Conflict in Afghanistan (1978–present)

The Afghan conflict ( ps, دافغانستان جنګونه; fa, جنگ های افغانستان) refers to the series of events that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. Early instability followed the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the largely non-violent 1973 coup d'état, which deposed Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah , ending his 40-year-long reign. With the concurrent establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan, headed by Mohammad Daoud Khan, the country's relatively peaceful and stable period in modern history came to an end. However, all-out fighting did not erupt until after 1978, when the Saur Revolution violently overthrew Khan's government and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Subsequent unrest over the radical reforms that were being pushed by the then-ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led to unprecedented violence, prompting a large-scale pro-PDPA military intervention by the Soviet Union in 1979. In the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War, the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen received extensive support from Pakistan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia in a joint covert effort that was dubbed Operation Cyclone.

Although the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the various mujahideen factions continued to fight against the PDPA government, which collapsed in the face of the Peshawar Accord in 1992. However, the Peshawar Accord failed to remain intact in light of the mujahideen's representatives' inability to reach an agreement on a power-sharing coalition for the new government, triggering a multi-sided civil war between them. By 1996, the Taliban, supported by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, had seized the capital city of Kabul in addition to approximately 90% of the country, while northern Afghanistan remained under the authority of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. During this time, the Northern Alliance's Islamic State of Afghanistan enjoyed widespread international recognition and was represented at the United Nations. Comparatively, the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan only received diplomatic recognition from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and was not represented at the United Nations. Despite the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the Northern Alliance continued to resist in another civil war for the next five years.

After the September 11 attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001, the Taliban granted Saudi-born jihadist Osama bin Laden political asylum in the Islamic Emirate's territory. The group's subsequent non-compliance with the demand by the Bush administration to extradite him prompted the American-led invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, which bolstered the Northern Alliance by toppling the Islamic Emirate and installing the Afghan Transitional Authority in 2002. The invasion triggered the 20-year-long War in Afghanistan, in which NATO and NATO-allied countries fought alongside the nascent Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to combat the Taliban insurgency. During the Battle of Tora Bora, the American-led military coalition failed to capture bin Laden, who subsequently relocated to Pakistan and remained there until he was killed by U.S. SEAL Team Six in Abbottabad in 2011. Nonetheless, the fighting in Afghanistan continued, eventually leading to the 2020–2021 American withdrawal and ultimately ending with the 2021 Taliban offensive, which led to the re-establishment of the present-day Islamic Emirate. Though the country-wide war ended in 2021, clashes and unrest currently persist in some parts of Afghanistan due to the ISIS–Taliban conflict and the anti-Taliban Republican insurgency. , the collapsed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan remains the internationally recognized government of the country.

List of major events

Cold War era

* Saur Revolution (1978): Overthrow of the Republic of Afghanistan and President Mohammad Daoud Khan by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, a socialist state aligned with the Soviet Union.
* Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989): Military intervention by the Soviet Armed Forces in support of the PDPA against large-scale rebellions. Fighting primarily occurred between the Soviet–Afghan alliance and the Afghan mujahideen, who were backed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran, among others. Ended with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.
* Afghan Civil War (1989–1992): Continuation of the conflict between the Afghan government and the Afghan mujahideen but without the involvement of Soviet forces. The Soviet Union continued to financially support the Afghan government in its fight, and likewise, mujahideen factions continued to receive support from the United States and Pakistan. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan survived until the Battle of Kabul, during which the mujahideen established the Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA).
* Afghan Civil War (1992–1996): Began when various mujahideen groups withdrew support from and began fighting against the ISA, including Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, later largely replaced by the Taliban and al-Qaeda (all of whom were supported by Pakistan), Hezb-e Wahdat (who were supported by Iran), and Junbish-i Milli Islami (who were supported by Uzbekistan). Mujahideen loyal to the Islamic State of Afghanistan received support from Saudi Arabia. Ended with the Taliban seizing control of Kabul and most of the country in 1996, establishing the first Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA).
* Afghan Civil War (1996–2001): Continuation of the previous phase of the war between militias loyal to either the ISA or the Taliban-ruled IEA. ISA loyalists reorganized into the Northern Alliance, including Hezb-e Wahdat and Junbish-i Milli Islami, who previously opposed the ISA. During the war, al-Qaeda stepped up its terrorist attacks against the United States, culminating in the September 11 attacks, after which the IEA lost almost all international support and diplomatic recognition from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Post-9/11 era

