KABUL - Afghanistan's Minister of Energy and Water Mohammad Ismail Khan on Thursday said that the process of creating a military unit made up of the former mujahedeen fighters is underway to protect and secure Afghanistan because NATO had failed to do so.

Ismail Khan said in a gathering with former regional Jihadi commanders in west and southwest Afghanistan that the Mujahedeen should also be given more roles in the government as the foreign armies – the NATO-led international security assistance force ISAF – had failed to ensure stability in the country.

He emphasized that just as the Mujahedeen had previously driven out the foreign invaders, the Soviets, so too there was now a need for the Mujahedeen to again rescue the country from "foreign conspiracies".
"The foreigners sidelined those who had fought for ages," Ismail Khan said in western Herat province.

"They collected all our weapons, our artillery and tanks, and put them on the rubbish heap. Instead, they brought Dutch girls, French girls, girls from Holland, they armed American girls, they brought white-skinned Western soldiers, and black-skinned American soldiers, and they thought by doing all this they would bring security here but they failed," he added.

Khan claimed that President Hamid Karzai is aware of the plans to re-form the mujahedeen armed forces.

"We have had detailed discussions with President Hamid Karzai, who is a Mujahed himself. We are planning on this strategy and the registration of people is underway," he said.

He added that the future Afghan president to be introduced at the next election in 2014 should be elected in close collaboration with the Mujahedeen council.

The Council is understood to have been formed by Ismail Khan, himself a former Jihadi commander in Herat. (Tolo News)