48 Facts About Mohammad Fahim

Mohammad Qasim Fahim was a military commander and politician in Afghanistan who served as Vice President from June 2002 until December 2004 and from November 2009 until his death.

Mohammad Fahim was considered a powerful and influential figure during the Karzai Administration.

Mohammad Fahim later became a recipient of the Ahmad Shah Baba Medal.

Mohammad Fahim passed away due to natural causes in 2014; the president declared three days of national mourning in honor of him.

Mohammad Fahim was born in Omarz, a small village in the Panjshir Province of Afghanistan and is of Tajik ethnicity.

Mohammad Fahim was the son of Qala Dar from the Panjshir Valley.

Mohammad Fahim is reported to have finished his studies in Islamic Sharia law at an Arabic institute in Kabul in 1977.

Mohammad Fahim fled Afghanistan after the Communist coup of 1978, he became a refugee in Peshawar.

Mohammad Fahim returned to Panjshir and began to work under Commander Ahmad Shah Masood.

Mohammad Fahim was appointed head of the Afghan intellgicence service KHAD, under interim president Sibghatullah Mojaddedi.

Mohammad Fahim continued to serve as the country's head of intelligence under president Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Mohammad Fahim continued to serve as head of the Intelligence and Minister of National Security of the internationally recognised United Islamic Front Government, even when it was ousted and the Taliban took the power over most provinces of Afghanistan in the second half of the 1990s.

Two days later, Mohammad Fahim was confirmed as the new defence minister of the United Islamic Front, succeeding Massoud.

However, since Mohammad Fahim lacked Massoud's magnetism, his role as opposition leader was generally seen as temporary.

When in the first weeks of US bombardments Mohammad Fahim's forces did not make any large breakthroughs, it was speculated that he was struggling with his role and he appeared wooden and awkward in front of his troops.

Mohammad Fahim was reportedly advocating a broad-based government headed by someone outside the leadership of the United Islamic Front.

Qanuni, Abdullah and Mohammad Fahim all got crucial posts in the new government.

Karzai was the official chairman of the executive committee of the government, but as commander of the most effective military force commanding the capital, Mohammad Fahim had the real power.

Since Mohammad Fahim was afraid a large international peace keeping force would take away his power base, he argued for a limited number of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Mohammad Fahim stated that a UN force should not exceed 1,000 men and should play a very limited role in Afghan politics and that his own forces could eradicate sources of instability.

Mohammad Fahim discussed the deployment of foreign troops with US Generals and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who demanded the presence of a large international force.

Mohammad Fahim was in charge of the meetings with the British General John McColl to establish the exact task, length of stay and size of international forces.

Reportedly, Mohammad Fahim refused to meet McColl until Rumsfeld pressured him and told him to meet the British general.

Mohammad Fahim expressed the wish to build an Afghan army of around 250,000 men.

The heavily armed units of northern alliance soldiers who swept into Kabul will be withdrawn from the streets, Mohammad Fahim added, but they will not leave the capital.

Mohammad Fahim indicated that the international forces should leave after six years, but Karzai said that they would stay "as long as we need them, six years as a minimum".

Still, although a sometimes bumbling and awkward figure in public, and especially unpopular with the Uzbek minority, Mohammad Fahim quietly had gained control of the Northern Alliance's fractious military commanders.

Mohammad Fahim continued to hold this control, even when Abdul Rashid Dostum, the most powerful Uzbek warlord who had taken control of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif and who was very critical of the Bonn Agreement, was appointed his deputy.

When US-envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said in January 2002 that Iran might be backing Afghan fighters in an attempt to unsettle the Karzai-government, Mohammad Fahim, who visited the Iranian minister of Defense half January, stated that there was no sign of Iran "creating insecurity".

Mohammad Fahim replaced 15 ethnic Tajik generals with officers from the Pashtun, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic groups, although he was accused of delaying reforms that would have required him to replace his Tajik generals with a more ethnically balanced officer corps.

Subsequently, Mohammad Fahim backed the candidacy of his fellow Tajik, Yunus Qanuni for president.

Mohammad Fahim had no higher education, and article 72 of Afghanistan's constitution states that an appointed Minister to the President's cabinet should have a higher education.

Some Afghan analysts attest that, despite losing his military position, Mohammad Fahim remained a very powerful figure in the country.

Mohammad Fahim comes to all of the National Security Council meetings.

Mohammad Fahim was a member of the political party United National Front, a broad coalition of former and current strongmen, mainly with a basis in the United Islamic Front.

In 2009, Mohammad Fahim was chosen by incumbent President Karzai as candidate for first Vice President in the 2009 presidential election.

Many in Kabul alleged Marshal Mohammad Fahim was at the time involved in criminal activities, including kidnapping for ransom.

Mohammad Fahim's convoy was targeted when a mine exploded underneath the central car in Fahim's convoy.

Mohammad Fahim survived another assassination attempt in the northern Kunduz province.

The Taliban attacked Mohammad Fahim's convoy using automatic rifles and rocket propelled grenades.

Mohammad Fahim declared that, with their input, a coming national conference would lay the foundations for a peace that would end the Taliban insurgency.

Mohammad Fahim was a member of the leadership council of the United Islamic Front, a coalition of top national and regional leaders.

In June 2007, Mohammad Fahim stated that his advisory role was merely symbolic and that he never had the chance to advise the President.

Mohammad Fahim further said that after the 2004 elections President Karzai formed a "one-sided" cabinet and began to employ unilateralism as his main policy driver.

Mohammad Fahim argued that without the backing of foreign forces, President Karzai's regime would not last longer than a week.

In September 2010, an Afghan news agency reported that Mohammad Fahim had died of cancer in Paris, France.

Mohammad Fahim died of a heart attack on 9 March 2014.

Mohammad Fahim's death came only a few weeks before Karzai was due to step down from the presidency, and as NATO forces pull out of Afghanistan, added to the prevailing atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.