Mohammed Daud Daud

Mohammad Daud Daud (Persian: محمد داوود داوود) General Mohammad Daud Daud (born in January 1969 in Farkhar district, Takhar province and died on May 28, 2011 in Taloqan city, Takhar province) پیرو راستین مسعود, was an Afghan general of Tajik ethnicity. He was the general commander of the police in the north and northeast of Afghanistan.

He was one of the well-known anti-Taliban and Al-Qaeda figures and the creator of the local police پولیس محلی in Afghanistan.

Daud Daud completed his school at Abu Osman Taloqani High School and had a bachelor's degree in political science, and he was still enrolled in a foreign university to get a master's degree before his death.

He was also the Deputy Minister of Interior for Counternarcotics in 2002 and was again appointed as the commander of the North and Northeast Police Zone in 2010.

On May 28, 2011, he was wounded in the leg by the explosion of a mine planted in the sofa of the Takhar governor's office. After asking for help, he was killed by an unknown person with thirteen bullets.

He was 41 years old when he was killed.

Personal History In the 1980s, he joined the forces of Com. Seyyed Hossein (known as Doctor Hossein), one of the prominent commanders of the Islamic Jamiat of Afghanistan. After the assassination of Commander Seyyed Hossein by Golbuddin Hekmatyar, Daud joined Ahmad Shah Massoud and was appointed first as a finance department member of the Jamyat e islami, before acting as the special assistant to Massoud.

After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, internal conflicts led to the formation of a new movement called the Taliban in Kandahar. The Taliban advanced and took over the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, leading to the fall of Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah Massoud decided to negotiate and meet with them when they arrived in the Maidan Shahr, the center of Wardak province, located south of Kabul. Massoud met the Taliban with some of his companions (Daud Daud, Asadullah Khalid, Abdul Rahim Maali), listening to their demands. However, Massoud, in his capacity as the Minister of Defence of the Islamic government, soon realised that it was not possible to negotiate with this group and returned. The leadership of the Islamic government, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, was determined to take the war out of Kabul so that the citizens of Kabul, who were severely damaged during the civil war, would no longer suffer.

Commander Massoud then ordered Daud to keep their forces away from the capital and take command of the central forces in the northeast.

When the Taliban took over the government in Afghanistan, he led his forces against the Taliban until December 2001, when the Taliban were completely defeated. After which, he continued to remain in his position (commander of the central forces and governor of Takhar province) and fought against their periodic insurgencies. His efforts led to the successful clearing of Takhar and Kundoz provinces from Taliban and Al-Qayeda.

He was more in the battlefield and fighting terrorism than sitting in the office, because of this, the insecurity in the north was reduced by 80%.

Hamid Karzai, whose first deputy was Marshal Fahim, accused him of genocide against the Pashtuns (from ethnic groups).

Daud and the Battle of Kunduz Daud was responsible for overseeing the November 2001 siege of Kunduz, the last major battle in the assault to topple the Taliban. During the siege of Kunduz all sides of the city were surrounded by Northern Alliance forces. Inside the city there were estimated to be 20,000-30,000 Taliban fighters, many of whom had vowed to fight to the death, rather than surrender. In Kunduz during the November 2001 siege were the so-called "Afghan Arabs", foreign volunteers believed to be led by Osama bin Laden. According to General Mohammed Daud, a pro-Taliban leader named "Omar al-Khatab" was leading a force of 1,000 foreign fighters belonging to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Little was known about the foreign Taliban. According to Afghan Taliban soldiers taken prisoner by the Northern Alliance, the foreigners did not fight side by side with the Taliban, but in separate units, under their own commanders. After victory at the siege of Kunduz and the subsequent establishment of the Interim Government in Afghanistan, Daud was appointed as Military commander of Corps No 6 in Kunduz /Kunduz province.

General Mohammed Daud was named Deputy Ministry of Interior for Counternarcotics by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in October 2004. Counternarcotics enforcement activities have been directed from within the Ministry of Interior since 2002. Daud expressed optimism about Afghanistan's efforts to halt the opium trade, saying "We witnessed a remarkable reduction in the level of poppy cultivation all over Afghanistan last year. We worked very hard in the provinces where poppy cultivation was higher last year. The poppy eradication campaign is extensively under way in 11 provinces. Some 45,000 jeribs [9,000 hectares] of poppy cultivated land have so far been cleared. The campaign will start in 11 other provinces soon."

