Afghanistan’s First Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum suffered a minor injury during the Taliban ambush in northern Faryab province of the country, Khaama Press reports.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Afghanistan Abdullah Abdullah confirmed today that the health condition of the first vice president is satisfactory and he has suffered a minor injury in the attack, according to the report.
CEO Abdullah was speaking during a meeting of the Ministers Council ahead of his visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Taliban militants reportedly ambushed Vice President Dostum last Saturday, as he was accompanying a convoy of the security forces on the way to Ghormach district that fell to Taliban control last week.
New Afghan Press (NAP) reports that 17 security forces including guards of the senior official were killed in Taliban ambush in Ghormach district of the province on Saturday.
This is not the first time General Dostum has come under attack by Taliban militants or has escaped assassination plot by the group.
The general first joined the Afghan security forces in the frontline in northern Faryab province earlier in August 2015, where he survived at least two assassination plots by the anti-government armed militant groups, while he was leading counter-terrorism operations.
Initially his convoy was ambushed by the Taliban militants in Qaisar district in mid-August 2015, while another plot to assassinate him was thwarted by the security forces and his special security guards few days later.
Abdul Rashid Dostum (born 1954) is an Afghan politician who has served as Vice President of Afghanistan since 2014. He is an ethnic Uzbek, former warlord and general, previously part of the leadership council of the National Front of Afghanistan along with Ahmad Zia Massoud and Mohammad Mohaqiq, as well as chairman of his own political party, Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan (National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan). He also served in the past as Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Afghan National Army, a role often viewed as ceremonial.
During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Dostum was a general in the Afghan army. He later became an independent warlord and leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community. He participated in battles against the Mujahideen fighters in the 1980s as well as against the Taliban in the 1990s. After the fall of the Taliban, he mainly resided in Turkey before returning to the country. In 2013 he made a public apology for his role in the civil war. He subsequently entered parliament, and later joined Ashraf Ghani's presidential administration as a vice president.
