Others languished as warlord rose

KABUL, Afghanistan -- At least five people were held for years at Guantanamo Bay prison partly because they allegedly had ties to Pacha Khan Zadran , an Afghan warlord who had clashed with US troops -- though Zadran himself was never sent to Guantanamo Bay.

In fact, Afghan president Hamid Karzai pardoned Zadran and allowed him to run for parliament. He won, and now, in one of the greatest ironies of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, he lives in an ornate mansion in Kabul as a police-protected member of Afghanistan's lower house.

The story of Zadran's audacious rise from a renegade who attacked US troops and Afghan civilians to a respectable role in Afghan politics highlights a double injustice that prevails today in Afghanistan: Powerful warlords accused of grave abuses have risen to the highest level of government here, while some villagers accused of far less serious offenses have languished for years in US custody at Guantanamo Bay.

"This is the whole problem with Guantanamo," added Vincent Warren , executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which coordinates the legal representation of detainees. "In Afghanistan, being picked up often had more to do with your relationships with rival factions . . . than any real link to Al Qaeda."

John Sifton , a senior researcher on terrorism at Human Rights Watch, said his investigations have shown that many of the Afghans held at Guantanamo Bay were not brought there because of alleged ties to terrorism, but to armed factions fighting for power who were seen as "spoilers" in the Afghan political process.

Over the past five years, the Afghan government has tried to coax these spoilers into the government by giving them top jobs and allowing them to run for office. But at the same time, dozens of villagers accused of working for them have been held for years at Guantanamo Bay.

For example, the Afghan government has sought to reconcile with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar , the leader of Hezb-e-Islami , a fundamentalist group that has attacked US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban fell in 2001. Yet at least seven detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been imprisoned for years based on alleged ties to the same group, according to transcripts of military hearings.

Even senior Taliban leaders have been brought back into the government. Mullah Salam Rocketi , once a senior Taliban military commander, now serves as a member of parliament after spending only about eight months in US custody. Meanwhile, dozens of lower-level suspects, some accused of working as cooks or drivers for the Taliban, spent years at Guantanamo Bay, according to military transcript.

J. Alexander Thier, a senior adviser at the US Institute of Peace, a Washington-based conflict resolution think tank, said the strategy of bringing such opponents into the government makes sense, but he acknowledged that it produces "a terrible discrepancy in treatment that doesn't seem on its face justifiable."

No case is a starker example of this double standard than the story of Pacha Khan Zadran, who has been called one of Afghanistan's most mercurial warlords.

Zadran, an influential tribal leader, initially forged a close friendship with US troops after the 9/11 attacks. The US government provided him with money and two satellite phones to help track down Al Qaeda fighters in the southern provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika. In November 2001, he attended a conference in Bonn to help set up the new Afghan government.

There, he said in a recent interview at his home in Kabul, he was promised leadership of the three provinces for participating in the conference. But allegations that Zadran used the satellite phones to call in US air strikes on his rivals -- killing more than 60 tribal elders in a strike in December 2001 and dozens of innocent people at a wedding later that month -- helped spark local opposition to his rule.

Karzai appointed a new governor in the region, prompting Zadran to reject the Karzai government and take up arms against it. By the spring of 2003, Zadran was openly launching rockets at civilian homes in Paktia and battling US forces and the Afghan government. Americans killed Zadran's bodyguards and one of his sons in an attack, and arrested another son.

But the Karzai government and some US officials considered him too important a political figure to kill. Even after Zadran was arrested in Pakistan in early 2004 and handed over to the Afghans, Zadran was not sent to Guantanamo Bay. Instead, Karzai announced that he had forgiven Zadran, and appointed the son who had been arrested by US troops to be head of a district in Zadran's home area.

"That has been the overarching political strategy from the start, to bring in every armed faction," said Thier, who also served as an adviser to Afghanistan's ministry of justice in 2003 and 2004. "As a political actor and a political player, Pacha Khan's involvement and support has always been sought by the Afghan government and the US government."

But detainees at Guantanamo Bay who were accused of working for Zadran were treated far more harshly. Four were arrested in January 2002, when Zadran was still friendly with US troops. Two years later, US military officials listed alleged ties to Zadran among the key reasons for the men's detention, according to transcripts of their military hearings that describe Zadran as a "renegade" commander who "has been conducting military operations" against Afghan and US troops.

Three of the men were released in 2005. But two were held until 2006 -- long after Zadran was pardoned and elected to parliament.

Thomas Ruttig , the head of the UN mission in southern Afghanistan in 2003, said it was a good thing to bring Zadran into the government.

Zadran had been so upset by the death of his son, Ruttig said, that he vowed to drive the Americans out of southern Afghanistan. But Ruttig advised him not to create more violence, and instead to run for parliament.

Now, Zadran has traded in the belt of bullets he once wore across his chest for a suit coat, which he wears over his salwar kameez, a traditional outfit. He busies himself with debates over Karzai's budget, the ongoing war against the Taliban, and the considerable effort it takes to stay alive.

He has been targeted twice by suicide bombers over the past year. He keeps the twisted wreck of an SUV in his driveway as a reminder.

He said he considers himself a firm ally of Karzai and American forces. In fact, he denies ever having fought them.

"I was never against the American forces," he said in a recent interview as he rested on a stack of silky red pillows in his living room. "I helped them, but they killed my bodyguards. They attacked my cars, arrested my son. The reason is not known to me. They didn't have any reason."

He shows no sympathy for the lowly farmers who were detained in his name.

"Whoever is in Guantanamo, all of them are criminals," said Zadran, his thick black mustache twitching as he chewed gum. "The American forces do not arrest innocent people . . . Those guys were never in my armies. They do not belong to me."

Yet Abib Sarajuddin was accused of "recruiting" soldiers for Zadran and accepting money from him, among other offenses, according to the military transcript of his hearing. Pacha Wazir was accused of securing a town for Zadran. Military officials heavily questioned Sarajuddin's son, brother, and neighbor about their own ties to Zadran.

But even the US military officials who were conducting the hearings seemed confused about which side Zadran was on. The officials repeatedly asked the detainees whether Zadran was currently a friend or an enemy of the United States.

"It has been three years since I have been here [at Guantanamo], so I don't know," replied Wazir.