Gen. Dustom’s convoy comes under Taliban attack in Faryab

According to reports Taliban militants on Friday evening attacked the convoy of Afghan first vice president, Gen. Dustom in Qaisar district of northern Faryab province.

While traveling to visit Qaisar checkpoints and headquarters in an M11117 Armored Security Vehicle, Gen. Dustom ambushed by Taliban groups.

A source close to Gen. Dustom confirming the report said the incident took place while the convoy of General Dustom was on his way towards Ghurmach district.

In the meantime, Dustom’s guards in respond to Taliban fighters surrounded them and in the result killed and arrest all of them.

“We have killed around eight Taliban and arrest 18 others,” Abdul Satar Qasemi, commander of Dustom’s Special Guards said.

Previously, Gen. Dustom had warned Taliban to lay down their weapons and join peace process.

He insisted he has 9,000 volunteers ready to fight in Faryab, but said, “But what can I do? The president does not allow it.”

A bulwark against the Taliban, Gen Abdul Rashid Dustom earlier made his call to arms from his imposing concrete redoubt in northern Afghanistan.

Faryab is where the general decided to make his first visit as vice-president ─ a position far removed from his days as a feared warlord with a reputation for brutality earned during the civil war of the 1990s.

Dostum, a former warlord from Sheberghan, the capital of the northwestern province of Jowzjan, rose to prominence as a pro-Soviet commander fighting the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s.