By Hijatullah Darwazi
Fawzia Koofi
Fawzia Koofi, daughter of Abdul Rahman, is from Koofab district of Badakhshan province, north of Afghanistan. Fawzia Koofi’s real name is ‘Hoori Niqab’ and Maria Koofi’s real name is ‘Qandi Gul’. They both changed their names to ‘modern’ ones when they moved to Kabul. Fawzia’s father, a selected member of parliament by Zahir Shah, was an infamous man known for being a womanizer and having a bad tongue. He had married many women from different villages of his birthplace, and spent his life in fights, quarrels and scurrility with others.
Fawzia’s father, brothers and other family members have not been associated with any specific political currents or fronts in the past regimes. They were and still are a bunch of opportunists who have readily adapted to changing regimes. They were supporting Zahir Shah at one time, then became Sitami; joined the Khalqis and with the collapse of Khalqis, became Mujahids. With the current regime where all the above elements are in power they are constantly rolling over to the tipping scale. Once they are in Jihadists’ parties and at another time they become “women’s rights defenders” and “pro-democracy”.
The female Afghan MP, Fawzia Koofi, is the so-called representative of the people of Badakhshan, but in reality she represents drug-lords, and misuses her parliamentary post to sail her mafia ship. The claims by Koofi of defending women’s rights is similar to Jihadist parties’ claims of defending Islam or the western invaders’ claims of defending human rights, which only means betrayal, crimes, violation of human rights, drug trafficking, and collaboration with national and international plunderers and rascals. Therefore, there is no difference between her and the traitors of Hezb-e-Islami, Jamiat-e-Islami, Khalqis, Parchamis, and other religious and non-religious, bearded and non-bearded, male and female criminals, of our unfortunate homeland.
Most of Koofi’s family members are drug traffickers and human rights violators. They continue their rampage with the power of their money and weapons, and support of their sisters sitting in the parliament, Fawzia Koofi and Mariam Koofi. Excluding the two times when despite many phone calls Fawzia Koofi could not save her brothers from imprisonment when arrested for smuggling drugs, the two sisters have always successfully used their powerful contacts and means to protect their brothers in their drug trafficking business and other crimes. They pretend to hate each other but experience and witnesses show that they are solidly chained together: one part serves as the military and terrorist arm, and the other part as the parliamentary arm. Both serve the same purpose, to further and strengthen the Koofi family business and clout.
Today, Fawzia and her criminal brothers are part of the problems of the people of Badakhshan. The Koofi family, also supported by drug-lords and criminals from other provinces, are involved in injustices, oppression, smuggling, killings and abductions, bullying, and removal of deserving youngsters from local posts and replacing them with their own supporters. They deceptively take projects and embezzle money from the funds; release criminals and drug traffickers from prisons; get votes through bribes and rigging; terrorize their opponents; and install people in high-ranking official posts of the province in return for money (a list was recently leaked in several websites that contained the names of several military and intelligence officials, and border police officers of Darwaz district and how much money they had paid as bribes for their purposes). Fawzia Koofi has a direct and indirect role in appointing everyone in Badakhshan, from the school principals to the governor.
Mariam Koofi
Fawzia Koofi, a woman of many faces, puts on the mask of democracy in the media as that is what her masters need now. She has woven lies about her so-called feminist struggles in a book to cheat the western people who are not informed about the situation of Afghanistan and her treasons. When Fawzia comes to Faizabad (capital of Badakhshan province) she praises the fundamentalist and misogynist leader of Jamiat-e-Islami, Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose party has been implicated in war crimes and gross human rights violations, and enjoys the company of General Nazir Ahmad, the police chief of Badakhshan who has countless cases of land grabbing and rape.
Mariam Koofi, Fawzia Koofi’s sister, is also her partner-in-crime and accused of illegal and mafia activities. On August 20, 2014, Noor Ahmad known as Mawlavi Abdul Rab, the head of Badakhshan’s provincial council and Fawzia’s brother-in-law, was arrested with 294 kilograms (648 pounds) of opium in Keshim District of Badakhshan. Two Koofi brothers were arrested while smuggling drugs and are currently in prison. Other brothers, Enayatullah Koofi, Mujib-ul-Rahman Koofi, and Nadir Shah Koofi, are the most famous mafia heads of Darwaz district.
