Afghanistan timeline
President
Mohammad Najibullah, whom the U.S. government predicted would not last the summer when Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan in February 1989, continues to rule his war-wracked nation from a precarious position. A Moscow-brokered plan calls for Najibullah to step aside in favour of Prime Minister Khaliqyar, who would serve as a transitional administrative leader until a new government could be elected. However, on October 13 moderate guerrilla officials in Pakistan highlight the remaining obstacles to peace by withdrawing their support for Khaliqyar. The
mujaheddin say his association with Najibullah makes him unacceptable. Afghanistan is like a maimed patient after 13 years of civil war. The streets of Kabul are full of one-legged men, victims of land mines. The government says it has released more than 19,000 prisoners in the past four years and has abolished the special tribunals set up to try those accused of political crimes. Meanwhile, fierce fighting continues between government troops and the Muslim guerrillas. The guerrillas launch their long-planned assault on Najibullah's hometown, the garrison town of Gardez in southeastern Afghanistan, and coordinate a series of attacks aimed at demoralizing the Afghan Army and destabilizing the government, but none of the attacks is decisive. In 1991 the guerrillas control 6 of Afghanistan's 31 provinces. In their only major gain during the year, they overrun a series of government-held garrisons to gain control of strategic areas along the border with the breakaway Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. They also hold the narrow corridor linking Afghanistan with China.
Najibullah proposes a five-point peace plan to end the 13-year war that has killed an estimated 1.5 million people and maimed hundreds of thousands of others. The plan calls for an end to weapons shipments to the warring factions, a cease-fire, and an intra-Afghan dialogue leading to the formation of a national unity government mandated to oversee elections. The national unity government would share power with the Pakistan-based government-in-exile, guerrilla commanders, Afghans living in exile, and the deposed king, Zahir Shah. Besides organizing elections, it would rewrite Afghanistan's constitution and oversee the return of the more than five million refugees who had fled to Pakistan and Iran. However, the Muslim guerrillas accuse Najibullah of merely repackaging old ideas in order to portray himself as a peacemaker. Most of the guerrillas vow to continue fighting until he is overthrown.
In a surprise move, the government restores the citizenship of Zahir Shah, who has been living in virtual banishment in Italy for 18 years. Nearly 77, Zahir Shah had been overthrown in 1973, and he and his family were stripped of their Afghan citizenship after the Communist revolution of 1978.
The U.S. and the Soviet Union take the first step toward a negotiated settlement by agreeing to end arms shipments to their respective clients, the rebels and the government in Kabul, as of Jan. 1, 1992.
The forces of both Masood and Hekmatyar enter Kabul, and the Communist regime collapses, but 14 years of civil war, which have claimed two million lives and forced at least five million people out of the country, leave the nation divided and almost in ruins. Sibghatullah Mojadedi, a 70-year-old former Islamic philosophy teacher, becomes caretaker president on April 28. The country is renamed Islamic State of Afghanistan. When peace seems imminent, fighting among the various guerrilla groups, divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, brings on a new struggle. Kabul, once a bustling city of 1.5 million people, looks like a ghost town after the takeover by Islamic resistance forces. Throughout the year, the city is the centre of battles between forces friendly to the new government and Hekmatyar's renegade Hezb-i-Islami (Islamic Party). An acting Council of Ministers is formed, in which Masood is defense minister and the premiership is set aside for Abdul Sabur Farid Kuhestani, a Tajik commander from the Hezb-i-Islami.
The interim government bans the sale of alcohol and pressures women to cover their heads in public and adopt traditional Muslim dress.
Mojadedi surrenders power to Burhanuddin Rabbani, who heads a 10-member Supreme Leadership Council of guerrilla chiefs. Rabbani announces the adoption of a new Islamic flag, the establishment of an economic council, which is to tackle the country's severe economic problems, and the appointment of a commission to draw up a new constitution. The changeover does not end the bloodshed, however. The most serious fighting breaks out as the Hezb-i-Islami, led by firebrand fundamentalist Hekmatyar, rains thousands of rockets on Kabul from hilltop positions on the southeastern outskirts, bringing more destruction than has taken place in the 14-year war between Soviet-backed Communist regimes and the Muslim resistance. The government also faces a serious challenge from an Iranian-backed alliance of Shi`ite Muslims. The Unity Party, a coalition of eight Shi`ite Muslim parties that enjoys the moral and financial backing of Iran, demands that the interim government honour past promises to share power. The Unity Party claims to represent 35% of Afghanistan's population, mostly the downtrodden Hazaras living in the central highlands, the country's poorest and most neglected region.
Abdul Sabur Farid assumes the premiership.
The withdrawal of the members of the Hezb-i-Islami faction led by Mohammad Yunus Khalis from the Leadership Council reveals serious rifts within the government.
In response to the attacks by Hekmatyar's forces against the capital, Rabbani expels Hekmatyar from the Leadership Council and dismisses Prime Minister Farid.
