An alliance created by the force of foreign intelligence, but which led to nothing.
Author: Muhammad Abdullah, especially for “Sangar”
January 1, 1994, marks the beginning of one of the most ominous periods in the modern history of Afghanistan, which resulted in tens of thousands of victims, hundreds of thousands of refugees, destruction, and irreparable damage.
After the fall of the government of the “Watan” Party (the People’s Democratic Party) led by Dr. Najib and the coming to power of the mujahideen government led by Sibghatullah Mojaddedi on April 28, 1992, Afghanistan remained in a calm state for several weeks; however, the concentration of armed jihadist forces in the capital resembled a lull before the storm, since before April 28 the forces of the Islamic Party of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had been driven out of the city of Kabul by forces under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud, and there were human casualties on both sides.
In the first weeks of the rule of Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, the Islamic Unity Party (“Wahdat-e Islami”), led by Abdul Ali Mazari, began combat operations in the areas of Dehburi, Kote-Sangi, Karte-Char, and the surrounding localities, as a result of which a large number of forces of the Islamic Union led by Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf were killed, and attacks were also carried out against the forces of the authorized security commission, after which the tensions quickly subsided.
In the first weeks of April of the same year, the forces of Abdul Ali Mazari launched large-scale attacks against the forces surrounding them in the western part of Kabul and in the areas of Pul-e Ortal, the Pamir cinema, and several other locations; as a result, the course of the fighting was halted through the mediation of reconciliation delegations, however, the detention of non-Hazara civilians, especially Pashtuns, by the forces of the Wahdat Party in the western districts of Kabul began and continued. (1)
Hekmatyar subjected the aircraft carrying Sibghatullah Mojaddedi to a missile attack, which led to damage to the Boeing aircraft; however, the passengers were not harmed. (2)
Forces under the command of Abdul Rashid Dostum, Rasul Pahlavan, Ghaffar Pahlavan, and several officers of the former government were deployed in the areas of Bala Hissar of Kabul, Teppa-e Maranjan, Kabul Airport, the Kasaba-ye Khanasazi, and several other parts of the capital, while forces under the command of Sayyid Mansur Naderi had bases in the districts of Taimani and Tahiya-ye Maskan of Kabul; from time to time, in the surrounding areas, especially in the old microraion and near Joda-ye Maiwand, they resorted to violent actions, armed robberies, and detentions.
In the first decade of May, rocket shelling of Kabul by Hekmatyar (the prime minister of the mujahideen government) began, which, after the completion of the two-month term of Sibghatullah Mojaddedi and the beginning of the work of Burhanuddin Rabbani, continued and intensified. (3)
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar cited the presence of General Babajan, General Dostum, northern militias, and figures of the Najib government within the Islamic State as a pretext for rocket attacks and for blocking the roads of the city of Kabul, while Abdul Ali Mazari also put forward several pretexts for the continuation of the war. (4)
Abdul Ali Mazari and Hekmatyar, through the mediation of Iran and Pakistan, held meetings and reached alliances within the framework of which, in the autumn of 1993, they carried out joint attacks on government positions in western Kabul, as a result of which the areas of Dar-ul-Aman and Dehdana up to the Russian Embassy came under the control of the forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Ali Mazari, and the territories of both parties became connected. Hekmatyar’s forces, with the support of Abdul Ali Mazari’s forces, were also deployed in the north-western districts of the city of Kabul and in the Afshor heights. (5)
At the same time, war was also raging in the republics that had been liberated from the then Soviet Union, where a number of jihadist organizations (the Islamic Union and the Islamic Party led by Hekmatyar), by sending forces and under the slogan of “supporting Arab jihadists,” sought to expand jihad and supported wars in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and some former Soviet republics.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had several command and supply centers in Iran, especially in the city of Mashhad, where the management of recruitment, attraction, coordination, and dispatch of human resources to the wars in Azerbaijan was carried out.
And the leadership of the forces in Azerbaijan was carried out by Wahidullah Sabawun, the head of intelligence of the Islamic Party. (6)
The countries of the region, especially Iran and Pakistan, taking into account the influence they possessed, formed a structure called the Coordination Council among the Islamic Party led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Islamic Unity led by Abdul Ali Mazari, the Islamic Movement led by Abdul Rashid Dostum, and National Salvation led by Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, and the agreement between them was signed in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
Engineer Nasim Mehdi and Humayun Jarir as representatives of Hekmatyar, General Malik and Abdul Qadir Dostum as representatives of Abdul Rashid Dostum, Muhammad Karim Khalili and Dr. Talib as representatives of Abdul Ali Mazari, and Hashmat Mojaddedi and ***** Shahid as representatives of Sibghatullah Mojaddedi were among the active participants in the negotiations and the team advancing the affairs of the Coordination Council.
This alliance, on January 1, 1994, launched full-scale military operations to overthrow the Islamic State led by Burhanuddin Rabbani in the capital and in the north of the country, which came to be known as the coup of the Coordination Council.
Members of the Coordination Council in the capital failed to seize the areas under government control and were also suppressed in a number of their strongholds, such as Kabul Airport and its surroundings, Taimani, Tahiya-ye Maskan, and several other areas within the city.
The Coordination Council in the north of the country seized numerous areas—from Faryab to Baghlan and the surroundings of the city of Kunduz—after which bloody fighting began in these areas.
The Coordination Council undertook the step of printing money, in which Hekmatyar, acting in the capacity of prime minister, and Karim Khalili, acting in the capacity of minister of finance. Ghulam Muhammad Yaylaki, acting in the capacity of minister of commerce of the Islamic State, served as the “legitimizer” of the issuance of the said banknotes, which were known under the name “jumbishi money” and were distributed among the allies.
After Hekmatyar’s flight from Kabul and the killing of Abdul Ali Mazari by the Taliban in March 1995, the Coordination Council ceased to exist; however, the forces of the Wahdat Party in the north of the country, as a substructure of the Islamic Movement or as an ally of the Movement, remained present until the fall of the north into the hands of the Taliban.
NOTES:
1 — Many civilians were detained under various pretexts by the forces of Abdul Ali Mazari in western Kabul and Afshor, and many of them disappeared without a trace; the story connected with the pronunciation of the word “qurut” (krut) is one of the recollections of that period.
2 — Sibghatullah Mojaddedi condemned the attack on the aircraft carrying him at a press conference and, using coarse language, named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as the perpetrator of the incident.
3 — By the decision of the jihadist organizations, the post of prime minister was assigned to the Islamic Party; Hekmatyar appointed one of his commanders, named Ustad Farid, but during his tenure in the premiership, he shelled Kabul.
4 — Abdul Ali Mazari presented General Khudoydod-e Hazara as minister of security, which met with strong opposition from other Shiite jihadist organizations and became one of the pretexts for the war against the government of the time.
5 — Following the seizure of the Dar-ul-Aman areas, hundreds of fighters under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud were killed, captured, or disappeared at the hands of the forces of Hekmatyar and Abdul Ali Mazari.
6 — Tens of thousands of Afghan jihadist forces and Arab jihadists participated as infantry units in the wars of the 1990s in Azerbaijan against Armenia; their organization and leadership were handled by the offices of the Islamic Party in the city of Mashhad, Iran.
7 — This condensed text serves only as a reminder of those bloody events; numerous written documents and interviews on this subject exist and may be used by researchers.
