The 1995 attack on the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul occurred on 6 September 1995 when up to 5,000 protestors attacked and sacked the embassy of Pakistan in

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

, after the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...

militia had captured

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safē ...

from the internationally recognised

Islamic State of Afghanistan The Islamic State of Afghanistan ( fa, , ''Dawlat-i Islāmī-yi Afghānistan'', ps, , ''Da Afghanistan Islami Dowlat'') was the government of Afghanistan, established by the Peshawar Accords on 26 April 1992 by many, but not all, Afgh ...

. One person was killed and twenty six others, including the Pakistani ambassador, were injured. The attack occurred due to the Afghan peoples belief that Pakistan had helped the Taliban to take the city.

Background

The attack against the Pakistani embassy by pro-government protestors in Kabul took place a day after the Taliban militia had successfully established control over

. When the Taliban took control of Herat, they arrested hundreds of its citizens, closed down all the schools and ''"forcibly implement dtheir social bans and Sharia law, even more fiercely than in Kandahar"''. The Taliban imposed as rulers over the city and region extremist Taliban officials ''"many of whom"'' did not even speak the local regional language Persian. Kamal Matinuddin, Lt. General of the Pakistan army and former member of Pakistan's diplomatic corps, alleges the Afghan government sacked the embassy in ''"retaliation for the capture of Herat"'' because they ''"felt"'' the Taliban could have only done so with Pakistan's help. But according to William Maley, the Director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, the attack by angry protestors against the Pakistan embassy was due to ''"bitter resentment towards Pakistan which had built up among the victims of Pakistan's strategy"'' first using

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ( ps, ګلب الدين حكمتيار; born 1 August 1949) is an Afghan politician, former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party, so calle ...

in a destructive bombardment campaign against Kabul and then the Taliban to install a client in Afghanistan. De facto, scholars such as Pakistani analyst

Ahmed Rashid Ahmed Rashid (Urdu:; born 1948 in Pakistan) is a journalist and best-selling foreign policy author of several books about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. Life and career Ahmed Rashid was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He attended Malv ...

, write: ''" e Taliban had spent the summer f 1995rebuilding their forces with arms, ammunition and vehicles provided by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and a new command structure created with the help of ISI advisers. The ISI also helped broker an agreement, never made public, between the Taliban and General Rashid Dostum ... to repair Mig fighters and helicopters the Taliban had captured a year earlier in Kandahar, thereby creating the Taliban's first airpower. ... the Taliban quickly mobilised some 25,000 men, many of them fresh volunteers from Pakistan."'' According to ''"Pakistan and the Taliban"'' by Ahmed Rashid, also published in April 1998 as a column in ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'', Pakistan furthermore directly provided limited ''"military support"'' in the Taliban's September 1995 offensive against Herat which led to the capture of the city and the subsequent anti-Pakistan protests in Kabul. Rizwan Hussein in ''"Pakistan and the emergence of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan"'' summarises: ''"As has now been established by several scholarly and journalistic works, the Pakistan military establishment directly assisted the Taliban's rise and subsequent capture of this region eratin Afghanistan between 1995 and 1996."'' The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs describes Pakistan's support to the Taliban as ''"at its height"'' in 1995. The Pakistani ambassador to Kabul, Qazi Humayun, himself alongside Pakistan's Consul General in Herat, Colonel Imam, later attended Taliban meetings in Kandahar. These meetings discussed how the Taliban could best conquer Afghanistan militarily and how ''"best to impose Sharia law"'' over Afghanistan. Pakistani politicians during that time repeatedly denied supporting the Taliban, which has been described by reliable sources as an explicit 'policy of denial'.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pakistan embassy 1995 attack in Kabul Attacks on diplomatic missions in Afghanistan Attacks on diplomatic missions of Pakistan Terrorist incidents in Kabul Terrorist incidents in Afghanistan in 1995 20th century in Kabul Afghan Civil War (1992–1996) Islamic State of Afghanistan 1995 in international relations 1995 murders in Asia 1990s murders in Afghanistan 1995 crimes in Afghanistan September 1995 events in Asia 1995 in Pakistan Government of Benazir Bhutto Anti-Pakistan sentiment Afghanistan–Pakistan relations

Background

See also

References