However, his financial and public support to Dr. Abdullah Abdullah in the presidential election led to the elected president, Hamid Karzai, threatening to expel him.

President Hamid Karzai took steps to establish landlocked Afghanistan as a trade hub connecting the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe. Daud was involved in Karzai's plan to rehabilitate the war-torn Afghan economy. In late December 2002 Daud led an economic trade delegation to neighboring Tajikistan. Kabul has been particularly interested in swiftly opening trading routes in Central Asia, where there is a vast market for Afghan goods.

Daud was also involved in Afghanistan's Disbandment of Illegal Armed (DIAG). DIAG is a program within the Afghan Ministry of Interior. DAIG supports the Afghan government's objectives to bring stability to Afghanistan through the continuing process of demilitarization. The program also focuses on removing from office those government officials with proven links to illegal armed groups. Daud said that DIAG is not a program to take only weapons from individuals but that it is a program to disband the armed groups in order to ensure a sustainable safe and secure country.

Fight against Taliban terrorism

Acid attack on Afghan schoolgirls On 12 November 2008 attackers in Afghanistan sprayed acid in the faces of at least 15 girls near a school in Kandahar. One of the girls who was attacked was quoted as saying, "We were going to school on foot when two unknown people on a motorcycle came close to us and threw acid in our faces", 16-year-old Atifa told the BBC." General Mohammad Daud was tasked to deal with the incident. The attack on the girls, who had been wearing all-covering burqas, drew wide condemnation including from President Hamid Karzai and U.S. First Lady Laura Bush.

Daud said authorities had arrested ten men for the crime a few days after the attack. He said at a press conference that "The attack was the work of the Taliban and we have not finalised our investigation", Daud told reporters that the ten Afghans arrested had been promised 100,000 Pakistani rupees (US$1,300) each by Taliban in Pakistan. |Paul Wood (BBC)|2011

Counter-narcotics campaign

Opium in Afghanistan Opium from Afghanistan provides more than 90 per cent of the world's total supply, funding international drug syndicates with billions of US dollars in profits every year. Daud said that more than 110,000 people were actively involved in drug business across the country. This number had been estimated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC). In June 2007 Daud estimated there were over 1,000 smugglers, including some government officials arrested over the previous three years. The head of the UN's drugs agency said in 2010 that the Taliban had made $US100 million the previous year by levying a 10% tax on opium-growing farmers. In response to the illicit opium trade, Daud reported that counter-narcotics activities had been "boosted considerably" since 2007.

In December 2008 Daud spoke at a U.N. conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, and said that Afghan law enforcement agencies needed international assistance in training and equipment. He talked about lack of security and linkage between drug-trafficking and terrorism as well as profound corruption in the police and the army. His presentation highlighted the Ministry of the Interior's strategy in the field of counternarcotics. These included dismantling drug-trafficking networks/organizations, poppy eradication and crop substitution. Daud informed the participants that the "poppy eradication force" would complete its training soon and would be deployed to the southern provinces of Afghanistan. He noted that the force would be responsible for manually eradicating poppy plantations. He said that Taliban and smugglers had joined, and posed a bigger threat to the Afghan government. Counter-narcotics police came under enemy attack during the counter-narcotics drive in several occasions, inflicting casualties on the law-enforcers, he said. The campaign against poppy was successful in Logar, Ghazni, Wardag, Paktia, Paktika and Panjshir provinces. Daud was recently quoted as saying, "The Taliban have forged an alliance with drug smugglers, providing protection for drug convoys and mounting attacks to keep the government away and the poppy flourishing." In return, he said, the Taliban had offered opium farmers protection from the government's eradication efforts. The switch in strategy has an obvious logic: it provides opium money for the Taliban to sustain itself and helps it to win over the farming communities. "If we do not burn the drugs, thousands of others will become drug addicts", said Daud, deputy minister for counter narcotics at the Interior Ministry. By burning this amount of opium and narcotics we show the people we are committed to the fight against drugs." Daud added: "Previously, they were using wood in their big laboratories. They could not move [them] and we started to find their laboratories, so they decided to make all their laboratories into mobile labs so they can carry them to different places. They started using gas and diesel [as fuel]." after a meeting held in the headquarters of the provincial governor of Takhar Province. Six people, including two German soldiers, were killed. The commander of ISAF troops in North Afghanistan, General Markus Kneip, was wounded. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan also believed to have played a role.

Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former president, and Abdullah Abdullah, head of the National Coalition, called on the government to conduct an immediate investigation into the killing.