Like all arch-criminals, Fawzia Koofi has entered the parliament with the support of drug-traffickers, through corruption and rigging during elections. Indeed, she is a female warlord and drug-lord in the rotten parliament of Afghanistan.
Haji Juma was one of the famous professional drug traffickers and killers of Drime district of Badakhshan. He was leading the first round of Fawzia Koofi’s election campaign and was able to cast 1600-1800 fake votes for her. After some time Haji Juma was arrested with 20 packets of heroin in a police check post in Kunduz and transferred to Kabul, but he was released soon with Fawzia Koofi’s help. Once, Haji Juma received orders from Zalmai Mujadadi, an MP from Badakhshan, to kill commander Malik, a local commander in Kiran-o-Manjan district who controlled an emerald mine. Malik was an old enemy of Mujadadi. Haji Juma was caught and killed by Malik’s bodyguards in June 2015 when he attempted to shoot at Malik.
The Darwaz region is located along the Oxus River in border with Tajikistan. The region connects the upper part of this province to central Badakhshan. The five districts of this region, including Koofab and Khahan districts that are the most important of these districts, are a safe corridor for Koofi’s family and their mafia network. The vast profits earned at this border from smuggling of weapons, drugs, and alcoholic beverages, are poured into the pockets of this family.
Nadir Shah Koofi
The five mentioned districts are very important routes for the import and export of goods to and from Russia and Europe, and so Koofis have close ties with smugglers of Tajikistan and Russia. This powerful position has given Fawzia Koofi and her brothers quite a reputation among mafia dons like Qasim Fahim, Gul Agha Shirzai, Zahir Qadir and other mafia dons, and gives this family the opportunity to have an open hand in placing their own people in high official posts, using governmental helicopters, having NGOs and construction companies, and winning profitable projects.
Talking to the local residents, one hears about the numerous cases of smuggling, extortion, threatening, bullying, kidnapping, killing, and other crimes of each member of the Koofi family.
The mentioned districts have the largest grazing lands which hosts a large number of livestock every year. Every year, Nadir Shah Koofi, district head of Koofab who has been installed in this position by his sister, takes 30,000 to 50,000 AFS (600 to 1,000 USD) from each herd. Additionally he takes 5,000 AFS (100 USD) and 2 sheep from each herd entering this grazing land every year. The Koofi family has grabbed a lot of grazing land in the last decade, creating conflicts with local tribal leaders and commanders which have killed many people.
Protests by Darwaz region residents against Fawzia Koofi’s family
Every year, the Darwaz region witnesses at least one or two protests against Fawzia Koofi’s brothers due to their oppression. Despite earning lots of money from the region, they are involved in raping of women and dishonoring people.
Mujib-ul-Rahman, Fawzia’s brother, once kidnapped a woman and brought her to this region. Despite complaints by people, neither the security officials nor the district administration paid any attention. The case was such: Nadir Shah Khahani, a local commander of the area, killed one of his enemies and wanted to abduct the man’s wife. However, Mujib-ul-Rahman entered the house before the commander and took the woman for himself. This was the famous abduction case of the two commanders.
In the first round of elections, Nadir Shah Koofi forced his rival candidate named Shah Darwaz to step down from running. Shah Darwaz accepted this out of fear of the powerful Nadir Shah Koofi.
Nadir Shah Koofi did not allow the construction of two concrete bridges over Koofab River for three years to make sure the vehicles did not take this new route as that would mean they would not visit the Koofab bazar from the old route and the bazar would have then lost huge profits.
The Koofi brothers secretly place drugs in the homes of their opponents who ask residents to stand up and revolt against the Koofis, and then send the police for investigation. This way they remove thorns from their paths.
However, the people have never sat silent and have always raised their voice against them. Unfortunately, due to the remote location of the area, the blockade of transit routes, and more importantly the strong presence of this family and their control over all the affairs of the region, the news is highly censored and never comes out.
In 2009, the residents of Khahan district protested against one Koofi brother and forced him to leave. The main reason for their success was that they used the media to raise their voice, and despite Fawzia Koofi’s efforts to calm down the outrage, she failed.
Recently, Nadir Shah repressed the justice-seeking voices of the people by calling them Taliban and got support from the government security forces to attack and silence them.
