Twelve years after the death of Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Afghanistan remains under the control of the Taliban and in the shadow of nearly 25 other terrorist groups.
Marshal Fahim was born in 1957 in Omarz village of Panjshir. At the age of 22, he joined the jihad against Soviet forces and quickly became one of the closest allies of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the national hero.
After Massoud’s assassination on September 9, 2001, Fahim assumed leadership of the Northern Alliance within less than 72 hours. He organized a counteroffensive and, in less than two months, drove the Taliban out of Kabul and other parts of the country.
He served as Minister of Defense from 2001 to 2004, during which he laid the foundation of the Afghan National Army.
From 2009 until his death in 2013, he served two terms as First Vice President under Hamid Karzai.
Northern Afghanistan was the core of his power. The fronts in Takhar, Kunduz, Balkh, Baghlan, Badakhshan, Parwan, and Samangan were unified under a single command. Even after leaving the Ministry of Defense in 2004, local commanders remained directly loyal to him.
In eastern Afghanistan, he had a long jihadist history dating back to the late 1970s, with influence in Kunar, Shigal, Kapisa, Parwan, Tagab, Nejrab, Salang, and Kohdaman, where he maintained intelligence networks and long-standing relationships.
He also exercised indirect but effective influence through ethnic and political mediation. As Vice President, Fahim played a key role in engaging and supporting certain Pashtun leaders, reducing ethnic tensions within the cabinet and the Loya Jirga, and maintaining a balance between the north and the south.
Western diplomats described him as “a key figure for peace with the Pashtuns.”
Between 2004 and 2009, when he held no official position and remained largely out of public office, the appointment of key ministers and governors could not take place without his coordination.
Hamid Karzai relied on his opinion in major decisions—from budget allocations for northern regions to the selection of the Second Vice President. Numerous diplomatic documents from that period described Fahim as “the most powerful man in the country.”
Although some Western media labeled him a “warlord,” no international court ruling, legally substantiated evidence, or formal trial was ever issued against him. Both Western governments and Hamid Karzai continued to work with him for years, as his absence was seen as a risk to national stability.
Marshal Fahim was not only the last architect of northern cohesion, but also one of the few figures who elevated his power to a national level, maintaining Afghanistan’s ethnic and political balance—albeit fragile—for more than a decade.
His death in 2013 created a vacuum that contributed to the rapid collapse of the north in the summer of 2021, in less than two weeks, and disrupted the national balance.
Without his centralized leadership, the north did not remain united, nor were the south and east sufficiently contained. Ultimately, the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan.