Afghanistan in 1993: Abandoned but Surviving

Author(s): Barnett R. Rubin

Source: Asian Survey, Vol. 34, No. 2, A Survey of Asia in 1993: Part II (Feb., 1994), pp. 185-
190
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645121
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 Abandoned but Surviving

Barnett R. Rubin

The collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 led

ineluctably to the collapse of the Najibullah regime in April 1992. This col-
lapse signified not only the end of communist rule in the region but the end of
the state structure elaborated by Amir Abdul Rahman Khan with British sup-
port over a century earlier. No longer a buffer between contending empires
or alliance systems, Afghanistan's state lost the foreign financial and military
aid that had enabled Pashtun ruling groups based in Kabul to exercise limited
control over the area between the Suleiman mountains and the Amu Darya.'
Furthermore, fourteen years of war had spread modern arms to every cor-
ner of this otherwise technologically backward country and facilitated the
spread of opium production throughout a cash-starved and devastated society.
By one estimate, arms transfers by the Soviet Union to the Najibullah regime
during 1986-90 made Afghanistan into the world's fifth largest arms importer
during that period, trailing only India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.2 Ad-
ding in the arms sent by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and other Arab sources to the
mujahidin parties via Pakistan brought the total to about the same as the latter
three countries. In most years, the Afghanistan-Pakistan area vied with the
Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia for first place in world opium production.
Both the arms and the income from drug production and trade were widely
distributed among local commanders in various areas of the country. As long
as the U.S. and Soviet Union continued to provide two antagonistic flows of
aid, the commanders stood in a precarious balance between their foreign sup-

Barnett R. Rubin is Associate Professor of Political Science and Direc-

tor of the Center for the Study of Central Asia, Columbia University.

? 1994 by The Regents of the University of California

1. See Barnett R. Rubin, Mirror of the World: Afghanistan 's State and Society in the Interna-
tional System (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994).
2. Ian Anthony, Agnes Courades Allebeck, Gerd Hagmeyer-Gaverns, Paolo Miggiano, and
Herbert Wulf, "The Trade in Major Conventional Weapons." SIPRI Yearbook 1991: World
Armaments and Disarmament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 199, 208.

185

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 186 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXIV, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 1994

pliers and their local constituents. The bipolar aid flows preserved the ap-
pearance of a bilateral, ideological struggle in Afghanistan. Within weeks
after the termination of aid at the end of 1991, however, the underlying social
reality of fragmented power structures broke through the surface.
After April 1992, when two broad coalitions formed to fight for control of
Kabul, the battle seemed to constitute a struggle between Pashtuns and non-
Pashtuns, with former communist factions-Parcham and Khalq-and muja-
hidin factions joining together along ethnic lines. As in neighboring Tajikis-
tan, however, regionalism and warlordism proved to be stronger forces than
ethnic nationalism. By 1993 it was clear that political society in Afghanistan
lacked the coherence necessary for any clear bipolar conflict, whether ideo-
logical or ethnic.

National Politics: Fight for the Capital

Najibullah's government collapsed in April 1992 when northern Afghani-
stan's Uzbek and Ismaili Hazara militias, affiliated to elements of the
Parcham faction, allied themselves with the mainly Tajik mujahidin
Jamiat-i Islami. The leading Jamiat commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who
had founded the region-wide Supervisory Council of the North (SCN), be-
came the spokesman for this coalition. While Massoud tried to wait to enter
Kabul until the Pakistan-based mujahidin leaders reached agreement on a
government, he and his former communist allies were forced to enter the city
to preempt a coup attempt by Gulbuddin Hikmatyar's Hizb-i Islami, which
was allied with Pashtuns from the Khalq faction of the ex-communists. Mas-
soud expelled his rivals from Kabul and became minister of defense in a
government headed, after June 1992, by President Burhanuddin Rabbani,
leader of Jamiat and also a Tajik. This government assumed authority pursu-
ant to the Peshawar Accords signed by the mujahidin leaders in Peshawar,
Pakistan, on April 26, 1992.
Two rather tense alliances emerged. On the one side, the mainly Tajik
Jamiat cooperated with elements of Parcham, the northern Afghan militias
(by far the largest being the Uzbek militia headed by Abdul Rashid Dostum,
based in Mazar-i Sharif and supported by Uzbekistan), and the Shi'ite party,
Hizb-i Wahdat, supported by Iran. Hikmatyar allied with former members of
the Khalq faction; the Salafi (Wahhabi) party, Ittihad-i Islami, led by Abdul
Rabbul Rasul Sayyaf; and Arab Islamist volunteers. This grouping was sup-
ported by elements in Pakistan and the Arab world. Other mujahidin groups
were mainly local in orientation and did not participate directly in the mili-
tary battles for Kabul.
By December 1992, Rabbani was trying to hold a Shura-yi Ahl-i Hal-u-
'Aqd (Council of resolution and settlement) to vote on a new constitution and
interim government, as mandated by the Peshawar Accords. Most parties and

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 AFGHANISTAN IN 1993 187

militias other than Jamiat charged him with stacking the meeting. Rabbani's
refusal to include the former "communist" Dostum in the government alien-
ated the Uzbek militias. Massoud's attempt to seize control of the Shi'a areas
of Kabul alienated the Hizb-i Wahdat, and in January it signed an alliance
with Hikmatyar, whose forces continued to shell the city. Sayyaf, who op-
posed Shi'a participation in the government, switched sides and allied with
Jamiat. The forces in contention still had strong ethnic characteristics, but
politics no longer reflected a strict division between Pashtuns and non-Pash-
tuns.

A January call from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to end the bloodshed led to
a new agreement on an interim government. The Islamabad Accords of
March 7, 1993, sponsored by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (with some partici-
pation by Iran), provided for a new power-sharing arrangement. Rabbani was
to continue as interim president while Hikmatyar became prime minister, and
the division of powers provided that the prime minister would appoint the
cabinet with the consent of the president. The two executives were unable to
agree on a defense minister as Hikmatyar wanted to replace Massoud and
Rabbani insisted on keeping him. Massoud resigned in May but remained in
place commanding the same forces. Thanks to his Shi'a allies, Hikmatyar
managed to enter the southern and western parts of Kabul where he set up a
prime minister's office in the old Defense Ministry; Massoud's forces re-
mained in the northern and eastern parts of the city. The two forces clashed
repeatedly, and the population continued to flee the capital.
Except for the Defense Ministry, Hikmatyar did appoint a cabinet, and
some officials managed to commute between the prime minister and the pres-
ident. Despite some signs of government functioning, however, by the end of
1993 Kabul probably exercised less control over the territory and population
of Afghanistan than at almost any time in the preceding century. The regions
were in the hands of local warlords who had their own weapons supplies,
foreign relations, and sources of finance.

Regional Politics
In the regions, a sharp difference emerged between Pashtun and non-Pashtun
areas. In the non-Pashtun areas, the armed forces and administration mostly
remained in place but under the authority of regional figures, the Hazaras
enjoyed an autonomous territorial base in the center of the country, and in the
South and some other Pashtun enclaves, the state apparatus was divided up
among tribal segments.3 Among Pashtuns, the only modernized military

3. Anthony Davis, "The Afghan Army," Jane's Intelligence Review, 5:3 (March 1993), repro-
duced in Afghanistan Forum, 21:3 (May-June 1993), pp. 25-29.

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 188 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXIV, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 1994

force that survived was Hikmatyar's, precisely because it had no regional or

tribal base to fragment it.
By the summer of 1993, Dostum had integrated Uzbek and Ismaili militias,
along with regime garrisons from Maimana to Pul-i Khumri, into an armed
force of 120,000 men. Mujahidin commanders of various parties also joined
his Junbish-i Milli-yi Islami (National Islamic Movement). Dostum carved
out a political space for himself as the only powerful figure who now sup-
ported secularism and as an advocate of regional autonomy and the rights of
minorities. He boasted that he had more functioning diplomatic missions
than Kabul, as the United Nations had moved its major office in Afghanistan
to Mazar from Kabul in August 1992 and seven countries established consul-
ates there. Dostum also received about half of the 60,000 refugees from the
war in Tajikistan who fled to, and remained in Afghanistan during December
1992-January 1993.
But under pressure from all regional states, including Uzbekistan, Dostum
soon retreated from his earlier separatist rhetoric and affirmed support for a
united, though decentralized Afghanistan. Nonetheless, while Dostum ver-
bally recognized the 'juridical sovereignty" of Afghanistan, the government
in Kabul exercised no "empirical sovereignty" over his area. Toward the end
of the year, Dostum suffered a temporary military defeat when Hikmatyar
forces drove his troops out of Sher Khan Bandar, an important port on the
Amu Darya that had marked the eastern limit of Dostum's expansion and had
served as one of two routes for the repatriation of Tajik refugees. Dostum
soon retook the area.
Most of the Northeast remained under the control of the SCN, which was
sufficiently institutionalized to continue functioning without Massoud's pres-
ence in the region. The SCN furnished about 5,000 troops to Kabul. But
both the military forces and territory under Massoud's control remained
smaller than Dostum's, and he also lacked any reliable foreign support. Mas-
soud allowed the exiled leadership of the Islamic Renaissance Party of
Tajikistan to establish its office in the SCN capital of Taliqan, and he appar-
ently provided military training to Tajik guerrillas, who wore SCN uniforms.4
However, Tajik nationalism had little to do with his decision, which seemed
dictated more by the desires of Arab and Pakistani funders (the only sources
of foreign aid now available) and rivalries with Hikmatyar and Sayyaf com-
manders, who were also training Tajik guerrillas.
One major area of the Northeast remained outside of Massoud's control.
In central Kunduz, where the irrigated cotton-growing areas have a large pop-
ulation of Pashtun settlers, the Pashtun garrison turned its weapons over to a

