider
Once considered a blue-eyed of Pakistan’s security establishment, veteran Afghan leader Engineer Gulbuddin Hekmatyar arrives in Islamabad Monday after over 2 decades.
Pakistan enlisted Hekmatyar as a young Kabul University student leader along with several other young Afghans in the 1970s to counter the so-called ‘Pashtoonistan’ movement in its northwest that was backed by the then Afghan government.
Hekmatyar later became the top guerilla leader in the US-led anti-Soviet Afghan jihad or holy war that was funded by the United States in the 1980s.
However, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February 1989, he bogged down in the power struggle and civil war with rival Afghan mujahideen groups.
Hekmatyar eventually fell out with Pakistan and his Hizbe-e-Islami group was also militarily routed by the Taliban in September 1996.
However, he shunned militancy in 2017 to sign a peace deal with the Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani.
Hekmatyar challenged Ghani’s second bid for the presidency last year but lost the election to him.
Hekmatyar is visiting Pakistan amidst stepped-up U.S.-led- and Pakistan-backed peace efforts in Afghanistan. Afghan government’s top peace, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah recently visited Islamabad just days after talks with the Taliban in the Qatari capital Doha.Â
Pakistan has been instrumental in persuading the Taliban, mainly ethnic Pushtun, to sit across the table with the United States and then with the Afghan government. Abdullah is the top leader of the so-called Northern Alliance made up of mainly non-Pushtun ethnicities of Afghanistan.
Despite military reversals. Hekmatyar still has pockets of support in Afghanistan’s eastern and southeastern Pushtun belt, particularly provinces bordering Pakistan.
Hekmatyar’s visit underlines Pakistan’s desire to reach out to Afghan leaders of all hues to ensure a comprehensive political rapprochement in its neighborhood.
The Hizb-e-Islamic chief would deliver talks at the Pakistani think-tanks and would meet senior government officials including Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
The writer is a senior journalist who can be reached @HaiderZeeshan14
