Background and History of Afghanistan:
History of War in the Twentieth Century Afghanistan

In 1973, Mohammed Daoud, King Zahir’s cousin and brother-in-law who served as Prime Minister under King Zahir, overthrew the constitutional monarchy and declared a republic. President Daoud suspended the free press and most of the political parties vanished with the exception of the PDPA. He limited relations with the Soviet Union and established contacts with Arab and Muslim countries. Meanwhile, his government initiated conciliatory discussions with Pakistan on the controversies that separated the two countries. Increasing distance of the Daoud regime from the Soviet Union led to further support of the PDPA opposition party and enabled it to take over the government, in April 1978, in a bloody military coup. A Communist-led Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was established, and Noor Mohammed Taraki, the head of the PDPA, was installed as President of the Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister. He renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), abolished the Constitution, and banned all opposition movements.

Less than two months later, a coalition of two factions, the PDPA-Khalq (people) and the Parcham (Banner), fell apart. Supported by the Soviet Union, Taraki attempted to create a Marxist state, but a nationwide rebellion, led by Islamic opposition groups and Muslim religious leaders, began in the spring of 1979. In December 1979, the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan and the Soviet installed Communist regime was in power until April of 1992. Following the Soviet invasion, seven groups of Afghan freedom fighters (Mujahedeen) were formed in the neighboring Pakistan and Iran to fight the Soviet army and the communist regime. With assistance from the US and other Western countries, the Afghan Mujahedeen fought Russians for nearly fourteen years. More than 6 million Afghans fled to the neighboring countries of Pakistan and Iran as well as other parts of the world. It is estimated that more than one million Afghans were killed and nearly half a million were injured during the war with the Soviet army.

The failure of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, as well as increasing outside military and financial support of Mujaheddin forces, led to the signing of the Geneva accords on April 14, 1988 under United Nations auspices. The accord called for the withdrawal of Soviet troops, which was completed in February 1989. However, the communist regime managed to remain in power for three more years through continuing support from Moscow. At the same time, several unsuccessful attempts were made to establish a coalition of the political forces in Afghanistan with the Najibullah government. Najibulla's government collapsed in April 1992 and the Mujaheddin entered Kabul. Afghanistan became an Islamic state ruled by a fragmented power structure that was headed by President Burhanuddin Rabbani. The Leadership Council declared Islamic laws (Shari'a) to be the law of the country. Existing laws considered to be contrary to Islamic law were declared null and void. The Islamic government issued a new law requiring all women to dress modest in public and at work place.

The fall of Kabul to the Mujahedeen resulted in many divisions both among the Mujahedeen and the country as a whole. Backed by regional powers, selfish leaders of various factions, in an attempt to win the power, turned their weapons against each other. The civil war destroyed Kabul and thousands of Kabul residents were killed and injured. Approximately 50% of the population fled to the neighboring countries and most of the city’s infrastructure were destroyed in the fighting. Meanwhile, combatants of various factions engaged in extortion, looting, burglary, kidnapping, rape and murder of civilians. The state of anarchy and bloody violence continued throughout 1992. Between 1993-1996, the city of Kabul became a center of heavy shelling and rocketing by forces of Gulbudeen Hekmatyar (and later by the Taliban movement). This led to further killing and disabling of thousands of civilians and extensive destruction of the city. Since 1992, over 40,000 civilians have been killed in Kabul and more than 500,000 Kabul residents have been displaced in to the neighboring countries and other parts of Afghanistan.

At the end of 1994, a new group named "Taliban" emerged as a military and political force. The term Taliban, which is the plural form of the Arabic word “ Talib”, means "students of Islamic madrasas". The group is mostly composed of poorly educated rural Pashtun youths, recruited from refugee camps and religious schools ("Madrasas") in neighboring Pakistan. Also, some the ex-communist Pashtuns and former Mujahedeen commanders are among the high rank authorities of the Taliban. This movement, led by Mullah Mohammed Omar, a 39-year-old religious leader, claimed to be restoring peace and security through the imposition of a strict Islamic order. The emergence of the Taliban movement was greatly facilitated by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Directorate and extremist political and religious factions. The Taliban are especially closely linked to the Jamiat-e Ulema-I Islam political party of Pakistan, but their sources of support within Pakistan transcend politics. The Taliban had close ties to influential Pakistani businesses -- licit and illicit -- including the transportation and drug mafia. The imposition of duties on trucks crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan, in the busy smuggling trade between the two countries, was an essential source of financial support for the Taliban, who controled the routes. In addition, the burgeoning cultivation and transport of opium, notwithstanding Taliban’s initial promise to stamp out the drug industry, provided the regime with millions of dollars in revenue.

