Abdul Razik

Abdul Razik
Nationality	Afghanistan

Brigadier General Abdul Razik is an officer in the Afghan Border Police. He is a member of the Pashtun ethnic group born in the border city of Spin Boldak. He is a member of the Adozai, a subtribe of the larger Achakzai.

Razik's prominent uncle and father were killed by the Taliban, in 1994, as they rose to power in Kandahar. In November 2001 Razik joined Achakzai anti-Taliban forces, under Fayda Mohammad and Gul Agha Shirzai, which overthrew the Taliban in Kandahar. Although he was unknown in 2001, he nevertheless rose to command the Afghanistan Border Police on Afghanistan's border between Kandahar and the Pakistan's Baluchistan Province.

Rise to power

According to Matthieu Aikins, writing in Harpers magazine, after he assumed the Presidency of the Afghan Transitional Administration Hamid Karzai appointed an individual to the Governorship of Kandahar, who Americans felt was too closely tied to the Taliban. Aikins reported that the Americans favored Gul Agha Shirzai, who they encouraged to oust Karzai's choice Mullah Naqib. Gul Agha Shirzai did oust Naqib, and he in turn appointed Razik's commander Fayda Mohammad to command the border police.

Fayda Mohammad told Aikins that he found it impossible to try to suppress the nascent opium trade, because his men kept stopping opium laden trucks that were under the protection of other government officials, including the Bacha Shirzai, the Governor's brother. Fayda Mohammad commanded the border police for nine months. When he resigned an Achakzai tribal jirga was convened to choose his replacement. Aikins reported that Razik, who had distinguished himself by his bravery in skirmishes since the Taliban's ouster, and who did not seem to be too closely tied to prominent factions within the tribe, was chosen over older candidates.

Command of the Border Police in Afghanistan

According to Aikins rather than suppressing the opium trade Razik used his position to become a central player in Afghanistan's opium trade.

"But whether the elders believed Razik to be honest or merely naive, they were wrong. Razik would quickly move to expand the force’s involvement in the enormous opium traffic pouring through the region, and in the process would grow powerful enough to defy even his own tribal elders. Meanwhile, his abilities as a commander, and his fighting force that remained highly effective in the absence of a national army, soon made him indispensable to the central government and the ISAF.

According to Aikins, although only a few officials would go on record as tying Razik to the drug trade, many officials would make the connection, off the record. According to an official with Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission Razik operated his own private prisons, and his forces conducted extrajudicial executions.

Razik personally lead a counterattack when a NATO base was raided on October 28, 2011.

Razik survived an attack by a suicide bomber on January 2012. Although Razik escaped injury his office was partially destroyed. The bomber was the only casaulty. He was a teenager who entered the police compound with a letter of complaint he said he wanted to deliver to police authorities. He had been taken to a waiting room. He exploded the bomb when an officer noticed he had left the waiting room and was exploring the base, and an officer asked him where he thought he was going.

On August 21, 2012, following a rogue policemen attacking Australian soldiers, Razik announced that the district chief of police of Spin Boldak had been fired for incompetence.

“The Spin Boldak district police commander has been fired for negligence in his duty and lack of control over his personnel. If he had control on his police personnel the latest attack on Nato would not have taken place.”