* War in Afghanistan (2001–2021): Began with the United States' invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001. Overthrow of the Taliban and eventual establishment of the internationally recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The war turned into a protracted Taliban insurgency, with Afghan government and NATO-led coalition troops fighting the reorganized Taliban and sporadically other Islamist militant groups such as al-Qaeda, the Haqqani network, Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, and the Islamic State – Khorasan Province. Bilateral negotiations between the Taliban and the United States led to an agreement whereby American and NATO troops withdrew amidst the 2021 Taliban offensive, in which the Islamic Republic fell, and the Taliban established the second Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
* Islamic State–Taliban conflict (2015–present): Began in 2015, during the post-9/11 war, as Taliban dissident groups organized into the local branch of the Islamic State (not to be confused with the former Islamic State of Afghanistan). The group attacked the Taliban as well as NATO troops, but primarily targeted civilians. The insurgency is ongoing.
* Republican insurgency in Afghanistan (2021–present): Began in 2021 when the remaining forces loyal to the fallen Islamic Republic reorganized into the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan in the Panjshir Valley. Despite having international recognition as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, the National Resistance Front has received no foreign support. Taliban forces captured the Panjshir Valley in September 2021, and leaders of the National Resistance Front fled to Tajikistan. Fighting is ongoing between the newly organized military of the Taliban and the small, scattered holdouts of the National Resistance Front in Panjshir Province and Baghlan Province.

By 2014, adding different estimates of casualties for some of these individual conflicts together, 1,405,111 to 2,084,468 people had been killed over the duration of the Afghanistan conflict.

Prelude

Kingdom of Afghanistan

From 1933 to 1973, the Kingdom of Afghanistan experienced a lengthy period of peace and relative stability. It was ruled as a monarchy by King Zahir Shah, who belonged to the Afghan Musahiban Barakzai dynasty. In the 1960s, Afghanistan as a constitutional monarchy held limited parliamentary elections.

Republic of Afghanistan

Shah was overthrown by his cousin Mohammad Daoud Khan in July 1973, after discontent with the monarchy grew in the urban areas of Afghanistan. The country had experienced several droughts, and charges of corruption and poor economic policies were leveled against the ruling dynasty. Khan abolished the monarchy and declared the Republic of Afghanistan, and he became the first President of Afghanistan. He was supported by a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), Afghanistan's communist party, which was founded in 1965 and enjoyed a strong relationship with the Soviet Union. In ''The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region'', Neamatollah Nojumi writes: "The establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan increased the Soviet investment in Afghanistan and the PDPA influence in the government's military and civil bodies."

In 1976, alarmed by the growing power of the PDPA and the party's strong affiliation with the Soviet Union, Khan tried to scale back the PDPA's influence. He dismissed PDPA members from their government posts, appointed conservative elements instead and finally announced the dissolution of the PDPA, arresting senior party members.

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan

On 27 April 1978, the PDPA and military units loyal to the PDPA revolted and killed Khan, his immediate family and bodyguards in a violent coup during the battle to seize control of the capital, Kabul, in the Saur Revolution. As the PDPA had chosen a weekend holiday to conduct the coup, when many government employees were having a day off, Khan was not able to fully activate the well-trained armed forces which remained loyal to him to counter the coup.

The PDPA's Democratic Republic

Khalqists vs. Parchamites

The PDPA formed a new government through a 'revolutionary council', which attempted to balance the two major competing factions within itself—the more radical and revolutionary Khalq and the more moderate and reformist Parcham. The Khalqist wing, led by the charismatic Nur Muhammad Taraki, who became the new chairman, gained supremacy in the aftermath of the revolution and adopted a program of land reform, abolition of feudal and tribal structures and equality for women. The council also prefixed the term "Democratic" to the country's Daoud-era name, making it the "Democratic Republic of Afghanistan." Though these reforms were supported by the army and city-dwelling population, they opposed the very traditional, religious and tribal customs of rural Afghanistan, which in turn led to strong rural and clerical opposition to the government and various anti-government uprisings. Around this time, the party came to be influenced by Hafizullah Amin, who undermined Taraki despite being a fellow Khalqist, purged Parchamites from the party and began ruthlessly cracking down on political opposition. Therefore, a hostile doctrine against any political dissent was adopted, whether inside or outside the party. Taraki, who had ruled for only about a year, was assassinated by Amin, who took over formal leadership of the country.

