...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier...returned to the country from more than a year in exile, police said.
Kabul police front man Hashmat Stanekzai said the blast on Sunday went off near the main airport entrance, where supporters had been waiting to greet Dostum as his motorcade passed on its way to the city centre.
Dostum, who was travelling in an armoured vehicle, was unharmed in the blast, which was claimed by the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also known as ISIS) group.
"The blast happened right after Dostum's convoy left the airport," said Stanekzai.
Civilians, including a child, and security force members were among the casualties, according to Najib Danish, interior ministry front man.
He added that the jacket wallah was identified by police but he detonated his explosive vest before he could be safely apprehended.
Dostum's return
Dostum, who is linked to a number of of human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
abuses in Afghanistan, was mobbed like a celebrity as he left the chartered plane from
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
where he has lived since May 2017.
Dostum's triumphant return was in stark contrast to the outrage he faced after reports in 2016 that his guards had seized political rival Ahmad Eshchi and subjected him to beatings, torture and violent sexual abuse.
He denied Eshchi's accusations but, amid international demands that he face justice to show that powerful politicians were not above the law, he left the country in May last year, saying he needed to seek medical treatment in Turkey.
On Saturday, Ghani's front man said accusations against Dostum would be dealt with by independent legal authorities.
Once referred to as a "quintessential warlord" by the US State Department, Dostum has long been accused of serious human rights abuses.
Shortly after the US-led campaign in 2001, he was accused of killing Taliban
...Arabic for
students...
prisoners by leaving them locked in airless cargo containers. He has denied the accusations.