Over the past twenty years of strife, the Pakistani military and intelligence services (ISI) have played a major role in Afghanistan’s political and military situation. Years before the Taliban emergence, the ISI strongly backed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the most brutal and conservative of the Mujaheddin factions. Gulbeddin’s forces (and few other factions) received the millions of dollars worth of weapons from Pakistan, much of which was provided indirectly by the United States during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. When Gulbeddin failed to oust Rabbani’s regime, after a two-year-long effort to take Kabul, the ISI turned its support to the nascent Taliban. There are numerous evidence that Taliban movement was created by Pakistan ISI with support from Saudi Arabia. Pakistan was one of only three countries to formally recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan. The other two countries were Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Beginning 1994, thousands of foreign fighters including dozens of Pakistani military advisors, pilots, and other army personnel had reportedly joined the Taliban to help them capture major cities and important strategic locations. Following the Taliban’s unexpected capture of Kandahar in November 1994, some 12,000 Pakistani and Afghan students from the madrasas in Pakistan joined the Taliban. And Pakistan provided decisive military support when an important ammunition dump guarded by Pakistani frontier forces under the Ministry of the Interior was turned over to the Taliban. The involvement of Pakistani military and intelligence in Afghanistan’s civil war was documented by the Taliban opposition group when they captured 26 Pakistani fighters in 1996. The soldiers provided detailed information on the ISI assistance to the Taliban, including recruiting and training of Pakistani troops, and provision of vehicles, weapons, and money. Several inhabitants of Kabul confirmed the existence of some buildings, such as the former Cuban embassy, as occupied by Pakistani citizens working with the Taliban administration.

The persistent interference of the regional powers in Afghanistan affairs resulted in the lack of cooperation of Afghan factions to agree on a political settlement. Neighboring countries, in particular, Pakistan, intensified the Afghan conflict by providing military and intelligence support, arms, money and supplies to their preferred Afghan factions.
The United Nations repeatedly failed to bring the warring factions to a dialogue for peace for several years. In October 1997, under the UN auspices regional countries bordering Afghanistan (Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China) plus the United States and Russia began discussions for a peaceful resolution in the so called “Six Plus Two Peace Process.”These discussions started after the victory of Mohammed Khatami in the Iranian presidential election and the appointment of Kamal Kharrazi, Iranian foreign minister. At the same time, bilateral discussions between Pakistani and Iranian representatives took place throughout the year in 1997. Unfortunately, the “six plus two” peace negotiations did not end the conflict.

A more recent peace initiative, called the Emergency Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly), involving the former king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, and a group of ex-patriot Afghans was welcomed by a broad range of Afghan groups and the international community. An initial preparatory meeting took place in June of 1998 in Bonn, Germany. The Taliban, were invited, but did not attend. The group decided to form a preparatory council to develop the initiative and to launch a campaign within the region to explain the initiative and rally support for it. In November of 1999, the organizers of the Loya Jirga initiative held a further preparatory meeting in Rome, Italy, where the former Monarch has been residing for the past 27 years. Over 70 Afghan intellectuals, scholars, religious leaders and representatives of various ethnic groups were invited to attend the meeting. In addition, representatives from the United Nations and several governments including France, Germany, Italy, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and Turkey, were present as observers. In May 2000, a delegation from the Emergency Loya Jirga organizers visited the United States to seek political and financial support for the settlement of the Afghan conflict through the Loya Jirga peace initiative.

Taliban Judiciary System:

Under the Taliban regime, there was no Constitution, rule of law, or independent judiciary in Afghanistan. In the absence of an independent judiciary, many municipal and provincial authorities used the Taliban’s interpretation of Shari'a and traditional tribal codes of justice. The Taliban had religious courts in areas under their control to judge criminal cases and resolve disputes. These courts carried out punishments including executions, amputations, flogging and stoning. In cases involving murder and rape, convicted prisoners generally are sentenced to execution by relatives of the victim, who might instead chose to accept other forms of restitution. Decisions of the courts were reportedly final. The Taliban’s Shari’a courts lacked even a semblance of due process, with no provisions for legal counsel.
In October 1997, the Taliban changed the name of the country to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with Mullah Omar, who, in 1996, had assumed the religious title of Emir of the Faithful, as the supreme head of state. Taliban officials ruled by decrees and the central decision-making body is the Supreme Council in Kandahar and its head, Mullah Omar. A six-member ruling council in Kabul, headed by Mullah Mohammed Rabbani, had announced that "the new Taliban government would be neither parliamentary nor presidential, but Islamic.” Departments of a number of ministries existed in each province but the implementation of policy was generally characterized by inconsistency since there was no efficient administrative structure.

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