Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan politician,former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party,so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis split from Hezbi Islami in 1979 to found Hezb-i Islami Khalis. He has twice served as Prime Minister during the 1990s.
The following lists events that happened during 1996 in Afghanistan.
The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA),also known as the Afghan Transitional Authority,was the name of the temporary transitional government in Afghanistan put in place by the June 2002 loya jirga. The Transitional Authority succeeded the original Islamic State of Afghanistan,and preceded the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2004–2021).
Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil Abdul Ghaffar is an Afghan politician. He was the last Foreign Minister in the Taliban government of the first Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 2001. Prior to this,he served as spokesman and secretary to Mullah Mohammed Omar,leader of the Taliban. After the Northern Alliance,accompanied by U.S. and British forces,ousted the regime,Muttawakil surrendered in Kandahar to government troops.
The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin,also referred to as Hezb-e-Islami or Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA),is an Afghan political party and paramilitary organization,originally founded in 1976 as Hezb-e-Islami and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In 1979,Mulavi Younas Khalis split with Hekmatyar and established his own group,which became known as Hezb-i Islami Khalis;the remaining part of Hezb-e Islami,still headed by Hekmatyar,became known as Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin. Hezbi Islami seeks to emulate the Muslim Brotherhood and to replace the various tribal factions of Afghanistan with one unified Islamic state. This puts them at odds with the more tribe-oriented Taliban.
Human rights in Afghanistan are severely restricted,especially since Taliban's takeover of Kabul in August 2021. Women's rights and freedom are severely restricted as they are banned from most public spaces and employment. Afghanistan is the only country in the world to ban education for women over the age of eleven. Taliban's policies towards women are usually termed as gender apartheid. Minority groups such as Hazaras face persecution and eviction from their lands. Authorities have used physical violence,raids,arbitrary arrests and detention,torture,enforced disappearances of activists and political opponents.
Asadullah Khalid is a politician in Afghanistan. He served as head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS),which is the domestic intelligence agency of Afghanistan. Before his appointment as the head of the NDS in September 2012,Khalid served as the Minister of Tribal and Border Affairs. Between 2005 and 2008,he was the Governor of Kandahar Province and prior to that as Governor of Ghazni Province (2002-2005). From 2018 until 2021 he was the Minister of Defense. Khalid is said to be affiliated with the Islamic Dawah Organisation of Afghanistan and has been noted as one of many loyalists of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The Afshar Operation was a military operation in Afghanistan that took place on February 11–12,1993 during the Afghan Civil War (1992-96). The operation was launched by Ahmad Shah Massoud and Burhanuddin Rabbani's Islamic State of Afghanistan government and the allied Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's Ittehad-i Islami paramilitary forces against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezbe Islami and Abdul Ali Mazari's Hezbe Wahdat militias in the densely populated,Qizilbash-majority,Afshar district in west Kabul. The Hazara-Hezbe Wahdat together with the Pashtun-Hezbe Islami of Hekmatyar had been shelling densely populated areas in northern Kabul from their positions in Afshar,killing thousands. To counter the shelling,government forces attacked Afshar in order to capture the positions of Wahdat and its leader Mazari,and to consolidate parts of the city controlled by the government.
Abdul Jabar Sabet was an Afghan politician. In May 2006 Hamid Karzai appointed him Attorney General of Afghanistan.
The Karzai administration was the government of Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai,who became the head of state of Afghanistan in December 2001 after the Taliban government was overthrown. Karzai was appointed at the 2002 Loya Jirga as the Interim President of the Afghan Transitional Administration. After the 2004 Afghan presidential election,he became the President of Afghanistan.
The First Karzai cabinet lead the administration of Afghanistan between 2004,the year Hamid Karzai won the first Afghan presidential election and 2009 when the second presidential election took place. In 2006 there was a major cabinet reshuffle. The first Karzai cabinet followed the Afghan Transitional Administration which was put in place by the 2002 loya jirga. Karzai announced the names of the cabinet on 23 December 2004. The cabinet was sworn in on 24 December 2002 and held its first cabinet meeting on 27 December. This cabinet consisted of 27 ministers,including two women.
