Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s he led the government's military wing against rival militias and, after the Taliban takeover, was the leading opposition commander against their regime, who he fought against until his assassination in 2001.
Mawlawi Mohammad Yunus Khalis was a mujahideen commander in Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. His party was called Hezb-i-Islami, the same as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party. The two are commonly differentiated as Hezb-e Islami Khalis and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin.
The Afghan Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a united military front that came to formation in late 1996 after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) took over Kabul. The United Front was assembled by key leaders of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, particularly president Burhanuddin Rabbani and former Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud. Initially it included mostly Tajiks but by 2000, leaders of other ethnic groups had joined the Northern Alliance. This included Abdul Rashid Dostum, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Qadir, Asif Mohseni and others.
Ahmad Zia Massoud was the Vice President of Afghanistan in the first elected administration of President Hamid Karzai, from December 2004 to November 2009. He is a younger brother of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, the resistance leader against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and against the Taliban. In late 2011, Ahmad Zia Massoud joined hands with major leaders in the National Front of Afghanistan, which strongly opposes a return of the Taliban to power. The National Front is generally regarded as a reformation of the United Front which with U.S. air support removed the Taliban from power in late 2001.
This article covers the Afghan history from the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan on 15 February 1989 until 27 April 1992, the day after the proclamation of the Peshawar Accords proclaiming a new interim Afghan government which was supposed to start serving on 28 April 1992.
This article covers the Afghan history between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the U.S. and U.K. invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001: a period that was part of the Afghan civil war that had started in 1989, and also part of the war in Afghanistan that had started in 1978.
Hajji Din Mohammad is a politician, writer and a Pashtun tribal leader in eastern Afghanistan who first served as the Governor of Nangarhar Province followed by Governor of Kabul Province. He comes from a distinguished Pashtun family "Arsala" which has served the Afghan nation for more than 150 years. The Arsala family is part of the Jabar Khel. He is also the elder brother of late Hajji Abdul Qadir and Abdul Haq His great-grandfather, Wazir Arsala Khan, served as Foreign Minister of Afghanistan in 1869. One of Arsala Khan's descendents, Taj Mohammad Khan, was a general at the Battle of Maiwand. Another descendent, Abdul Jabbar Khan, was Afghanistan’s first Ambassador to Russia.
The United National Front was a coalition of various political parties in Afghanistan. The group was a broad coalition of former and current strongmen, commanders from the anti-Soviet resistance, ex-Communist leaders, and various social and ethnic groups. Its leader was former President of Afghanistan Burhanuddin Rabbani. Many of its members were formerly part of the similarly named United Islamic Front.
Haji Abdul Zahir Qadeer is a member of parliament in Afghanistan. He used to be a General in Afghanistan's Border Guard.
Afghanistan–Pakistan relations involve bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The two neighbouring countries share deep historical and cultural links, each has declared itself an Islamic republic and both have become members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. Relations between the two countries have been strained since 1947, when Pakistan first formed and Afghanistan was the sole country to vote against Pakistan's admission into the UN. Afghanistan immediately armed separatist movements in the nascent Pakistan and made irredentist claims to large swathes of Pakistani territory—which prevented the emergence of normalised ties between the two countries. Further tensions have arisen with various issues related to the War in Afghanistan (1978–present), and with the millions of Afghan refugees who have sought shelter in Pakistan since the start of that war. Water rights, the growing relations of India and Afghanistan, Afghanistan's continued refusal to accept the Durand Line as an international border have further complicated ties.
During the American aerial bombardment of Afghanistan, when the United States struck at Afghanistan's Taliban regime, regional and tribal leaders rose up to oust the Taliban in Khowst Province and Nangarhar Province formed an alliance known as the Eastern Shura. Mary Anne Weaver, writing in The New York Times on the fourth anniversary of al Qaeda's attacks on September 11, 2001, described the formation of the Eastern Shura as the result of surrender negotiations on November 13, 2001, between Younus Khalis and Osama bin Laden.
Sir John Welleseley Gunston, 3rd Baronet is the third Baronet of Wickwar in the County of Gloucestershire in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. He is perhaps better known for his exploits as a photographer in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Haji Nasrullah Baryalai Arsalai is an Afghan politician, who was a candidate during Afghanistan's 2009 Presidential election.
The Shura-e Nazar was created by Ahmad Shah Massoud in 1984 at the northern provinces of Takhar, Badakhshan, Balkh and Kunduz, during the Soviet-Afghan War. It comprised and united about 130 resistance commanders from 12 northern, eastern and central regions of Afghanistan. Though operating autonomously, Shura-e Nazar was technically an offshoot of Rabbani's Jamiat-e Islami and hence operated within the framework of the Peshawar Seven against the Soviet-supported Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
Wazir Arsala Khan was an early ancestor of the influential Arsala family of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. Wazir Arsala Khan served as Foreign Minister of Afghanistan in 1869.
This article covers the history of Afghanistan since the communist military coup on 27 April 1978, known as the Saur Revolution, when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power. Since that day, an almost continuous series of armed conflicts has dominated and afflicted Afghanistan.
The National Front of Afghanistan or Jabh-e Melli was established in late 2011 by Ahmad Zia Massoud, Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq and Abdul Rashid Dostum. It is generally regarded as a reformation of parts of the military wing of the United Front which with U.S. air support removed the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in late 2001. The National Front strongly opposes a return of the Taliban to power and retains significant military capabilities. The chairman of the National Front is Ahmad Zia Massoud, the younger brother of the Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud who was assassinated two days before the September 11 attacks in 2001.
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) intelligence agency of Pakistan has been heavily involved in covertly running military intelligence programs in Afghanistan since before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. 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.
