Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla 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; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001.
Mohammad Ismail Khan is an Afghan former politician who served as Minister of Energy and Water from 2005 to 2013 and before that served as the governor of Herat Province. Originally a captain in the national army, he is widely known as a former warlord as he controlled a large mujahideen force, mainly his fellow Tajiks from western Afghanistan, during the Soviet–Afghan War.
Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan in the north and the Pakistani regions of Lower and Upper Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan in the southeast. It also has a 91-kilometer (57-mile) border with China in the east.
Atta Muhammad Nur is an Afghan exiled politician and former militant who served as the Governor of Balkh Province in Afghanistan from 2004 to January 25, 2018. An ethnic Tajik, he worked to educate the Mujahideen after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, gaining the nickname "The Teacher". He then became a mujahideen resistance commander for the Jamiat-e Islami against the Soviets.
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a military alliance of groups that operated between late 1996 to 2001 after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) took over Kabul. The United Front was originally 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 Karim Khalili, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdullah Abdullah, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Qadir, Asif Mohseni, Amrullah Saleh and others.
Haji Abdul Qadeer was a prominent Northern Alliance leader in Afghanistan and opposed the Taliban. Originally a commander of the Hezb-i Islami Khalis faction during the Soviet–Afghan War, he then served as governor of Nangarhar Province, the head of the Eastern Afghanistan Shura, and later Vice President of Afghanistan and Minister of Public Works in the administration of Hamid Karzai from 19 June 2002 until his assassination on 6 July 2002. He was the older brother of fellow anti-Soviet and Northern Alliance commander Abdul Haq, who was executed in late 2001 by the Taliban.
Afrasiab Khattak is a Pakistani socialist politician and political analyst who is a senior leader of the National Democratic Movement (NDM). He formerly was a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP). He has formerly served as the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a member of the Senate of Pakistan (2009–2014), and the provincial president of the Awami National Party (ANP). He is an activist in the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).
Hajii Sher Alam Ibrahimi was the governor of Ghazni Province from around 2005–2006 until 2007 and is a major commander aligned with Ittihad-i Islami and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, having fought with him in the Afghan Civil War.
The 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War or the Fifth Afghan Civil War took place between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the US and UK 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.
Pacha Khan Zadran is a militia leader and a politician in the southeast of Afghanistan. He was an ex anti-Soviet-fighter militia leader who played a role in driving the Taliban from Paktia Province in the 2001 invasion, with American backing, and he subsequently assumed the governorship of the province. In 2002, he engaged in a violent conflict with rival tribal leaders in the province over the Governorship of the province, shelling Gardez City and obstructing two separate appointed governors sent by Hamid Karzai.
Shahzada Akhund, known also by the title Mullah, was a Taliban field commander who was held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo. He used a false name, Mohammed Yusif Yaqub, and pretended to be an innocent civilian.
Hajji Din Mohammad also known as Azizullah Din Mohammad is a politician in Afghanistan who served as the Governor of Nangarhar Province followed by Governor of Kabul Province. He is currently the Chairman of Peace and Development Islamic Party. He has been involved in the peace and reconciliation process between the Afghan Government and the Taliban and is currently the deputy of High Council for National Reconciliation. Haji Din Mohammad comes from a distinguished Pashtun family "Arsala" 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 descendants, Taj Mohammad Khan, was a general at the Battle of Maiwand. Another descendant, Abdul Jabbar Khan, was Afghanistan’s first Ambassador to Russia.
Lieutenant General Fazle HaqHI(M) SBt, was a high-ranking general in the Pakistan Army, and the former martial law administrator (MLA) of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. He was the "Corps-Commander" of the XI Corps, and commanded all the Pakistan Army assets assigned in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. He commanded the combatant brigades, and supervised the clandestine covert network during the Soviet–Afghan War. He was one of the leading generals who led the Pakistan Combatant Forces during the Soviet–Afghan War. As military administrator, he had set up a network of training of the Afghan mujahideen. Under his command, the elements of Pakistan's administrative XI Corps participated in numerous operations against the Soviet Union.
Atiqullah Ludin was the Governor of Logar Province, Afghanistan in 2008–2013. He is originally from Mohammad Agha District of Logar.
Baba Jan zahid, is a former senior security official of the Afghanistan government. He was a general of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, but after the Soviet invasion he joined Ahmad Shah Masoud's forces and fought against the Soviet invasion. After the retreat of the Russian forces, he continued the war against Dr. Najibullah's government. Following the collapse of Najib's government, he entered Kabul with Ahmad Shah Masoud's forces and served in various departments of the Islamic State of Afghanistan under the leadership of Ustad Burhanuddin Rabbani.
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.
Abdul Karim Brahui is a former politician in Afghanistan. He last served as Governor of Nimroz Province from 2010 to 2012, and before that he served as a minister in the Cabinet of Afghanistan. From February 2009 to August 2010, Brahui served as Minister of Refugees. In 2004, Brahui was appointed as Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs.
The Afghan conflict, also called the Afghan crisis or the instability in Afghanistan, is a series of events and wars that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. The country's instability began after the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the 1973 coup d'état; with the overthrow of Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah, who had reigned for almost forty years, Afghanistan’s relatively peaceful period in modern history came to an end. The triggering event for the first major war in Afghanistan during this period was the Saur Revolution of 1978, which overthrew the Republic of Afghanistan and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Rampant post-revolution fighting across the country ultimately led to a pro-government military intervention by the Soviet Union, sparking the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s.
War crimes in Afghanistan covers the period of conflict from 1979 to the present. Starting with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, 40 years of civil war in various forms has wracked Afghanistan. War crimes have been committed by all sides.
