Mawlawi Mohammad Afzal (born c. 1925[1] – 2012) was a Panjpiri-educated Afghan clergyman of the Kam tribe[1] from Barg-i-Matal, Nuristan Province. He studied in Deoband, and later at Akora, Pakistan, before teaching at a madrassa in Karachi, and then in his native village of Badmuk.[2]
Following the Saur Revolution of 1978 in Afghanistan, Afzal established a Salafist mini-state in northern Nuristan, known as the Islamic Revolutionary State of Afghanistan, with consulates in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.[3] Though Nuristan was generally a mujahideen area, Afzal was among those leaders who were at least temporarily co-opted by the DRA communist government.[4] In the 1980s, Afzal was among those Nuristani leaders who, after initially supporting him, expelled the southern Nuristan military leader Sarwar Nuristani, suspecting him of supporting the Communist government.[1] With the arrival of the Taliban in the mid-1990s, Afzal aligned himself with that movement, and received their support.[5]
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