) , image = Abdul Ali Mazari.jpeg , caption = , office1 = Leader of Hezbe Wahdat , primeminister1= , term_start1 = 1989 , term_end1 = 13 March 1995 , predecessor1 = , successor1 = , office2 = , primeminister2= , term_end2 = , predecessor2 = , successor2 = , office3 = , primeminister3= , term_start3 = , term_end3 = , predecessor3 = , successor3 = , birth_date = 1946 , birth_place = Charkent,

Balkh province Balkh (Dari: , ''Balx'') is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the north of the country. It is divided into 15 districts and has a population of about 1,509,183, which is multi-ethnic and mostly a Persian-speaking society. The c ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

, death_date = , death_place = Ghazni city,

Ghazni province Ghazni ( Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in southeastern Afghanistan. The province contains 19 districts, encompassing over a thousand villages and roughly 1.3 million people, making it the 5th most populous province. Th ...

, nationality = Afghan , blank1 =

Ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

, data1 = Hazara , residence = , alma_mater = , party = Hezbe Wahdat , otherparty = , spouse = , children = , occupation = Mujahideen commander;

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

, profession = , cabinet = , signature = , awards = Mim Hea Mim peace award , footnotes = , website = Abdul Ali Mazari ( fa, عبدالعلی مزاری; 1946 – March 13, 1995) was an ethnic Hazara politician, leader of the Hezbe Wahdat party during and following the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...

, who believed that the solution to the internal divisions in Afghanistan was in a

federal system Federalism is a combined or compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single p ...

of governance, with each ethnic group having specific constitutional rights and able to govern their land and people. He was captured and killed by the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

in 1995, and posthumously given the title ‘Martyr Of National Unity’ in 2016 by

Ashraf Ghani Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (born 19 May 1949) is an Afghan politician, academic, and economist who served as the president of Afghanistan from September 2014 until August 2021, when his government was overthrown by the Taliban. Born in ...

government. He supported equal representation of all ethnic groups of Afghanistan, especially Hazaras, who claim that they are being persecuted by other political groups.

Early life

Abdul Ali Mazari was born in the Charkent district of

, south of the northern city of

Mazar-i-Sharif , official_name = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , pushpin_map = Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia , pushpin_label = Mazar-i-Sharif , pushpin ...

. He began his primary schooling in theology at the local school in his hometown, then went to Mazar-i-Sharif and later to

Qom Qom (also spelled as "Ghom", "Ghum", or "Qum") ( fa, قم ) is the seventh largest metropolis and also the seventh largest city in Iran. Qom is the capital of Qom Province. It is located to the south of Tehran. At the 2016 census, its pop ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and to

Najaf Najaf ( ar, ٱلنَّجَف) or An-Najaf al-Ashraf ( ar, ٱلنَّجَف ٱلْأَشْرَف), also known as Baniqia ( ar, بَانِيقِيَا), is a city in central Iraq about 160 km (100 mi) south of Baghdad. Its estimated popula ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Mujahideen commander and politician

During the Soviet–Afghan War, Mazari returned to Afghanistan and gained a prominent place in the

mujahideen ''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term t ...

resistance movement. During the first years of the resistance, he lost his young brother, Mohammed Sultan, during a battle against the Soviet-backed forces. He soon lost his sister and other members of his family in the resistance. His uncle, Mohammad Ja'afar, and his son, Mohammad Afzal, were imprisoned and killed by the Soviet-backed

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA),, renamed the Republic of Afghanistan, in 1987, was the Afghan state during the one-party rule of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) from 1978 to 1992. The PDPA came to power ...

. His father, Haji Khudadad, and his brother, Haji Mohammad Nabi, were killed as well in the war. Abdul Ali Mazari was one of the founding members and the first leader of the '' Hezbe Wahdat'' ("Unity Party"). In the first party congress in Bamiyan, he was elected leader of the Central Committee and in the second congress, he was elected Secretary General. Mazari's initiative led to the creation of the ''Jonbesh-e Shamal'' or (Northern Movement), in which the country's most significant military forces joined ranks with the rebels, leading to a coup d'état and the eventual downfall of the Communist regime in Kabul. After the 1992 fall of Kabul, the Afghan political parties agreed on a peace and power-sharing agreement, the

Peshawar Accord On 24 April 1992, the Peshawar Accord was announced by several but not all Afghan mujahideen parties: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-e Islami, had since March 1992 opposed these attempts at a coalition government. The accord proclaimed an ...

s, which created the

Islamic State of Afghanistan The Islamic State of Afghanistan ( fa, , ''Dawlat-i Islāmī-yi Afghānistan'', ps, , ''Da Afghanistan Islami Dowlat'') was the government of Afghanistan, established by the Peshawar Accords on 26 April 1992 by many, but not all, Afgh ...

and appointed an interim government for a transitional period to be followed by general elections. According to

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...