Mass executions

Amin was known for his independent and nationalist inclinations and was also seen by many as a ruthless leader. He has been accused of killing tens of thousands of Afghan civilians at Pul-e-Charkhi and other national prisons while cracking down on both the opposition and the Parchamites: 27,000 politically motivated executions reportedly took place at Pul-e-Charkhi prison alone. Afghans generally held Amin personally responsible for most of the repression, while the Soviet Union considered his government illegitimate, discredited and doomed to collapse in a civil war.

Soviet pro-Parchamite intervention

The Soviet Union secured an alliance with the more moderate Babrak Karmal and his Parchamite faction, invading Afghanistan on 24 December 1979 and originally meeting only limited resistance. Amin was deposed from power almost immediately, as he and 200 of his guards were killed during Operation Storm-333 on 27 December by Soviet Army Spetsnaz, replaced by Karmal. After deployment into Afghanistan, Soviet forces, whom the locals dubbed Shuravi, along with government forces would begin to engage in a protracted counterinsurgency war against a wide coalition of various anti-government insurgent forces, who in turn styled themselves as mujahideen—Islamic holy warriors.

Soviet–Afghan War

Leadership of Babrak Karmal

Karmal declared a general amnesty for people imprisoned during Taraki and Amin's rule and restored the Afghan national symbols in place of the Khalqist red flag. He also granted several concessions to religious leaders and at least partially restored property seized during the original Khalqist land reform. However, this did not satisfy the opposition, as they considered his ascension to power during the Soviet intervention to be a mark that he would rule as a "Soviet puppet", thus continuing their insurgency against the government.

The Soviet government realized that a military solution to the conflict would require far more troops. Because of this they discussed troop withdrawals and searched for a political and peaceful solution as early as 1980, but they never took any serious steps in that direction until 1988. Early Soviet military reports confirm the difficulties the Soviet army had while fighting on the mountainous terrain, for which the Soviet army had no training. Parallels with the Vietnam War were frequently referred to by Soviet army officers.

Leadership of Mohammad Najibullah

Policy failures and the stalemate that ensued after the Soviet intervention led the Soviet leadership to become highly critical of Karmal's leadership. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union was able to depose Karmal and replace him with Mohammad Najibullah. Karmal's leadership was seen as a failure by the Soviet Union because of the rise of violence and crime during his administration. Najibullah, another Parchamite, attempted to end the insurgency through a policy of accommodation and power sharing known as the National Reconciliation. He reversed several of his predecessor's unpopular reforms, abolished the one-party system, reinstated Islam as the state religion (though still maintaining a fairly secular legal and political setup), replaced the Revolutionary Council with a republican presidency and bicameral parliament, removed communist symbols deemed "provocative" to the opposition from the country's national emblem, dropped the "Democratic" prefix from the country's name, offered amnesty to mujahideen fighters and called for a six-month ceasefire in which fighting would stop in exchange for political negotiations intended to create a coalition government between the PDPA and various rebel groups in an attempt to end the country's crisis.

The talks did not succeed in reconciling the government and the mujahideen, though it was noted that they increased the government's popularity among urban areas, stabilized the armed forces and led to a round of defections from disillusioned mujahideen fighters to government militias. Despite this, the only insurgent group to fully reconcile with the government was the Shia-dominated Afghan Hizbullah. A mujahideen boycott of the 1988 elections, which were the first-ever Afghan elections to allow competing political parties, foiled Najibullah's attempt to reconstruct the nation's parliament, who in turn ordered 50 seats be left vacant to offer to the mujahideen if they decided to reconcile at a later date. Moreover, though Najibullah presented himself personally as a pious Muslim and restored the legal status of Islam, his government was unable to acquire the same Islamic credentials that the mujahideen forces wielded, which in turn meant that many of his reforms were not nearly as successful at convincing the devout, conservative rural and tribal population as Najibullah had hoped. Most importantly, Najibullah oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was to be done according to the Geneva Accords, which entailed a full removal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in exchange for the end of American and Pakistan support to the mujahideen.

Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan

Throughout the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, troop convoys came under attack by Afghan rebel fighters. In all, 523 Soviet soldiers were killed during the withdrawal. The total withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Afghanistan was completed in February 1989. The last Soviet soldier to leave was Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, leader of the Soviet military operations in Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet invasion. In total, 14,453 Soviet soldiers died during the Soviet–Afghan War. Though the Soviet forces did withdraw, the mujahideen refused to abide by the accords since they were not party to the negotiations. Furthermore, the United States reneged on its agreement and continued funding the insurgent groups even after the Soviet withdrawal. Najibullah's government further complained to the UN that Pakistan had also continued supplying, training and arming the rebel forces fighting against his government.

