Civil war in Afghanistan (1992-1996) Totally Explained

Everything about Civil War In Afghanistan 1992-1996 totally explained

The 1992 to 1996 phase of the Civil war in Afghanistan began with the capture of Kabul by the Mujahideen groups, and involved different factions of the Mujahideen turning on one another until finally in 1996 the Taliban captured Kabul. The Taliban were supported by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates until their last days of ruling.

Political background

After the fall of the Soviet Union the civil war entered a new phase. The new problem was to establish a new government. Finally, the Islamic Jihad Council agreed to form an interim government. It was decided that a 51 man body, headed by Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, would go inside Kabul so that they could take over power from the present rulers of Kabul completely, and without any terms and conditions during the two months period. The head of this body would also be the President of the State during this two month period. After this period, this body would remain as an interim Islamic Council government, along with the Transitional State, and its Chairmanship would be held by Mojaddedi.
Mojaddedi was chosen as the president, Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud was given the position of Defence Minister, Sayyaf took control of the foreign ministry and other parties were given the minor positions. The Islamic Jihad Council agreed that a nation wide election to soon hold elections. Although some elements of the PDPA had infiltrated the government in the name of Mojadeddi, most of the Parchamis had managed to flee the country. Khalq members who were mostly Pashtuns, either joined Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or fled to Pakistan.

Timeline

1992

Soon after the liberation of Kabul, Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami started firing rockets at Kabul. Although Hekmatyar insisted that only Islamic Jihad Council areas were targeted, the rockets mostly fell over the houses of the innocent civilians of Kabul. The new government introduced new strict laws which were thoroughly Islamic. Strict punishments according to Islamic law were very new to the people of Kabul who were already suffering from Hezb-i-Islami rocket attacks. The U.N. reported that 1,800 civilians died in rocket attacks between May and August, and 500,000 people fled the city.
   In June 1992, as scheduled, Burhanuddin Rabbani became president of Afghanistan, while Hekmatyar continued to bombard Kabul with rockets. After Rabbani's appointment, the whole control of the government went into Jamiat-e Islami hands. In Burhanuddin Rabbani, Tajiks ruled Afghanistan for only the second time since the creation of the modern state of Afghanistan in 1898, the first being a brief seizure of power in the 1920s.
   The once powerful alliance between the Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Massoud was beginning to crack as the Uzbeks didn't gain enough power under the new leadership. Different militia factions were fighting over control of different areas all over the country. Kandahar was filled with three different local Pashtun commanders Amir Lalai, Gul Agha Sherzai and Mullah Naqib Ullah who engaged in an extremely violent struggle for power. The bullet riddled city came to be a centre of lawlessness, crime and atrocities fuelled by complex Pashtun tribal rivalries’.
   Just like the other parts of the country, serious fighting also broke out between the Saudi-backed Pashtun Wahabi Ittehad-e Islami party and the Iran-backed Shi'a Hezb-e Wahdat party in Kabul. Both groups engaged in abducting Hazara and Pashtun civilians. Hundreds were killed, and as many as 1,000 detained and tortured before a cease-fire finally took hold in June. Continuing tension between ethnic groups erupted in other violent confrontations throughout the remainder of the year. The government, for several reasons, but primarily due to Sectarian loyalties backed Sayyaf. Pashtun militia operated in western sectors of Kabul where most Hazaras lived.
   In the month of August alone, a bombardment of artillery shells, rockets and fragmentation bombs killed over 2,000 people in Kabul, most of them civilians. Then in November, in a very effective move, Hekmatyar's forces, together with guerrillas from some of the Arab groups, barricaded a power station in Sarobi, 30 miles east of Kabul, cutting electricity to the capital and shutting down the water supply, which is dependent on power. His forces and other Mujahideen were also reported to have prevented food convoys from reaching the city.
   On November 23, Minister of Food Sulaiman Yaarin reported that the city's food and fuel depots were empty. The government was now under heavy pressure.

1993

On January 3, 1993, Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of the Jamiat-e Islami party, was sworn in as President. However Rabbani's authority remained limited to only part of Kabul; the rest of the city remained divided among rival Mujahideen factions. In response, on January 19, a short-lived cease-fire broke down when Hezb-i-Islami forces renewed rocket attacks on Kabul from their base in the south of the city. Civilians were the main victims in the fighting which killed some 1,000 before a peace accord was signed on March 8.
Under the March accord, brokered by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Rabbani and Hekmatyar agreed to share power until elections could be held in late 1994. Hekmatyar was named Prime Minister, but by November he hadn't entered Kabul because of continuing opposition from forces loyal to Massoud and sometimes those allied to the Uzbek commander General Rashid Dostum. The cease-fire broke down again on May 11, leaving more than 700 dead in bombing raids, street battles and rocket attacks in and around Kabul. The parties agreed to a new peace accord in Jalalabad on May 20 under which Massoud agreed to relinquish the post of Defense Minister. A council of commanders was to assume that office, as well as the office of Interior Minister, but by mid-November the power struggle remained unresolved.

1994

Significant changes occurred in 1994 in how the war was conducted and who fought which side. The Taliban movement first emerged on the military scene in August 1994, with the stated goal of liberating Afghanistan from its present corrupt leadership of warlords and establish a pure Islamic society. By October 1994 the Taliban movement had attracted the support of Pakistan, which saw in the Taliban a way to secure trade routes to Central Asia and establish a government in Kabul friendly to its interests. Pakistani traders who had long sought a secure route to send their goods to Central Asia quickly became some of the Taliban's strongest financial backers.

1995

In September 1995, the Taliban took control of Herat, thereby cutting off the land route connecting the Islamic State of Afghanistan with Iran. The Taliban's innovative use of mobile warfare appeared to indicate that Pakistan had provided vital assistance for the capture of Herat.

1996

In June 1996 Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had resigned as prime minister in 1994 to launch a military offensive against forces loyal to Rabbani, again assumed the post, this time to help Rabbani’s government fight the Taliban threat. Despite their efforts, Afghanistan's Taliban militia seized control of Kabul on September 27, 1996 soon after government forces abandoned the shattered capital. In its first action, the Islamic militant group hanged former President Najibullah and his brother from a tower. All key government installations appeared to be in Taliban's hands within hours, including the presidential palace and the ministries of defense, security and foreign affairs.Massoud was forced to retreat to the North. He began to obtain military assistance from Russia as well as Iran and The Northern Alliance was reconstituted in opposition to the Taliban.

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