KABUL — Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Monday a peace agreement with one of the country’s most notorious warlords is close to being concluded, offering hope of progress toward ending decades of conflict.
Negotiations with Hizb-i-Islami, a militant group of several hundred fighters led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a veteran of almost 40 years of fighting in Afghanistan, have been going on since May, when a draft accord was signed.
But a final agreement has been held up with many on the government side suspicious of bringing the prominent Pashtun warlord into the political fold and civil rights activists concerned about longstanding accusations of human rights abuses against him.
Hekmatyar has been allied at various times with Pakistan, the Washington-backed anti-Soviet mujahideen in the 1980s and the Taliban, who are seeking to force the NATO-led coalition out of Afghanistan and bring in Islamic law.
“Some issues are left and those are issues that would be very important for implementing peace,” Ghani said at the start of the three-day Eid holiday. “These issues should be solved within a limited period of time.”
He thanked both Hizb-i-Islami and the High Peace Council for their efforts to negotiate a deal. “There is hope that, God willing, the agreement will be finalized soon and we will witness a major step toward the creation of peace environment and end of fighting,” he said.
Hekmatyar, who was included on the US State Department’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist list in 2003, has played relatively little direct part in the insurgency in recent years.
But an accord would offer some encouragement that the Kabul government can persuade militant groups to move away from the battlefield and into the political process after failed efforts to start peace talks with the Taliban.
During the bloody civil war of the 1990s, Hekmatyar’s forces were accused of killing thousands of civilians in heavy bombardments of the Afghan capital and more recently, they were linked with several Al-Qaeda and Taliban attacks on international forces in Afghanistan and the Kabul government.
Peace talks with the Taliban, the largest insurgent group in Afghanistan, have yet to get off the ground, but both sides have said they are open to the idea.
In a statement commemorating the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid-ul-Adha on Monday, Taliban chief Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada said his group was “continuing to make diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the issue of Afghanistan alongside its military approach.”
Afghans mark Eid with prayers for peace
Millions of war-weary Afghans on Monday marked the Islamic festival of Eid-ul-Adha with prayers and feasting, hopeful of a brief respite from fighting that has seen record-breaking losses this year.
Fellow Muslims across Asia spent the day slaughtering livestock, giving charity to the poor and visiting relatives on Islam’s second-holiest holiday.
Afghanistan has seen fighting between government forces and militants — mainly Taliban insurgents but also Islamic State fighters — reach record levels this year following the 2014 withdrawal of US-led foreign combat troops.
“Our country has been at war for nearly four decades, but the three days of Eid are the happiest days of our life because this an occasion where families come together and enjoy and celebrate this festival,” Kabul resident Nasratullah Wafa said:
The roads of the capital were mostly empty and many were blocked by military to safeguard against possible attacks, while police stood guard over mosques during the morning Eid prayers.
US Brigadier General Charles Cleveland in August said Afghan security forces were on track for their bloodiest year to date, surpassing the roughly 5,000 deaths of local police and troops and around 15,000 wounded in 2015.
He did not offer figures but said there was an increase of about 20 percent over the corresponding period last year.
Afghan forces backed by US air strikes have mounted a new offensive to flush out Taliban insurgents encircling the capital of southern Uruzgan province, officials said Sunday, days after militants stormed into the city.
Meanwhile in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, citizens gathered at mosques across the nation to witness the traditional sacrifice of animals, that honours the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son for God.
At a large mosque in central Jakarta dozens of goats, sheep and cows were tethered in makeshift pens in the parking lot before being led to a tiled clearing for slaughter.
Farra, an Indonesian woman in her 40s, said she would take the cuts home where her mother would prepare “sate,” a dish of spiced meat grilled over hot coals, for her extended family.
“We do it every year, and the great thing is we can see our lamb when it’s cut, and can remember it’s our gift to Allah,” she said, as a butcher handed her a freshly carved leg of lamb in a plastic bag.
Pakistan, the world’s second most populous Muslim nation, will celebrate Eid on Tuesday because of differences in interpretation of the lunar date.
