The autocratic government of Mohammad Daoud Khan, the first president and the last descendant of the Mohammadzai dynasty, came to an end on the 7th of Saur, 1357 (April 27, 1978), with the military coup by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), resulting in the assassination of Mohammad Daoud and his family in the Arg of Kabul.
This historic event marked the first fundamental change in Afghanistan’s landscape, initially welcomed by some due to its progressive nature. However, the victorious party, with its unrealistic commands and the arrogance of victory, soon deteriorated the situation.
The issuance of impractical orders by Nur Muhammad Taraki became contentious. The newly empowered forces acted recklessly, disregarding the people’s beliefs entirely.
The People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), holding complete governmental power, resorted to violence, coercion, and fear against the people, much like the Taliban today, leading to the dissatisfaction of the Afghan populace. The new government and ruling party, with their unrefined methods and false pride, quickly generated numerous enemies. Despite Pakistan’s strained relations with Afghanistan, especially regarding border and water issues, it welcomed the coup of 7th Saur (April 27, 1978). It didn’t take long for armed anti-government uprisings to erupt across Afghanistan, and the people soon turned against the new regime.
The new government believed it could quell provincial rebellions through suppression and deploying armed forces, but day by day, anti-government movements and uprisings intensified in every corner of Afghanistan.
The government and party’s treatment of the Afghan people was harsh and brutal. Even the slightest mistake led to imprisonment, and severe censorship persisted in all spheres. People couldn’t even listen to Western radios in their homes out of fear.
Not long after the new government took power, the Islamic regime rose in Iran, and Islamists overthrew the government of Reza Shah.
Following the victory of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan and the establishment of the new Afghan government, the victorious forces, comprised of factions from the People’s side, engaged in power struggles and conflicts. Both factions had splintered into separate factions based on linguistic affiliations and personal inclinations. From within the People’s faction, a group led by Hafizullah Amin emerged, who ended the 17-month rule of his mentor Nur Muhammad Taraki through his assassination. Hafizullah Amin, with the assassination of Taraki, quietly seized absolute power in Afghanistan, but his government, like its predecessor, continued the violence and oppression against the people.
With Amin’s assumption of power, prisons once again filled with individuals from within the party and ordinary Afghan citizens; however, his despotic regime had a very short lifespan. After just four months, the Soviets put an end to Amin’s dictatorial rule in a bloody operation, eliminating Amin and his family in the Tajbeg Palace. It is unclear if the Soviets hadn’t intervened to overthrow Hafizullah Amin, how far the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan would have proceeded with its agenda.
Regardless, during Amin’s four-month regime, tyranny and violence peaked in Kabul and the provinces, and prisons were filled with intellectuals and clear-minded individuals.
With such deep divisions within the government, opponents ignited war throughout Afghanistan, and with the entry of Soviet forces on the 27th of December 1979, that war transformed into a holy religious war.
The Soviets deployed military forces and units in all provinces, and these foreign forces engaged in harassment, torture, massacre, and persecution of people as opponents of the government. They expanded the nine-year war throughout Afghanistan under the guidance of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan and practically initiated bloody military operations in support of their partisan government. The main clashes between the Russians and Ahmad Shah Massoud’s forces were due to the proximity of these forces to the capital and the Salang highway, through which all the reinforcements of the government forces and the Soviet Union’s alliance were channeled.
People, fleeing from violence, war, and government arrests, flooded into neighboring countries – Iran and Pakistan – and the neighboring governments, using the presence of these refugee populations, turned the massive migration challenge into an opportunity and golden chance for themselves. Political parties with little power in Afghanistan received financial and military support there, and the Afghan war entered a new phase. The governments of Pakistan and Iran exploited this golden opportunity and politically and militarily utilized the migrants who sought refuge in their countries in groups. This support, with the clear backing and approval of the West, kept the flames of war burning across Afghanistan.
The governments of Iran and Pakistan have kept Islamic parties stationed in their countries under their command, providing them with ample facilities, military equipment, and financial aid instead. Political parties with military forces in those countries received generous Western assistance, benefiting the host countries greatly. It became evident that Western investment in regimes was more favorable to host countries of immigrants than to the people of Afghanistan. Party leaders in Iran and Pakistan, with Western assistance, effectively turned into prominent and affluent capitalists.
The parties based in those countries grew and flourished over time, remaining under the command and control of Iran and Pakistan.
In summary, in the 14-year war and its subsequent wars, millions of people left their homeland and sought refuge in distant and nearby countries.
Although the Soviets repeatedly changed the presidents of Afghanistan, those changes did not improve the troubled situation of the country.
It was in those upheavals that the Soviet Union, with the death of its elderly and feeble president, underwent transformation and changes, and after Brezhnev’s death, the then-president of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Gorbachev, the Soviet government did not see a happy era.
