Abdul Momim

Who was Abdul Momim?

During the Civil war in Afghanistan, General Abdul Momim or Abdul Mumin, was an ethnic Tajik officer who played a crucial role in the downfall of the government of Mohammad Najibullah. In January 1992 he joined Abdul Rashid Dostum to form the Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan.

During the 1990s Najibullah's regime had grown to rely on pro-government militias to fight the Mujahideen insurgency. Abdul Momim was a trained army officer who had proved capable of winning over members of the insurgency and had been given command of a militia unit. Officially called the 70th division, this unit was based at Hairatan, the strategic border crossing in northern Afghanistan. Despite being nominally loyal to the Kabul regime, Momim used his position to divert supplies to fellow militia leader Abdul Rashid Dostum, while at the same time giving intelligence to guerilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.

In January 1992, Najibullah tried to reassert his command over his supply lines by replacing the non-Pashtun militia leaders with Pashtun officers. His first move was to replace Abdul Momim with General Rasul, a Pashtun Khalqi notorious for his brutal tenure as commander of the Pul-e-Charkhi prison. Momim refused to leave his post, and quickly garnered support from Dostum, who arranged an alliance with Ismaili militia commander Sayed Mansur Naderi. This coalition, which became the Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan, allied with Massoud and overrran much of northern Afghanistan with little fighting. On March 19, they captured Mazar-i-Sharif.