
Abdul Rashid Dostum (1954-) was First Vice President of Afghanistan from 29 September 2014, succeeding Yunus Qanuni. Dostum was a powerful Uzbek warlord and former communist who sided with winners during different wars in his country, and he founded the Junbish-i-Milli party.
Biography[]

Dostum wearing traditional Uzbek clothing
Abdul Rashid Dostum was born in Khwaja Du Koh, Jowzjan Province, Afghanistan in 1954 to an Uzbek family, and he began working at a state-owned gas refinery in 1970. Dostum became a union activist, and he supported the communist regime after it seized power, commanding a 20,000-strong militia during the mid-1980s and controlling the northern parts of the country. During the Soviet-Afghan War, he initially fought against the Mujahideen, but, in 1992, he sided with Ahmad Shah Massoud and Sayed Jafar Naderi during their capture of Kabul. During the Afghan Civil War, he allied himself with Massoud against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and he created the "Northern Autonomous Zone" with Mazari-i-Sharif as its capital. He printed his own currency, created his own airline, and formed relations with countries like Uzbekistan, and his region remained prosperous and functional even as the rest of the country was torn apart by strife. Dostum also allowed for women to go about unveiled, girls were allowed to go to school, cinemas showed Indian films, music played on television, and Russian vodka and German beer were openly available, activities which were all banned by the Taliban. In 1994, he defected to Hekmatyar's side, but he returned to Massoud's side in 1995.
Fight against the Taliban[]

Dostum in 2001
Following the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Dostum formed the Northern Alliance with Massoud and Karim Khalili, opposing the Islamic fundamentalist takeover of the country. He had an army of 50,000 men supported by aircraft and tanks, but his general Abdul Malik Pahlawan betrayed him to the Taliban, and Dostum was forced to flee to Turkey as Mazar-i-Sharif fell. In May 2001, he returned to Afghanistan to open up a new front, and, in November 2001, he received American Green Beret assistance. They gifted him with horse feed and vodka, and they were shocked that the Muslim Dostum drank the vodka himself and spoke English. Dostum, who hated the Taliban, made use of the US soldiers by having them call in close air support to assist his Afghan fighters, and they took Mazar-i-Sharif on 24 November 2001. In December 2001, Dostum had 2,000 Taliban prisoners suffocated. During Hamid Karzai's presidency, Dostum's forces clashed with those of the rival warlord Atta Muhammad Nur, and Dostum survived an assassination attempt in 2003. He went on to serve as Deputy Defense Minister under Karzai, and he went into exile in Turkey from 2008 to 2009 due to the warlord feuds.
Controversies and assassination attempts[]

Dostum in 2016
Dostum returned in 2009 to support Karzai's bid for re-election, and, in 2014, he was chosen as Ashraf Ghani's First Vice President. He was forced to flee again in 2017 after being accused of sexually assaulting Jowzjan governor Ahmad Eshchi, and he narrowly escaped an ISIL suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in 2019 and an hours-long Taliban attack on his convoy in 2019. In 2020, he was appointed a Marshal despite his controversial track record.