The Soviet war had a damaging impact on Afghanistan. The death of up to 2 million Afghans in the war has been described as a "genocide" by a number of sources. Five to ten million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, amounting to 1/3 of the prewar population of the country, and another 2 million were displaced within the country. Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province functioned as an organisational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance, with the province's influential Deobandi ulama playing a major supporting role in promoting the jihad.

Fall of the PDPA

After the Soviet withdrawal, the Republic of Afghanistan under Najibullah continued to face resistance from the various mujahideen forces and instituted a state of emergency as he prepared to fend off the armed opposition on his own. Nevertheless, Najibullah received funding and arms from the Soviet Union until 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. For several years the Afghan army had actually increased their effectiveness past levels ever achieved during the Soviet military presence. The Afghan army was able to prove itself in combat during the Battle of Jalalabad in 1989, where it defeated a major assault on the city by mujahideen forces with U.S. and Pakistani backing, inflicting on them greater than 3,000 losses. Moreover, it was actually able to go on the offensive, forestalling several more attacks and preventing the governmental collapse that both American and Pakistani policymakers expected. This greatly increased army morale and demoralized the rebel groups, who had hoped for a quick post-withdrawal victory.

PDPA reforms and attempted coup d'état

In 1990, Najibullah reformed the PDPA into the ''Watan'' (Homeland) Party, which rejected Marxism–Leninism in favour of leftist Afghan nationalism. This did not necessarily have the desired effect, as it did not lead to significant drop in opposition, but did enrage several of his party members, not only Khalqists but also pro-Karmal Parchamites, who accused him of conceding too much of the Saur Revolution's gains to the mujahideen. Najibullah rejected the accusations, stating that his actions had been done in an attempt to preserve and protect the gains of the revolution, not sacrifice them. Regardless, these reforms caused further rifts within the ruling party. These tensions boiled over in the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt, in which a group of disillusioned Khalqists, led by Defence Minister Shahnawaz Tanai, attempted to overthrow Najibullah with the aid of Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin and external support from Pakistan. The coup failed but led to many pro-Khalqist officers either fleeing the country or being sacked by Najibullah, considerably weakening the Afghan armed forces. The resulting instability led to a defeat in the Siege of Khost a year later to the hands of Pakistan-backed mujahideen forces after ten years of heavy fighting.

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Another blow was dealt to his government in late 1991, as the dissolution of the Soviet Union signalled the end of foreign aid for Najibullah's Afghanistan, as Russian President Boris Yeltsin had neither the resources nor the desire to aid the Afghan government. Because of this and with Afghanistan being landlocked and not having a fuel supply of its own, the relatively modern and formidable Afghan Air Force essentially became grounded by a lack of fuel, which in turn made it all the more difficult to supply the army and various pro-government militias spread across Afghanistan's harsh geography, consequently causing a considerable increase in desertion. A few months later and with the war still continuing, Najibullah offered his entire government's resignation and voiced his support for a United Nations plan for a transitional administration including both Watan and all mujahideen groups in the country. This announcement led to the desertion of many of his own supporters, who feared the end of his government.

In these circumstances, Abdul Rashid Dostum, a leading army general, created an alliance with the Shura-e Nazar of Ahmad Shah Massoud and turned against Najibullah, taking with him over 40,000 previously pro-government soldiers. Najibullah sent a high-ranking army general to talk to Dostum and attempt to salvage the situation, only to learn that the general had also defected, alongside his own foreign minister. These defections devastated the Afghan Armed Forces' morale, and large parts of the Afghan government and armed forces capitulated to the forces of Massoud in early 1992. By April, Najibullah stated that he would be handing power to a seven-member transitional council and resigning immediately. Mujahideen forces loyal to Massoud and Dostum entered and captured Kabul shortly, thereafter, leading to the definitive end of PDPA/Watan rule in Afghanistan.

Najibullah was granted safety by the UN office in Kabul. He had obtained political asylum in India but was unable to leave as he was prevented from doing so by forces loyal to Massoud, Dostum and Hekmatyar. Because of this, he was forced to remain in the UN building until he was captured, dragged from a truck, castrated and executed by the Taliban several years later. After the Soviet defeat, ''The Wall Street Journal'' named Massoud "the Afghan who won the Cold War". He had defeated the Soviet forces nine times in his home region of the Panjshir Valley in northeastern Afghanistan.

