The Tehran EightRuttig, T. ''Islamists, Leftists – and a Void in the Center. Afghanistan's Political Parties and where they come from (1902–2006)''. "The first current was mainly represented in the 1980s by the Sunni Mujahedin tanzim based in Pakistan, the ‘Peshawar Seven’, and the Shia Mujahedin groups based in Iran, the ‘Tehran Eight’. The second current mainly consisted of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), with its two major factions Khalq and Parcham, and the ‘Maoist’ groups that emerged from the demokratik-e newin, or ‘new democracy’, commonly referred to as shola’i. For the third current, there are mainly Afghan Millat with at least three different factions on the Pashtun(ist) side and Settam-e Melli on the Tajik side, with some Uzbek and Turkmen elements, and currently Sazman-e Inqilabi-ye Zahmatkashan-e Afghanistan (SAZA), or ‘Revolutionary Organisation of Afghanistan’s Toilers’ and the new Hezb-e Kangara-ye Melli, or ‘National Congress Party’. There is no current Hazara equivalent to them since Hezb-e Wahdat has absorbed the Hazara demand for religious, political and judicial equality. /ref> was an Afghans, Afghan
Shiite
Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood ...
Mujahideen
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' (), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' (), an Arabic term that broadly refers to people who engage in ''jihad'' (), interpreted in a jurisprudence of Islam as the fight on behalf of God, religion or the commun ...
political union, mainly composed of ethnic Afghan Hazaras, during the
Soviet–Afghan War
The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...
. They were supported by
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
, hence the name Tehran Eight.
The Tehran Eight were predominantly active in the
Hazarajat
Hazarajat (), also known as Hazaristan () is a mostly mountainous region in the central Afghan highlands, central highlands of Afghanistan, among the Kuh-e Baba mountains in the western extremities of the Hindu Kush. It is the homeland of the H ...
region in central Afghanistan, and fought against the PDPA government and the supporting
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
troops. It formed the second largest resistance force in the war, after the main
Afghan mujahideen
The Afghan ''mujahideen'' (; ; ) were Islamist militant groups that fought against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent Afghan Civil War (1989–1992), First Afghan Ci ...
(also called the "Peshawar Seven"), which was a Sunni alliance.
The Tehran Eight was formed in December 1987 with the direct participation of the Iranian state, after years of inter-factional struggle in the Hazarajat. In 1989, they were united into one party, Hezb-e Wahdat, with the exception of Hezbollah Afghanistan.
The Eight Factions
The following Afghan organizations composed the Tehran Eight, all headquartered in Iran: