The Taliban * again arrested one of their Uzbek commanders and fired another
KUNDUZ, March 27 - Sangar, Jamshid Badakhshi. In the past, other prominent Uzbek Taliban commanders have also been fired and arrested.
A Sangar website source in the Takhar provincial administration reported the arrest of Mawlawi Abdul Qadir, an Uzbek Taliban commander who was the police chief of the Dashti Qala district in Takhar province.
“Yesterday, Mullah Fazel, Taliban deputy defense minister, personally went to Takhar to arrest Mawlawi Qadir and found him in the Khaja Bahauddin district. A brief skirmish ensued in which two of Mawlawi Qadir's bodyguards were killed and three wounded. He was first taken to Taliqan, the capital of Takhar, and then to Kabul,” the source said.
According to this source, the Taliban on charges of collaborating with ISIS fired Mawlawi Qadeer, but he denied the accusations and rebelled against the Emirate, and drove the Taliban forces out of Dashti Qala.
“When the Taliban sent a large force to arrest him, he fled to Khaja Ghar and from there to Khaja Bahauddin. But Mawlavi Kadir is not the last to be arrested. The name of Ismail Faruq, the head of the administration of the Chahab district, also appears on the list of Taliban arrests,” the source said.
Meanwhile, sources from the Sangar website in Bamiyan, central Afghanistan, and a Hazara-populated province, reported the dismissal of Mawlawi Abdul Hadi Forotan, the mayor of Bamiyan city.
“He is also one of the Uzbek Taliban commanders who was appointed mayor of Bamiyan, the capital of the province of the same name after the group came to power,” the source said.
Arrests and dismissals of the Uzbek Taliban began in January. On January 13, in the province of Faryab, Makhdum Alim, one of their prominent commanders, was arrested. Mullah Fazel also arrested him. Following him, other Uzbek commanders were dismissed from their posts - Salakhuddin Ayubi, deputy commander of the 203rd Tundar Corps in Paktia, and Mavlavi Ataullah Omari, commander of the 209th Al-Fath Corps in Mazar-i-Sharif. The former was appointed Deputy Minister of Rural Development, and the latter was appointed Deputy Minister of Logistics issues of the Taliban Ministry of Defense. On March 14, another Uzbek, Mavlavi Nuriddin, the governor of Takhar province, was removed from his post and appointed deputy head of the department for finance and administrative issues of the Department of Public Services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
All these commanders, who called themselves "conquerors of the north" and won their provinces for the Taliban, were removed from their posts of responsibility and appointed to show positions.
**The organization is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.