Controversial warlord given top post

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 2 (UPI) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has given a top post to controversial militia commander Abdul Rashid Dostum despite his alleged link to human rights abuses.

A presidential spokesman said Tuesday that Dostum had been appointed to the position of chief-of-staff to the commander of the armed forces, the BBC reported.

The move is seen as an effort to win the support of the ethnic Uzbek community, who regard Dostum as their leader. Karzai is seen as trying to strengthen his coalition in time for parliamentary elections later this year.

Dostum is one of the most controversial warlords left in Afghanistan with substantial influence. Some say he should be imprisoned, not given such authority.

In the 1980s he backed the Soviet Union against the mujahedin rebels. During the 1990s civil war he played a prominent role in the civil war of the 1990s that destroyed much of the capital, Kabul, and left thousands dead. In 2001, helping the United States, his militia troops were accused of suffocating hundreds of Taliban prisoners by locking them inside shipping containers.

Dostum ran in last year's presidential election and received 10 percent of the vote.