4. Steve LeVine, "Afghan, Arab Militants Back Rebels in Ex-Soviet State," Washington Post,
April 27, 1993, p. A1O.

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 AFGHANISTAN IN 1993 189

local Pashtun commander, Amir Chughai of Sayyaf's Ittihad, who became

the major power in the area. Most of the 30,000 or so refugees from Tajikis-
tan in Kunduz were under his control, and with the help of Arab Islamists
who established an office in Kunduz, he also supplied weapons and training
to the Tajik opposition. Hikmatyar's commanders also provided aid and
training to the guerrillas.
In Herat, Jamiat commander Ismail Khan had peacefully taken control of
the city and turned it into the most stable area of Afghanistan. In late 1992 he
defeated attempts to seize the important base at Shindand and Herat city by
former regime militias who had allied with Hikmatyar. He managed to incor-
porate the area's considerable Shi'a population into his administration to the
point where he encountered no popular protest when he disarmed a small
number of Hizbullah militants supported by Iran.5 Herat's economic revival6
and growth enabled Ismail Khan to bring more local commanders under his
sway. The region remained stable through 1993 despite pressures from Iran,
which demanded more power for the Shi'a in the Herat shura and began
pushing thousands of Afghan refugees across the border.
The mainly Ghilzai Pashtun East became fragmented. By the end of 1993,
the largest shura in the region, Jalalabad, was torn apart by tribal, partisan,
and personal rivalries. The Jalalabad shura mainly comprised fighters of
Hizb-i Islami (Khalis) and the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA),
whose partisan attachments became less important. In September 1993 the
governor of Jalalabad, Commander Shamali of NIFA, was killed with 40 of
his men in an attack that NIFA blamed on Haji Abdul Qadir, the shura
spokesman from the Hizb-Khalis. These leaders came from rival segments of
the Ahmadzai tribe, the largest Ghilzai tribe. In December supporters of
Shamali were gathering a tribal lashkar near Sarobi to launch attacks on
Jalalabad and avenge Shamali's killing.
Many radical Arab Islamists continued to train in Jalalabad, and were
largely suspected of responsibility for the assassination of four U.N. person-
nel, two expatriates, and two Afghans near the city in February. This attack
led the U.N. to terminate programs in the area and withdraw all expatriates
from Afghanistan. The Jalalabad region was a major center for the cultiva-
tion of opium, which has become its main crop.
The Durrani Pashtuns of Qandahar had organized an Islamic National
Shura of mujahidin commanders, ulama (religious scholars), and tribal lead-
ers. The stability this region enjoyed in 1992 began to break down in 1993 as
the southern Hazaras north of Qandahar, encouraged by their Iranian aid,

5. Michael Barry, "La deuxieme mort de l'Afghanistan," Politique Internationale (Summer

1993), pp. 279-312.
6. Author's interview with Ashraf Ghani, also New York Times, July 27, 1993.

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 190 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XXXIV, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 1994

became more assertive, and Hizb-Hikmatyar forces in the area attempted to

assert themselves against the tribal shura. Helmand's center, Lashkargah,
was first taken over by a Khalqi militia that joined Hizb and then switched
allegiance to Jamiat, but drug warlords remained the principal powers in the
area and in 1993 the main drug warlord, Ghulam Rasul Akhundzada, allied
with Ismail Khan to take control of the city.
The Shi'a, and principally the Hazaras, both Imami and Ismaili, wielded
more power in the national political arena of Afghanistan than they ever had
before. They were as fully autonomous in Hazarajat, with their Iranian aid,
as Dostum was in the North. They also, in effect, held the balance of power
in Kabul between the two main Sunni forces, Hizb (plus Khalq) and Jamiat
(plus Parcham).

International Relations
On the global scene, Afghanistan by and large failed to register in 1993. The
U.N., the U.S., and Russia abandoned efforts at conflict resolution in the
country after April 1992, and the regional powers stepped into the breach,
leading to the Islamabad Accords. The U.N.'s humanitarian efforts were lim-
ited by danger to the security of personnel, lack of an effective counterpart
government, and failure of world powers to fund most of the programs it did
propose. Afghanistan's main role in the region during the year was as the
place of refuge for Tajiks fleeing civil war in December 1992-January 1993.
They mainly came from the "Garmi" sub-ethnic group, which had been iden-
tified with the "Islamo-democratic" opposition by the pro-government for-
ces.7 Commanders in northern Afghanistan, together with Arab and Pakis-
tani Islamists, also supported guerrillas recruited from among these refugees.
The Foreign Ministry (a preserve of the moderate NIFA with apparent sup-
port from Rabbani) officially stated that it opposed such activities but could
not control independent commanders.
By the spring of 1993, about 60,000 refugees remained, split evenly be-
tween the areas around Mazar, controlled by Dostum, and Kunduz. In May
the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees began a program of voluntary
repatriation to Tajikistan, which some mujahidin commanders tried to pre-
vent. On July 25 guerrillas based in northern Afghanistan launched a cross-
border attack, killing twenty-five Russian border guards. After this, reprisals
against returnees in Tajikistan led to a slowdown of the repatriation. All the
governments of Central Asia, as well as Russia, expressed concern about the
spread of weapons, disorder, and extremist Islamic movements from Afghan-
istan, but no one suffered more from these in 1993 than the Afghans them-
selves.

7. Barnett R. Rubin, "The Fragmentation of Tajikistan," Survival, no, 35 (Winter 1993-94),

pp. 7 1-91.

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