Mohammad Daud Daud

Mohammed Daud Daud (Persian: محمد داود داود) (January 1969 – 28 May 2011), also known as General Daud Daud, an ethnic Tajik, was the police chief in northern Afghanistan and the commander of the 303 Pamir Corps. He was an opponent of the Afghan Taliban.

Daud studied engineering in college. After graduating from college in the 1991, he defected from the Afghan Army and joined the forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the retreat of Soviet troops and the defeat of the Afghan communist regime, Daud remained in Takhar province of Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah Massoud had ordered him to guard northern areas and to keep his forces out of the capital Kabul. When the Taliban took power in Kabul, Daud served as a leading military commander of the anti-Taliban United Front under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud, which later spearheaded the defeat of the Taliban. In October 2001, Daud was directly responsible for retaking the city of Kunduz from an Al Qaeda-Taliban alliance.

After the fall of the Taliban regime, he was appointed a Deputy Interior Minister for Counter Narcotics in Afghanistan. His campaign against opium poppy cultivation was successful in several provinces, including Ogar, Ghazni, Wardak, Paktia, Paktika and Panjshir.

In 2010 he was appointed police chief of Afghanistan's northern provinces, overseeing Interior Ministry forces and directly commanding his own police elite force called Pamir 303. An opponent of the Taliban, Daud was assassinated on 28 May 2011 in a Taliban and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) bomb attack in Taloqan, Afghanistan.

Daud and the Battle of Kunduz

Daud was responsible for overseeing the November 2001 siege of Kunduz, the last major battle in the assault to topple the Taliban During the siege of Kunduz all sides of the city were surrounded by Northern Alliance forces. Inside the city there were estimated to be 20,000-30,000 Taliban fighters, many of whom had vowed to fight to the death, rather than surrender. In Kunduz during the November 2001 siege were the so-called "Afghan Arabs", foreign volunteers believed to be led by Osama bin Laden. According to General Mohammed Daud a pro-Taliban leader named "Omar al-Khatab" was leading a force of 1,000 foreign fighters belonging to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Little was known about the foreign Taliban. According to Afghan Taliban soldiers taken prisoner by the Northern Alliance; the foreigners did not fight side by side with the Taliban, but in separate units, under their own commanders. During the siege the mayor of Kunduz travelled through the surrounding mountains to meet General Mohammed Daud of the Northern Alliance, supposedly in a garden near Taloqan. Following the meeting, the mayor was ready to surrender, but needed time to negotiate with the foreign volunteers, who opposed surrender. In an effort to end the siege, Daud promised the low-ranking Taliban fighters fair treatment if they surrendered: "We will allow the low-ranking foreigners to appear before a court." On 27 November 2001 street-to-street fighting began at 7am in Kunduz, when Northern Alliance troops led by General Mohammed Daud advanced into town. The remaining Taliban were defeated and Kunduz fell into Northern Alliance control. After victory at the siege of Kunduz and the subsequent establishment of the Interim Government in Afghanistan, Daud was appointed as Military commander of Corps No 6 in Kunduz /Kunduz province.

Daud's political career

Daud was the former governor of the Takhar province in Afghanistan.

Gen. Mohammad Daud was the top counter-narcotics official in the Afghan government. Counternarcotics enforcement activities have been directed from within the Ministry of Interior since 2002. General Mohammed Daud was named Deputy Ministry of Interior for Counternarcotics by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in October 2004. He was also the head of the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA). Daud and his staff worked with U.S. and British officials in implementing the Afghan government's expanded counternarcotics enforcement plan. Soon following his appointment, Daud led an Afghan delegation that participated in a thirty night session of the sub-commission on illicit Drug Traffic and related matters in the Near and Middle East (HONLEA) in Beirut, Lebanon. Delegates from twenty-one countries participated in the meeting. General Mohammad Daud delivered a presentation on the counter narcotics activities of the government of Afghanistan, achievements and problems still being faced.

President Hamid Karzai took steps to establish landlocked Afghanistan as a trade hub connecting the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe. Daud was involved in Karzai's plan to rehabilitate the war-torn Afghan economy. In late December 2002 Daud led an economic trade delegation to neighboring Tajikistan. Kabul has been particularly interested in swiftly opening trading routes in Central Asia, where there is a vast market for Afghan goods.

Daud expressed optimism about Afghanistan's effort to halt the opium trade: "We witnessed a remarkable reduction in the level of poppy cultivation all over Afghanistan last year. We worked very hard in the provinces where poppy cultivation was higher last year. The poppy eradication campaign is extensively under way in 11 provinces. Some 45,000 jeribs ,000 hectaresof poppy cultivated land have so far been cleared. The campaign will start in 11 other provinces soon."

Daud was also involved in Afghanistan's Disbandment of Illegal Armed (DIAG). DIAG is a program within the Afghan Ministry of Interior. DAIG supports the Afghan government's objectives to bring stability to Afghanistan through the continuing process of demilitarization. The program also focuses on removing from office those government officials with proven links to illegal armed groups. Daud said that DIAG is not a program to take only weapons from individuals but that it is a program to disband the armed groups in order to ensure a sustainable safe and secure country.

Fight against Taliban terrorism

Acid attack on Afghan schoolgirls

On 12 November 2008 attackers in Afghanistan sprayed acid in the faces of at least 15 girls near a school in Kandahar. One of the girls who was attacked was quoted as saying, "We were going to school on foot when two unknown people on a motorcycle came close to us and threw acid in our faces", 16-year-old Atifa told the BBC." At least two of the girls were blinded by the attack. General Mohammad Daud was tasked to deal with the incident. The attack on the girls, who had been wearing all-covering burqas, drew wide condemnation including from President Hamid Karzai and U.S. First Lady Laura Bush.

Daud said authorities had arrested ten men for it a few days after the attack. He said at a press conference that "The attack was the work of the Taliban and we have not finalised our investigation", and told the BBC
...