27 April 2017•Update: 28 April 2017
By Shadi Khan Saif
KABUL, Afghanistan
Twenty years after a self-imposed exile, former Afghan mujahedeen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has appeared publicly Thursday in the conflict-ridden country.
He met his party members in the eastern Laghman province and is scheduled to address a gathering in the region on Friday, confirmed Hekmatyar’s spokesman.
Hekmatyar’s supporters shared pictures on social media in which the 69-year-old veteran politician can be seen in apparent good health.
Gulbudin’s return to the political arena is in line with the September peace accord between the Afghan government and his party the Hezb-e-Islami party.
Hashmatullah Arshad, Hekmatyar’s spokesman, told Anadolu Agency that he expected the government to release the first batch of Hezb-e-Islami’s prisoners on Friday as well.
Large banners with welcoming slogans for the former rebel have emerged in Kabul, among other major cities of the country.
Vehement criticism was targeted towards Afghan President Ashraf Ghani by rights groups within the country and abroad for the truce with Hekmatyar due to the latter’s fierce and deadly armed campaign to capture the capital during the civil war in the 1990s.
However, Ghani -- who has been called "the architect-in-chief of Afghanistan" by the New Yorker weekly for his role in rebuilding the country, has stood by his move to allow Hekmatyar a second chance.
The Hezb-e-Islami is ideologically inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan, and was formed by Hekmatyar in the mid-1970s.
Hekmatyar left Kabul in 1997 when the Taliban captured the capital. He fled to Iran and later to Pakistan.