Increased Pakistani interference

Pakistan tried to install Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in power in Afghanistan despite the opposition of all other mujahideen commanders and factions. As early as October 1990, the Inter-Services Intelligence had devised a plan for Hekmatyar to conduct a mass bombardment of the Afghan capital Kabul with possible Pakistani troop enforcements. This unilateral ISI-Hekmatyar plan came although the thirty most important mujahideen commanders had agreed on holding a conference inclusive of all Afghan groups to decide on a common future strategy. Peter Tomsen reports that the protest by the other mujahideen commanders was like a "firestorm". Ahmad Zia Massoud, the brother of Ahmad Shah Massoud, said that his faction strongly opposed the plan and like other factions would take measures if any "Pakistani troops reinforced Hekmatyar". Abdul Haq was reportedly so angry about the ISI plan that he was "red in the face". And Nabi Mohammad, another commander, pointed out that "Kabul's 2 million could not escape Hekmatyar's rocket bombardment—there would be a massacre." Representatives for Massoud, Haq and Wardak said that "Hekmatyar's rocketing of Kabul ... would produce a civilian bloodbath." The United States finally put pressure on Pakistan to stop the 1990 plan, which was subsequently called off until 1992.

Peshawar Accord and Afghan Civil War

Pakistan's objectives

After the fall of Najibullah's government in 1992, the Afghan political parties agreed on a power-sharing agreement, the Peshawar Accord. The Peshawar Accord created the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government for a transitional period to be followed by general democratic elections. Human Rights Watch said: "The sovereignty of Afghanistan was vested formally in the Islamic State of Afghanistan, an entity created in April 1992, after the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government. ... With the exception of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, all of the parties ... were ostensibly unified under this government in April 1992. ... Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, for its part, refused to recognize the government for most of the period discussed in this report and launched attacks against government forces and Kabul generally. ... Shells and rockets fell everywhere."

Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from Pakistan. On ''Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival'', Afghanistan expert Amin Saikal says that "Pakistan was keen to gear up for a breakthrough in Central Asia. ... Islamabad could not possibly expect the new Islamic government leaders ... to subordinate their own nationalist objectives in order to help Pakistan realize its regional ambitions. ... Had it not been for the ISI's logistic support and supply of a large number of rockets, Hekmatyar's forces would not have been able to target and destroy half of Kabul.

Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

In addition, Saudi Arabia and Iran—as competitors for regional hegemony—supported Afghan militias hostile towards each other. According to Human Rights Watch, Iran was assisting the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat forces of Abdul Ali Mazari, as Iran was attempting to maximize Wahdat's military power and influence.GUTMAN, Roy (2008): How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan, Endowment of the United States Institute of Peace, 1st ed., Washington D.C. Saudi Arabia supported the Wahhabite Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction. Conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-scale war. A publication by the George Washington University describes the situation: " tside forces saw instability in Afghanistan as an opportunity to press their own security and political agendas."

Owing to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different armed factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos as described in reports by Human Rights Watch and the Afghanistan Justice Project. Because of the chaos, some leaders increasingly had only nominal control over their (sub-)commanders. For civilians there was little security from murder, rape and extortion. An estimated 25,000 people died during the most intense period of bombardment by Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami and the Junbish-i Milli forces of Dostum, who had created an alliance with Hekmatyar in 1994. Half a million people fled Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch writes: "Rare ceasefires, usually negotiated by representatives of Ahmad Shah Massoud, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi or Burhanuddin Rabbani he interim government or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross, commonly collapsed within days."

Rise of the Taliban government

Southern Afghanistan was not under the control of foreign-backed militias nor was it under the control of the government in Kabul; instead, it was ruled by local leaders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and their militias. In 1994, the Taliban (a movement which originated in Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed as a political-religious force in Afghanistan, reportedly in opposition to the tyranny of the local governor.Matinuddin, Kamal, ''The Taliban Phenomenon, Afghanistan 1994–1997'', Oxford University Press, (1999), pp.25–6 Mullah Omar founded his movement with less than 50 armed madrassah students in his home town of Kandahar. When the Taliban took control of the city in 1994, they forced dozens of local Pashtun leaders who had presided over a situation of complete lawlessness and atrocities to surrender. In 1994, the Taliban took power in several provinces in southern and central Afghanistan.