France, Italy, and Bulgaria close their embassies and withdraw their diplomats, joining the exodus from Kabul under bombardment. The U.S., Britain, Germany, Japan, and Austria withdrew their diplomats in February 1989, just weeks before Moscow ended its nine-year occupation of the country. Also in August, the last three non-Afghan UN officials slip out of Kabul by car to Pakistan, leaving Najibullah's fate unresolved. The ruling group wants to try Najibullah for his role in the civil war and for the death or disappearance of hundreds of thousands of Afghans while he commanded the once-feared secret police. Pakistan seals its border with Afghanistan, stranding thousands of Afghan refugees who have fled the rocket attacks on Kabul. This policy is a dramatic reversal for Pakistan, which for 14 years has provided a haven for some three million refugees and has helped arm the Islamic rebels. Another two million refugees have fled to Iran.
A national council, composed of 1,335 delegates from throughout the country, meets in Kabul. The assembly approves the creation of a parliament and a new army, and sets a strict Islamic path for Afghanistan. Despite allegations of vote buying, bribery, and threats of renewed civil war, the assembly votes (December 30) to keep 52-year-old Islamic scholar Rabbani as president for a 2-year term. The city is shelled from the hills as the voting is in progress. Five of the 10 main rebel groups denounce the council as unrepresentative, and describe Rabbani's reelection as a declaration of war. Rabbani is sworn in on January 2. The assembly further orders that only Muslims work for the government, bans all non-Muslim organizations, and declares that radio and television have to conform to Islamic law.
Afghanistan remains a battleground, with rival factions fighting for power and pounding the capital with rockets. An estimated 10,000 people are killed, 750,000 are displaced, and many neighbourhoods in Kabul are devastated. Although the fighting lessens somewhat in the latter half of 1993, it is still unclear if the nation ultimately will be governable. Meanwhile, Najibullah, who received a promise of safe passage from the UN when it negotiated his abdication, remains in the UN office in Kabul, suffering from a kidney ailment. The UN has been unable to secure his freedom. Continuing hostilities also delay the homecoming of an estimated 3.8 million refugees in Iran and Pakistan, the largest refugee population in the world. The UN believes it will take until the end of 1995 for the 1.5 million Afghans remaining in Pakistan to return home. Afghanistan is the world's largest opium grower, according to the UN, having produced an estimated 2,000 tons in 1992. This is a concern not only for the West, where the production fuels the illegal heroin trade, but also at home, where it is estimated that 15% of all adult Afghan males age 15-40 are addicted to hard drugs.
After Hekmatyar's forces captured Defense Minister Masood's ministry building in Kabul, which they were shelling for a year, a peace accord is signed. Hekmatyar is designated prime minister and a cease-fire is to be imposed.
Despite continuing fighting among the various rebel leaders - principally between government forces under Masood and Hezb-i-Islami faction troops loyal to fundamentalist Hekmatyar - a 22-member cabinet is named. Acceding to Hekmatyar's demands, the cease-fire agreement called for the Defense Ministry to be run by a commission under President Rabbani. Other cabinet posts are divided among the 10 major rebel groups, including Mohammad Yunus Khalis' breakaway faction of the Hezb-i-Islami, which has boycotted all past agreements. Afghanistan's minority Shi`ites, allies of Hekmatyar who have been demanding greater representation, are given the finance and health ministries.
Hekmatyar ventures into Kabul for the first time since 1992. On June 17 he is formally sworn in as prime minister in a low-key ceremony in a village outside Kabul.
Prime Minister Hekmatyar visits Tehran and returns with a pledge that Iran will help repair roads destroyed in the war and help Afghanistan look for oil and gas. In the same month, Afghanistan says that it will not return Stinger missile launchers supplied by the U.S. to anti-Soviet rebels during the 1978-92 war. Washington wanted to buy back the antiaircraft weapons to keep them from falling into the hands of terrorists.
The state-controlled Kabul radio reports that the Afghan leadership, after five days of negotiations, has approved an interim constitution and that elections would be held in 1994.
Destructive and inconclusive fighting between forces loyal to Prime Minister Hekmatyar and troops loyal to President Rabbani results in the disintegration of central state authority and weaken the cohesion of the multinational state. Kabul remains divided into zones controlled by rival groups. A blockade of Kabul leads to fighting in northern Afghanistan over a tenuous road link to neighbouring Tajikistan. The prolonged bombardment reduces most of the Afghan capital to ruins and causes 75% of Kabul's population of two million to flee the area. Outside Kabul the central government's authority all but disappears. Under the protection of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan Uzbek, Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest industrial complex in Afghanistan, enjoys relative stability. In Jalalabad local political groups and commanders cooperate to provide basic public services. In Kandahar local rivalries slow reconstruction. Herat is generally peaceful and secure and begins to reclaim its traditional role as commercial centre along trade routes with neighbouring Iran and Turkmenistan. International rivalries continue to agitate Afghanistan's divided society. The country's large Shi`ite minority and the 1.8 million Afghan refugees in neighbouring Iran automatically give Tehran a role in Afghan affairs. Saudi Arabia becomes involved by supporting factions it sees as a counterweight to Iranian influence. Pakistan's role is even more crucial. Not only does Pakistan give refuge to 1.5 million Afghan refugees, but it is permanent home to a section of the Pashtun ethnic group, which traditionally plays a leading role in Afghan politics. India and China view the strengthening of Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan as a danger to their own authority in Kashmir and Sinkiang, respectively, while other countries throughout the world are concerned about terrorists trained by Afghanistan's warring factions and the country's expanding drug trafficking. Serious international attention to Afghanistan remains distracted, however, both by the apparent unwillingness of Afghan leaders to cooperate and by attention to international crises elsewhere.
Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami forces and those of Dostum coordinate an artillery and rocket assault on Kabul. The offensive represents a major realignment of forces vying for control of the government. Dostum precipitated the surrender of Kabul to resistance forces in April 1992 by withdrawing his support from the Soviet-installed regime of Najibullah. He placed the greater part of the communist army and air force under his command and assisted the new resistance government fighting Hekmatyar's forces.
UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appoints former Tunisian foreign minister Mahmoud Mestiri head of a special peace commission. He meets leaders inside and outside Afghanistan, but no formal UN peace plan is announced.
Rabbani refuses to relinquish the presidency when his term expires, and the Supreme Court in Kabul extends his term for an additional six months. A similar extension to Hekmatyar's premiership is not granted. General dissatisfaction over the unending power struggle leads to renewed calls to convene a Loya Jirga, or grand assembly. While many Afghans fear that a Loya Jirga would serve to reinforce traditional social structures at the expense of social progress, there is movement nonetheless toward some form of assembly that could offer legitimate leadership.
Hamid al-Ghabid, secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, leads a peace effort, but individual OIC member states are unable to agree on an appropriate solution.
Representatives from throughout Afghanistan and prominent Afghans living abroad meet in Herat. Although the delegates endorse Rabbani's continuance as president, they initiate measures aimed at organizing a Loya Jirga to choose a new government.
A senior mullah from the southern city of Kandahar, Mohammad Omar, sets up the Taliban (Persian for "students") movement, which quickly becomes a powerful guerrilla force. The group's first accomplishment is the defeat of local commanders who have hijacked a truck convoy traveling from Pakistan to Central Asia. These mainly Pashtun students secure the release of the convoy and within days take control of Kandahar (October); later they extend their control to neighbouring provinces. While maintaining a low profile in a council in Kandahar, the Taliban declare that their goal is to disarm all factions and create a united, Islamic government in Afghanistan. The Taliban were recruited from schools set up among Afghan refugees in Pakistan during the years following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. From the time of the first Taliban successes, Pakistan denies any official support, but most observers discount such denials, noting the modern logistic support and sophisticated communications equipment at the disposal of the "students."
Arsala Rahmani is appointed acting prime minister.
The Taliban bring a degree of calm to parts of Afghanistan, in part by neutralizing several powerful leaders and their supporters. The dispute over control of Kabul is not resolved, however, and regions of the country remain divided. Most ordinary Afghans, particularly in traditionally Pashtun areas of the country, welcome the sudden and effective success of the Taliban. Drug trafficking and lawlessness are targeted, and religious conformity is enforced. The latter includes severe restrictions on women's appearance in public and especially on their access to education and employment. Public executions and amputations are used to enforce Islamic behaviour. In northwestern Afghanistan Dostum continues to strengthen his independent position in Mazar-i-Sharif. With the destruction of Kabul, almost two-thirds of Afghanistan's total population is living in territory controlled by the Uzbek general. With a well-equipped army of 60,000, he continues to build economic and diplomatic relations with Afghanistan's neighbours. For Pakistan and Iran, Dostum's authority promises stable trade links to Central Asia, where he is seen as insurance against the threat of Islamic fundamentalism.
President Rabbani, whose extended term expired at the end of December, offers to relinquish power if an acceptable replacement could be found. Efforts by Mestiri and other UN mediators to bring the contending factions together and select a successor to Rabbani come to naught. The military-political situation is so unstable that serious negotiations are impossible.
Taliban forces have moved into central Afghanistan, where they occupy the headquarters of Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami. Hekmatyar has been bombarding Kabul in an effort to drive Rabbani from office, but when he is forced to flee, he abandons large stocks of heavy weapons and aircraft. The Taliban next attack the pro-Iranian Wahdat militia, a Shi`ite group that has also been attacking Kabul. In March the Taliban capture its leader, Abdul Ali Mazari, who is killed within days under unclear circumstances. Taliban forces then attack Rabbani's troops, but this time the students are unable to hold positions directly threatening Kabul. Their image, moreover, is damaged when the rockets they fire on Kabul kill numerous civilians, but the attacks nevertheless continue.
Taliban militias overrun the Herat area, where Ismail Khan, a close ally of Rabbani, had achieved a degree of normality; he escapes to Iran. Although the Pashtun population is a minority in the area, the new Taliban administration undertakes the Islamization of society amid tension and suspicion.
In Kabul an angry crowd storms the embassy of Pakistan as relations between Kabul and Islamabad degenerate.
Taliban forces advance to the gates of Kabul for a second time, capturing Charasyab base and a band of hills.