The dog fights of Fawzia Koofi’s brothers
One of Nadir Shah’s opponents was Mawlavi Ghulam Ullah who could not be silenced by any kind of violence or threat. He used the conflicts between Fawzia Koofi and Zalmai Mujadadi (an MP from Badakhshan), and with help from Zalmai, started widespread armed protests against Nadir Shah. They were able to end the oppression of the Koofi family to an extent, but due to the dirty conspiracies of Fawzia and her brothers and their connections to the corrupt Kabul government, he could not continue and had to flee. One of Nadir Shah’s conspiracies is described below.
Nadir Shah Koofi burned down three schools in Koofab district and spread rumors that Mawlavi Ghulam Ullah, who was a Talib and against schools, had carried out this act. With this act, Nadir Shah wanted the government to take the case of his enemies and opponents seriously and take legal steps against his political opponents. The government came to the rescue of Nadir Shah Koofi and brought huge military pressure on Mawlavi Ghulam Ullah forcing him to give up.
Mawlavi Ghulam Ullah came to Faizabad to continue a normal life, but he was not safe there. He was bullied and harassed by Nadir Shah and Fawzia Koofis gangs. Jan Agha, a gangster of Fawzia Koofi, attacked Ghulam’s house one night and abducted him. He was inhumanely tortured and had to spend months recovering. When Ghulam complained to the government, the kidnappers were arrested, but were released after a while with Fawzia Koofi’s help.
Embezzlement cases of Koofi
Paay Mazar village in Koofab. (Photo: RAWA.org)
Fawzia took emergency aid from embassies and foreign agencies for earthquake, flood, and avalanche victims and sent that aid to the areas where she got most of her votes from. She used natural disasters in Badakhshan to fly government helicopters to assess her own private projects in Darwaz area, and bribed the pilots with gifts like alcoholic drinks.
Most of the construction projects in the five districts of Darwaz are being funded by NGOs and companies belonging to Fawzia Koofi’s brothers. The Koofis embezzle most of the money allocated to these projects as a result of which the projects are left incomplete and defective. Then they demand more money from the government in order to complete these projects and use their influence in the government to get this money. After taking funds from two separate sources, these projects are completed used for propaganda purposes. Some examples of such projects are mentioned below.
Paay Mazar Koofab School in Badakhshan is one of the hundreds of schools where students study in the open or under tents in the scorching sun, wind and rain. It is said that one day Fawzia Koofi visited the site of this school with a foreign woman in a helicopter. After seeing the disastrous condition of the students, the foreigner promised to build a school for the village.
About four years ago, a foreign woman, who most probably worked in the Italian Cooperation, gave the promised sum to Fawzia so she could start building the school through a construction company. The school was to have eight classes, washrooms, outside wall, desks and chairs, drinking water facilities etc. Koofi embezzled the money assigned for building the important parts of the school like the outside wall, washrooms, and water well, but did not stop at that. Instead of using reinforcing steel rods, cement and concrete, she used local materials like stones and sand. This way the cost of the project was significantly reduced and the remainder money went to Fawzia Koofi.
Fawzia Koofi cut about 110,000 USD from the fund taken from the Italian Cooperation and made a building of stones without following the procurement principles and informing the concerned construction departments. She gave the project to her nephew Hayatullah who built it through local builders. The construction stopped after a while. When the people asked the local builders about it, they said that Fawzia Koofi had not paid the 20,000 USD of the last installment and so the construction had been stopped. Now more than three years have passed since this project was started and the school is still incomplete, as shown in the photos below.
The incomplete building of Paay Mazar Koofab school where students are studying outside in the open and under tents. (Photos: RAWA.org)
One of the classes of the school which has been left incomplete. A few desks and chairs have been placed to make it look like it has been completed, but students still study under tents as they did before. (Photos: RAWA.org)
Inside and outside view of the school which shows that it is incomplete and lies in ruins. (Photos: RAWA.org)
Fawzia Koofi’s theft does not stop here. Fawzia has used her status several times to get money from other sources to complete the projects from which she has stolen money for herself.
