<p>The former Afghan warlord known as “the butcher of Kabul” called for peace during a speech before his supporters at Kabul’s Ghazi Stadium on Friday, May 5, while hundreds of protesters staged a demonstration nearby.</p><p>Gulbuddin Hekmatyar returned to Kabul</a> to a presidential reception on Thursday, following a peace deal he signed with the government last fall. Hekmatyar’s group, Hezb-e Islami, was responsible for some of the deadliest violence in the capital during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s.</p><p>On Friday, Hekmatyar said the country now needs peace and called on all insurgents, including the Taliban, to put down their arms.</p><br />