The second Karzai cabinet was the cabinet of Afghanistan that led the government from the re-election of president Hamid Karzai in 2009 until the end of his term in 2014. The cabinet consisted of the president,his two vice-presidents,18 ministers who received approval from the Afghan Parliament,and 7 acting ministers who have not been approved.
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) intelligence agency of Pakistan has been accused of being heavily involved in covertly running military intelligence programs in Afghanistan since before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The first ISI operation in Afghanistan took place in 1975. It was in "retaliation to Republic of Afghanistan's proxy war and support to the militants against Pakistan". Before 1975,ISI did not conduct any operation in Afghanistan and it was only after decade of Republic of Afghanistan's proxy war against Pakistan,support to militants and armed incursion in 1960 and 1961 in Bajaur that Pakistan was forced to retaliate. Later on,in the 1980s,the ISI in Operation Cyclone systematically coordinated the distribution of arms and financial means provided by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to factions of the Afghan mujahideen such as the Hezb-e Islami (HeI) of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud whose forces would later be known as the Northern Alliance. After the Soviet retreat,the different Mujahideen factions turned on each other and were unable to come to a power sharing deal which resulted in a civil war. The United States,along with the ISI and the Pakistani government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto became the primary source of support for Hekmatyar in his 1992–1994 bombardment campaign against the Islamic State of Afghanistan and the capital Kabul.
Corruption in Afghanistan is a widespread and growing problem in Afghan society. Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the country in 162nd place out of 180 countries. The 180 countries of the Index are scored on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the perceived corruption in the public sector,and then ranked by their score. Afghanistan's 2023 ranking is based on a score of 20. For comparison with worldwide scores,the best score was 90,the average score was 43,and the worst score was 11. For comparison with regional scores,the highest score among the countries of the Asia Pacific region was 85,the average score was 45 and the lowest score was 17. In this region,only North Korea had a lower score than Afghanistan. The Taliban significantly tackled corruption upon taking power in 2021;Afghanistan was ranked in 150th place in the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index,following a ranking of 174th in 2021.
The Magnitsky Act,formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012,is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012,intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 and also to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia.
Sun Jinlong is a Chinese politician,serving since 2016 as the Party Branch Secretary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Sun came to prominence in 2001,serving on the Secretariat of the Communist Youth League,then held office as party chief of Hefei,and the Deputy Communist Party Secretary of Anhui and secretary of the provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission,and the Deputy Communist Party Secretary of Hunan province. In July 2020,the United States announced Global Magnitsky Act sanctions against Sun Jinlong for human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
Soe Win is a Burmese army general and the current Deputy Prime Minister of Myanmar. Appointed following the formation of the caretaker government on 1 August 2021,Soe Win hold essential roles,including Vice Chairman of the State Administration Council,Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Tatmadaw,and Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Army. He is also a member of Myanmar's National Defence and Security Council. In May 2012,former President of Myanmar,Thein Sein appointed Soe Win to the working committee of the government team responsible for negotiating with Myanmar's many armed ethnic rebel groups. He is a close associate of former Vice Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC),Vice-Senior General Maung Aye.
Magnitsky legislation refers to laws providing for governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption. They originated with the United States which passed the first Magnitsky legislation in 2012,following the torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky in Russia in 2009. Since then,a number of countries have passed similar legislation such as Canada,the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Mechanism is a mechanism of the Council of the European Union to punish personnel from non-EU countries responsible for gross violations of human rights. Inspired by the Global Magnitsky Act in the US,the mechanism permits the EU to maintain a list of human rights violators around the globe,imposing on them various sanctions,such as visa bans or asset freezes,on behalf of the entire bloc.
The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom applying to the United Kingdom.