The documents shown below are applications that the construction company carrying out the construction of the school prepared under Koofi’s guidance. The application contains the signatures of the local people so as to show the government offices that the plea of the completion of the school comes from the people and not the contracting company. The papers were processed in the Education Ministry through Koofi’s contacts and it was made to look like an application from the people so that they could ‘legally’ obtain the fund to complete the project. This woman tried to hide the reality of this case by forging bundles of paper to take this extra money so she could complete the construction of the school, and then show the photos of the completed project to the donor, paving the way for more funds.
(RAWA.org)
(RAWA.org)
The Education Minister of the time, Farooq Wardak, did not care about what went on behind the case or even if the documents were authentic or had been processed properly. He quickly accepted Fawzia’s application and ordered his offices to fund the school from the budget allocated to the World Bank’s unfinished projects from 2013.
Fawzia Koofi developed a grudge against the Education Chief for not taking care of her application at that time and this later on became the reason for their conflicts. It was exactly after this that Koofi made irrelevant excuses demanding the removal of the Education Chief from his post, but the election crisis did not let her execute her plot successfully.
Usurpation of Kharosh town funds by Fawzia and Nadir Shah Koofi
Badakhshan province is a mountainous region and is often hit by natural disasters in which the people lose even their poor village life. Landslides, torrential rain, snow storms, and earthquakes do irreparable damage to the lives of the villagers. If the natural disasters mean in mourning for our people, it brings money and joy to the mafia in Badakhshan, an important part of which is the Koofi family. The disaster in the Aab Bareek village is a good example for this claim, but we will look at another disastrous case below.
Khorash is one of the villages of Koofab district. A town was to be built there for those displaced by an earthquake. The shabby incomplete rooms you see in the photo are in this town, the money of which went to Fawzia and her district chief brother, Nadir Shah.
The town built for earthquake victims in Kharosh village. (Photo: RAWA.org)
The Kharosh village was destroyed by an earthquake in the start of Karzai’s rule and thousands of people were left homeless. The government departments in Badakhshan examined the area and after countless pleas by the villagers, reported the matter to several government bodies. Finally, a huge sum of money was given by foreign embassies to rebuild the village, and this money landed in the hands of Fawzia and Nadir Shah Koofi. They made the locals put several stones together to build medieval houses so as to show the foreign donors that the work of the town was underway and promised the completion of the project in the near future, obtaining the full sum of money. However, right after that they left the town incomplete. These traitors stole 300,000 USD from the project but spread rumors that the full amount of money had not been given to them and the town project could not, therefore, be completed.
The local people do not know the actual amount of money given for this project or the plan laid out for the project.
Several years have passed now but the town still looks exactly the same. The people, who fully know the Koofi family, claim that the Koofis stole the money of their houses. The locals had complained about the matter several times and had attempted to take legal action, but since the police, district chiefs, and other important officials of districts like Mah May, Shaki, Koof, Khahan, and Nasi, are Fawzia’s people, and the heads of judicial organs of the province also follow her orders, these complaints were never heard.
Seizure of funds for the Farghambol school
The construction of Farghambol school in a village of the same name located in Yaftal Payan district of Badakhshan was started by the construction company of Inamullah Latifi, and the project was completed in a long period of time.
Fawzia Koofi got the fund of this project (129,000 Euros) through the Social Safty and Social Protection Organization (SSSPO), an NGO whose major donors include the Italian embassy and Italian Cooperation. On September 15, 2014, after modifying the project to reduce the quality and size of the school building (using cement of lower quality instead of bricks, reducing the area of the school to a size equivalent to three rooms, reduction of 400 meter walls to 200 meters, lowering the quality of the washrooms and tables and chairs etc.) Fawzia only gave 97,000 USD to Inamullah Latifi’s company, devouring the rest of the cash. The foundation stone of the project was laid by Fawzia Koofi in the presence of other ‘officials’ of Badakhshan province. After the outside walls of the school were built, the construction was stopped. Whatever remained of the fund was taken by the contracting company itself.
With such rascality, Fawzia Koofi tried to take in sweet money and also win people’s hearts. She has embezzled 50,000 USD by changing the plans for this project, but has deceived the poor locals to believe that she is serving them wholeheartedly.
Stories of Fawzia Koofi and her mafia family’s treacheries are longer than a report can state. I hope that people and especially foreigners will not see her for her deceptive words and interviews, but judge her according to her shameless actions. They should know that Fawzia Koofi is not essentially different from murderous warlords who are behind the destruction of Badakhshan.