In October 1988, the Soviets, like the Americans, abandoned Afghanistan after nearly a decade of war, leaving the country and its ruling regime isolated. With the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, jihadist organizations became more inclined towards military victory, but the world’s perception of the developments and the victory of these groups had shifted. The organizations, buoyed by the sense of triumph, collaborated with and incited Pakistan, launching a front-line war in Jalalabad, which they faced with severe defeat.
Efforts to unite the organizations in Pakistan and Iran, driven by the host countries’ desires, did not have much influence. Those pressures only managed to consolidate scattered parties residing in Iran under a single name, “Islamic Unity Party.”
In Pakistan, a transitional government was established consisting of all organizations except Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami, but the Kabul government labeled this government “The Provisional Short-lived Government.”
Nevertheless, three years after the departure of the Russians, Afghanistan witnessed examples of failure in the north of the country. At that stage, factions made effective and varied movements and practically aligned with dissatisfied branches of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) who saw their government collapsing. This action ensured the rapid collapse of the government and the victory of the mujahideen. The Democratic Party of Afghanistan, like the government of Ashraf Ghani, lost its grip on power every day with despair and hopelessness, and its members collaborated with major Islamic parties to preserve their lives.
Ahmad Shah Massoud and his rival Hekmatyar, with wisdom and skill, gradually seized territories until the Bagram airfield – one of the largest military bases of the government – fell into the hands of Massoud’s forces. The rapid collapse of Dr. Najibullah’s government, like Ashraf Ghani’s government when the Taliban entered Kabul, was very swift, to the extent that within a day, a province with all its military facilities fell to jihadist groups. With the Mujahideen’s proximity to Kabul, various parties that had no presence suddenly became armed and equipped.
It is worth mentioning that in the power struggle during the Mujahideen’s victory in Pakistan, the Islamic Unity Party was not given a significant position. The fact that the defeat of the government was orchestrated by Commander Massoud angered the Islamic Unity Party and the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan, which had played a prominent role in defeating Dr. Najibullah’s government but were overlooked by political organizations based in Pakistan. These two military powers approached Massoud, proposing an independent government with Ahmad Shah Massoud as president, Abdul Rashid Dostum, and Abdul Ali Mazari as vice president, which Massoud did not accept. Hekmatyar, who called himself the advocate of the Islamic government, seethed with anger on the outskirts of Kabul and dreamt of victory every moment. Amid such an unpleasant situation, the heavy burden of the collapse of the communist government fell on Ahmad Shah Massoud, and he considered himself responsible for empowering everyone, but Abdul Ali Mazari and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leaders of the Unity Party (Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami) and the Islamic Party, were dissatisfied with Massoud’s approach.
Gulbuddin, unable to achieve definitive victory through warfare, had no compatibility with any of the military factions and criticized them all relentlessly.
After much maneuvering in Pakistan, a transitional Islamic government was formed in that country, and Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, the leader of the transitional government, and its members entered Kabul.
Hekmatyar’s Islamic Party, with empty pretexts, openly declared its opposition to the newly established government; however, Abdul Ali Mazari, the leader of the Islamic Unity Party, who was a supporter of the new government, found himself dissatisfied in the western outskirts of Kabul with his thousands of armed forces because he was not given a clear position in the new government.
With the influx of military personnel and armed individuals from all sides, Kabul transformed into a fully militarized and uncontrollable city. Various parties, with their peculiar stances, and armed factions roamed the streets of Kabul. Eventually, the war between the Islamic Unity Party and the Islamic Party of Hekmatyar on one side, and the Mujahideen government on the other, commenced and lasted for three years.
After months of war, destruction, displacement of civilians, and the suffering of the region’s inhabitants, the operations of the Mujahideen government began in the social sciences university area and the surrounding heights. As a result of these five-hour operations, the area was cleared of opponents and Islamic Unity Party members.
The forces of the Islamic Unity Party retreated to the Scud Hills strongholds and its surroundings. After three years, the government managed to expand its control over the western areas of Kabul.
On September 28, 1994, I, along with Azizullah Aima and Qahar Asi, arrived near the Continental Hotel to witness the ongoing operations. Military personnel informed us that the fighting around Scud Hill, Kabul University, and the Ministry of Agriculture was ongoing.
On the same day, due to the stray bullets reportedly fired from the Kabul University area, Qahar Asi was killed, and my brother and I were injured.
The fledgling Islamic government remained preoccupied with internal conflicts for over three years, and amidst this turmoil, on October 14, 1994, the Taliban emerged from the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province. They swiftly seized control of the entire Kandahar province, disarming both government forces and armed factions entrenched in the city.
