Opposition Leader Hopes for U.N. Asylum

Haji Mir Hamed Jaafari appears old and frightened, hardly the image of an Afghan warrior.

Once in charge of an armed force of 1,500 fighters and 31 tanks, Jaafari, 44, now spends his days under guard of a handful of knife-wielding relatives in a seven-room house in this provincial capital near Iran’s eastern border.

He has applied to the United Nations for asylum, an unusual request for an Afghan opposition leader, according to the organization. But Jaafari worries that unless he resettles to a third country, pro-Taliban assassins will kill him. He’ll agree to go to any country that will accept him, Jaafari added. The main thing is to get his two wives and dozen children to safety.

“I want to go to a place where I’m going to have security for life,” he said in the Persian dialect many Afghans speak. “Someplace where we have something to eat, but mostly to feel secure.”

Jaafari is not as prominent as slain resistance commanders Ahmed Shah Masoud and Abdul Haq, but is aware of the dangers of opposing the Taliban. Osama bin Laden is widely thought to have been behind the suicide bomb attack that killed Masoud in early September. The Taliban last week captured Haq, who was rallying support inside Afghanistan, and executed him.

Jaafari is the head of a clan of 10,000 Shiite Muslim families bearing his last name in the Helmand region of southwestern Afghanistan. He also is a representative of Afghanistan’s opposition Islamic Unity Party.

He has been in Iran for seven years, since about the time the Taliban began emerging in southern Afghanistan. But he hasn’t felt safe in this largely Sunni province of eastern Iran for more than a year, Jaafari said. No other part of the Islamic Republic, which is predominantly Shiite, is safe either, he added. The Taliban has supporters everywhere.

His only excursions are to a rundown office that he relocated from across town to a building across the street from his house.

It was in the office, a dimly lit room furnished with a faded Persian rug, plastic chairs and pictures of other Afghan opposition leaders, that Jaafari recently recounted the violence that drove him into seclusion.

Taliban sympathizers in Iran have assassinated three of his cousins and one of his followers during the last year, Jaafari said. Six Taliban supporters tried to abduct him outside his home, he added, but an elder son and brother ran off the would-be kidnappers.

Iranian authorities never found any of the culprits, Jaafari said. Iranian authorities, in turn, deny Jaafari is in danger.

Iranian authorities within Sistan-Baluchistan province insist that the recent killings of Jaafari’s relatives happened on Afghan soil and are thus out of Iranian hands.

Even though he served as the local military commander in his region of Afghanistan, Jaafari says he has never killed anyone, “although people die in war.” He refused to elaborate.

A United Nations official who received Jaafari’s asylum application in June said it merited “further inquiry.”

“If we see he physically is in danger, we will make the case” for resettlement, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Iran section of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has submitted the names of close to 1,200 Afghans for resettlement this year, associate resettlement officer Maria Cristina Mulas said Sunday. Very few are of Jaafari’s rank, she added; instead, 40% are women, who in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan cannot work or risk going outdoors by themselves.

Another 40% are men who face persecution, Mulas said.

Gaining asylum is a lengthy process that takes a minimum of five months, she said, adding that the United Nations is thorough in ensuring that applicants have not committed any human rights abuses.

Even with U.N. approval, asylum is not guaranteed. Host countries review applicants, Mulas said. Iran, in turn, must grant the asylum seekers exit visas.

The United States cannot be considered as a host country because it has no formal relations with Iran. Scandinavian countries are the most common recipients.

Asylum requests from Afghans average about 200 a day across Iran, Mulas said.

Jaafari said he is frustrated by how long it is taking for his case to be decided. He feels particularly vulnerable now that the Taliban is under attack.

Taliban sympathizers are more likely to want to kill exiled opposition leaders to prevent them from starting any uprisings back home, he said.

Zahedan has been the site of the most fervent pro-Taliban, anti-West demonstrations in Iran since the war began more than three weeks ago. Police have clashed repeatedly with protesters after Friday noon prayers.

Jaafari said it is only the will of God that keeps him going.

“Days come after nights and it’s not good,” he explained. “We’ve sold everything--three homes, my cars--just to live here in fear.”