Abdul Rashid Dostum
The Uzbek warlord led the second largest party in the Northern Alliance, which held out against the Taliban regime.
Known for his changing loyalties, he was accused of various atrocities against civilians and looting Kabul in the mid 1990s. Criminals were crushed to death under tanks.
A Communist union leader during the Soviet occupation, he went on to lead a 20,000 strong Uzbek militia which controlled the northern provinces.
Dostum then joined President Najibullah's government, and was awarded a medal for his crusade against the mujahideen fighting to evict the Russian forces.
In 1992, he switched sides to join the mujahideen, and the mujahideen government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, before retreating to his stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif.
At the height of his power in 1997 -- then aged 43 -- he controlled a kind of mini-state in northern Afghanistan, said the BBC.
In 1998, the Taliban onslaught forced him to flee to Turkey, before he returned to join the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance led by Ahmed Shah Masoud.
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
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