Without pause, the Taliban advanced towards the city of Herat. After a brief resistance, Herat fell into Taliban hands. They slaughtered most of the government reinforcements sent from Kabul to confront them. A witness to the fall of Herat recounted that many government forces dispatched from Kabul were trapped in the battlefield because of were new in the area and did not know the area and mostly perished. Their corpses lay scattered on the outskirts of the city for days, with no one daring to bury them. Some of the forces knew the whereabouts of Herat city and fled to neighboring Iran.
Armed with ample weapons and supplies seized from Kandahar and Herat, the Taliban launched continuous assaults, extending their reach to the city of Ghazni. After a brief battle, they captured Ghazni as well.
With ISI’s assistance, the Taliban employed a highly effective strategy involving attacks by Datsun trucks equipped with heavy weapons, yielding favorable results. Following Ghazni, Maidan Wardak province was next. They easily took over the province and swiftly advanced towards the Pul-e Sorkh area of Maidan Wardak province and the governing centers of the Paghman district of Kabul province.
With successive victories and the disarmament of notable government and non-government commanders, the Taliban rounded up all opposition forces from the provinces they traversed. After all these military triumphs, when they approached the outskirts of Kabul, they demanded an unconditional surrender from the Islamic government of Afghanistan. Interestingly, until they reached the outskirts of Kabul, the Taliban consistently claimed their goal was to ensure the safety of highways and disarming disruptive elements, but upon reaching the vicinity of the capital, they sought the government’s unconditional surrender. The Islamic government of Afghanistan assumed that the Taliban’s disarmament of their opposition forces would ultimately work in their favor, but reality proved otherwise. The Taliban remained unsettled and initiated a series of relentless attacks on government forces in the Paghman region and its surroundings, which were repelled.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Defense Minister, and Commander-in-Chief of government forces, went to their territories for negotiation with the Taliban.
However, the negotiations yielded no results, and the Taliban resumed their attacks, managing to seize portions of Paghman and threaten areas under the control of the Islamic Party.
On October 14, 1994, the Taliban launched an attack on the Islamic Party and Unity Party headquarters in southern Kabul. Both forces were defeated. While Gulbuddin’s forces fled during the night through Surobi, Abdul Ali Mazari, the leader of the Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan, reached an agreement with the Taliban. On March 13, 1995, the Taliban assassinated Abdul Ali Mazari by throwing him off a helicopter, and took several commanders of his party as prisoners, seizing all their military equipment.
Simultaneously, with the retreat of the Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan, the government occupied their territories.
Following the defeat of Hekmatyar’s Islamic Party and the Unity Party, the Taliban confronted the government forces.
After breaking through the defenses of numerous scattered opposition forces, the Taliban emerged victorious and in a significant position. Amidst these victories and rapid advances, they repeatedly warned the Islamic government to surrender. The war between the Taliban and the Islamic government lasted for about a year. Despite several attacks and offensives, the Taliban couldn’t penetrate Kabul, but they changed tactics and initiated attacks through Nangarhar province. In the skirmishes there, they managed to disarm numerous commanders and capture Nangarhar province within 48 hours.
The government, with only a single military force in the Surobi area, was forced to defend this territory, essentially becoming Kabul’s gatekeeper. However, the onslaught, infiltration, and collaboration with Taliban forces were more severe than anticipated. They quickly surrounded and captured several government forces, leading to their deaths.
With the occupation of Surobi, Kabul’s throat, the morale of government forces plummeted, and they initiated war and escape maneuvers around Kabul. While government forces held up well in western Kabul and military centers, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Commander-in-chief, ordered a historic retreat from Kabul to prevent the complete collapse of armed forces. By doing so, Massoud prevented the disintegration and destruction of all armed forces and instructed them to leave Kabul. Within less than five hours, these forces abandoned Kabul and relocated to their new strategic positions.
The Islamic Government of Afghanistan collapsed after prolonged and exhausting conflicts, after four years, four months, and four weeks, falling on September 26, 1996. The Taliban initially seized the Pul-e-Charkhi prison, releasing the prisoners, then proceeded to the UN headquarters to reach Dr. Najibullah.
They first transported Dr. Najibullah to the Arg, then, in the middle of the night, on the streets and public roads near the Arg, a single gunshot to his forehead, ended his life.
The Taliban announced their victory to the people of Afghanistan through the state radio and television on the same night.
In brief conclusion, it can be said that the Islamic Government of Afghanistan, in addition to internal troubles and strategic differences, had reached a political, military, economic, and social impasse.
One of the perilous and painful choices was retreat; other avenues had little chance for survival and victory. Therefore, the only path was a retreat, and understanding the consequences of this retreat was neither simple nor easy.
Only insight, wisdom, awareness, decision-making, and the support of the people could have turned this challenge and difficulty into a good opportunity.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
نگاهی کوتاه به دو حادثه بزرگ ۷ و ۸ ثور