In late 1994, most of the militia factions (Hezb-i Islami, Junbish-i Milli and Hezb-i Wahdat) which had been fighting in the battle for control of Kabul were defeated militarily by forces of the Islamic State's Secretary of Defense Massoud. Bombardment of the capital came to a halt. Massoud tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections, also inviting the Taliban to join the process. Massoud had united political and cultural personalities, governors, commanders, clergymen and representatives to reach a lasting agreement. Massoud, like most people in Afghanistan, saw this conference as a small hope for democracy and for free elections. His favourite for candidacy to the presidency was Dr. Mohammad Yusuf, the first democratic prime minister under Zahir Shah, the former king. In the first meeting representatives from 15 different Afghan provinces met, in the second meeting there were already 25 provinces participating. Massoud went unarmed to talk to several Taliban leaders in Maidan Shar, but the Taliban declined to join this political process. When Massoud returned safely, the Taliban leader who had received him as his guest paid with his life: he was killed by other senior Taliban for failing to execute Massoud while the possibility was there.

Founding of the Islamic Emirate

The Taliban started to shell Kabul in early 1995 but they were defeated by the forces of the Islamic State government under Massoud. Amnesty International, referring to the Taliban offensive, wrote in a 1995 report: "This is the first time in several months that Kabul civilians have become the targets of rocket attacks and shelling aimed at residential areas in the city." The Taliban's early victories in 1994 were followed by a series of defeats that resulted in heavy losses. Pakistan provided strong support to the Taliban. Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests which the Taliban deny. On 26 September 1996, as the Taliban, with military support from Pakistan and financial support from Saudi Arabia, prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul. The Taliban seized Kabul on 27 September 1996 and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Taliban vs. Northern Alliance

Taliban offensives

The Taliban imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their interpretation of Islam. The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) stated: "To PHR's knowledge, no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment." Women were required to wear the all-covering ''burqa'', they were banned from public life and denied access to health care and education, windows needed to be covered so that women could not be seen from the outside, and they were not allowed to laugh in a manner that could be heard by others. The Taliban, without any real court or hearing, cut people's hands or arms off when they were accused of stealing. Taliban hit-squads watched the streets, conducting arbitrary brutal public beatings.

The Taliban began preparing offensives against the remaining areas controlled by Massoud and Dostum. The former foes responded by allying to form the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban. In addition to the dominantly Tajik forces of Massoud and the Uzbek forces of Dostum, the United Front included Hazara factions and Pashtun forces under the leadership of commanders such as Abdul Haq or Haji Abdul Qadir. Prominent politicians of the United Front were Afghan Prime Minister Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai and the United Front's foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. From the Taliban conquest in 1996 until November 2001 the United Front controlled roughly 30% of Afghanistan's population in provinces such as Badakhshan, Kapisa, Takhar and parts of Parwan, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Samangan, Kunduz, Ghōr and Bamyan.

Atrocities by Arab jihadists

According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians. UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001. They also said "these have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the alibanMinistry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself." In a major effort to retake the Shomali plains, the Taliban indiscriminately killed civilians, while uprooting and expelling the population. Kamal Hossein, a special reporter for the UN, reported on these and other war crimes. Upon taking Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998, about 4,000 civilians were executed by the Taliban and many more reported tortured. The Taliban especially targeted people of Shia religious or Hazara ethnic background. Among those killed in Mazari-i-Sharif were several Iranian diplomats. Others were kidnapped by the Taliban, touching off a hostage crisis that nearly escalated to a full-scale war, with 150,000 Iranian soldiers massed on the Afghan border at one time. It was later admitted that the diplomats were killed by the Taliban, and their bodies were returned to Iran.

The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings. Osama Bin Laden's so-called 055 Brigade was responsible for mass killings of Afghan civilians. The report by the United Nations quotes eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people.

Role of Pakistan's ISI

Pakistan's ISI wanted the mujahideen to establish a government in Afghanistan. The director-general of the ISI, Hamid Gul, was interested in an Islamic revolution which would transcend national borders, not just in Afghanistan and Pakistan but also in Central Asia. To set up the proposed mujahideen government, Gul ordered an assault on Jalalabad with the intent on using it as the capital for the new government Pakistan was interested in establishing in Afghanistan. The Taliban were largely funded by ISI in 1994.Hall Gardner