: The Hezbe Wahdat initially took part in the Islamic State and held some posts in the government. Soon, however, conflict broke out between the Hazara Hezbe Wahdat of Mazari and the Pashtun Ittihad-i Islami of

Abdul Rasul Sayyaf Abdulrab Rasul Sayyaf ( ; ps, عبدالرسول سیاف; born 1946) is an exiled Afghan politician and former mujahideen commander. He took part in the war against the Marxist–Leninist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) govern ...

.Gutman, Roy (2008): ''How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan'', Endowment of the United States Institute of Peace, 1st ed., Washington DC. The Islamic State's defense minister

Ahmad Shah Massoud ) , branch = Jamiat-e Islami / Shura-e Nazar Afghan Armed Forces United Islamic Front , serviceyears = 1975–2001 , rank = General , unit = , commands = Mujahideen commander during the Soviet–Afghan Wa ...

tried to mediate between the factions with some success, but the cease-fire remained only temporary. In June 1992, the Hezbe Wahdat and the Ittihad-i Islami engaged in violent street battles against each other. With the support of Saudi Arabia, Sayyaf's forces repeatedly attacked the western suburbs of Kabul resulting in heavy civilian casualties. Likewise, Iran allegedly supported Mazari's forces that were also accused of attacking civilian targets in the west. Mazari acknowledged taking Pashtun civilians as prisoners, but defended the action by saying that Sayyaf's forces took Hazaras first. Mazari's group started cooperating with Hekmatyar's group from January 1993.

Death

On March 12, 1995, the Taliban requested a meeting with Mazari and a delegation from the Islamic Wahdat Central Party Abuzar Ghaznawi, Ekhlaasi, Eid Mohammad Ibrahimi Behsudi, Ghassemi, Jan Mohammad, Sayed Ali Alavi, Bahodari, and Jan Ali in Chahar Asiab, near Kabul. On their arrival, the group was abducted and tortured. The following day Mazari was killed and his body was found in a district of

Ghazni Ghazni ( prs, غزنی, ps, غزني), historically known as Ghaznain () or Ghazna (), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana ( gr, Αλεξάνδρεια Ωπιανή), is a city in southeastern Afghanistan ...

. The Taliban issued a statement that Mazari had attacked the Taliban guards while being flown to

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the c ...

. Later, his body and those of his companions were handed over to Hezb-e Wahdat, mutilated and showing signs of torture. Mazari's body was carried on foot from

Mazar-i-Sharif , official_name = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , pushpin_map = Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia , pushpin_label = Mazar-i-Sharif , pushpin ...

in the north (at the time under the control of his ally

Abdul Rashid Dostum Abdul Rashid Dostum ( ; prs, عبدالرشید دوستم; Uzbek Latin: , Uzbek Cyrillic: , ; born 25 March 1954) is an Afghan exiled politician, former Marshal in the Afghan National Army, founder and leader of the political party Junbish- ...

) all across the Hazara lands in heavy snow by his followers over forty days. Hundreds of thousands attended his funeral in Mazar-i Sharif. Mazari was officially named a Martyr for National Unity of Afghanistan by President

in 2016.

References

External links

Tabaro-Baghe-Gole-Sorkh – Poetry about Abdul Ali Mazari
at BabaMazary.blogfa.com
Picture gallery
at Picasaweb
Biography of Abdul Ali Mazari
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mazari, Abdul Ali 1946 births 1995 deaths Hazara politicians Afghan warlords Afghan Shia Muslims Afghan anti-communists Hezbe Wahdat politicians People from Balkh Province People killed by the Taliban

Early life

Mujahideen commander and politician

Death

See also

References

External links