Will Afghanistan Break up Too? Abdullah Threatens Rival Gov’t As Kerry Raises “Concern”

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http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/afghanistan-abdullah-threatens.html

Will Afghanistan Break up Too? Abdullah Threatens Rival Gov’t As Kerry Raises “Concern”
By contributors | Jul. 11, 2014
By Charles Recknagel

As disappointed Abdullah Abdullah supporters label Afghanistan's early election results a "coup d'etat," there is every reason to take seriously their threats to form a parallel government rather than accept one led by rival candidate Ashraf Ghani.

This is because Abdullah is part of a powerful network that has both the political and military assets needed to form an alternative government. Whether that government would be a replacement to the government in Kabul or simply the government of a separatist region has been left unclear by the vague talk so far.

Abdullah's network is part of the remains of the Northern Alliance, a largely ethnic Tajik-based military front formed in 1996 to defend northern Afghanistan after the Taliban took Kabul. Abdullah was the Northern Alliance's last foreign minister and a close friend of its most famous commander, Ahmad Shah Masud, who was assassinated on the eve of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

As the United States subsequently pummeled the Taliban in late 2001, the Northern Alliance swept into Kabul and became the initial core of the new Afghanistan state's security forces. Analysts say that 13 years later, the base of the security forces has greatly broadened, but some of the former Northern Alliance networks within them remain intact.