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As a geographically fragmented state, Afghanistan is separated into as many as 14 ethnic groups that have historically faced divisions that devolved into political violence. This conflict reached its culminating point in the 1990s with the rise of the Taliban.
There are 14 nationally recognized [1] ethnic groups in Afghanistan, including Tajiks, Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks and others who make up less than 2% each. [2] The most recent figures on the ethnic affiliations come from a survey conducted by the Asia Foundation in 2014. According to the representative survey, 43% of the population identifies as Pashtun, 27% as Tajik, 15% as Hazara, 8% as Uzbek, 2% as Turkmen, 2% as Aimaq, 1% as Baloch, 1% as Nuristani, and 1% as Pashayi. [3]
Afghanistan's ethnic groups are, for the most part, separated into 4 distinct zones of the country. These zones are referred to as Herat, Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Kandahar. The country's mountainous terrain, rivers, and lack of infrastructure limit communication and travel between these zones which reinforces existing divides between major ethnic groups. [4]
Abdul Rahman Kahn was the Amir of Afghanistan between 1880 and 1901. During this time, the historic ethnic majority held by the Pashtuns fluctuated greatly. The number of Pashtuns decreased in 1893 after Rahman ceded Pashtun held areas to British India. However, the Pashtun population soon returned to higher numbers when the Emir resettled many of the group into the country's north. [1]
In the 1880s and 1890s, Abdul Rahman Khan fought for the removal of Hazaras from the country, even going so far as to order their murders. [5] During this time, the Hazaras were set apart from Afghanistan's other ethnic groups due to their status as Shia rather than Sunni Muslims. [5] As a Sunni Muslim and a member of the Pashtun majority, Abdul Rahman Kahn encouraged violence against the Hazaras. [5]
This genocide of the Hazaras was also perpetrated by Pashtun religious leaders. Members of the Pashtun group were told that they would likely be rewarded by Allah if they participated in this violence towards the Hazaras. [6]
During this period of conflict, around 60% of Afghanistan's Hazaras were killed and even more were forced to migrate into surrounding countries. [7]
During this time, the Pashtuns sought the creation of an independent Pashtunistan that was separate from Afghanistan. This hypothetical state was intended to exist along the Durand Line, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to unite Pashtuns living in both states. [8] This issue and others saw political groups in Afghanistan increasingly forming along ethnic lines. [1] For example, Pashtun nationalists banded together to form Afghan Millat, a political party that fought for the creation of Pashtunistan. [1]
In 1973, Muhammad Daoud came into power as the president of Afghanistan. [9] Though he is considered to be an authoritarian leader, he declared Afghanistan to be a republic during his rule. [9]
1978 saw the spawning of the Saur Revolution. [1] This period of turmoil involved a coup led by Afghan Army officers loyal to the Khalq faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) which would take control of the government until and remain in power until 1992. [10] On April 27, 1978, perpetrators of the revolution assassinated Daud and took control of the government. [9]
The coup was orchestrated by Hafizullah Amin, who had Mir Akbar Khyber murdered on April 17, 1978. [11] Many Parchamites at the time blamed Daoud while Daoud blamed Hezbi Islami Gulbuddin. [9] Most of the PDPA leadership was arrested except Amin who ordered Khalqist officers to launch the Saur Revolution. [12] The Pashtun Khalqist regime would launch mass repression especially against the Hazaras executing over 7,000 Hazaras in the span of a couple of months. [13] [14] A Hazara uprising in Kabul would be brutally suppressed between June and July of 1979 with over 10,000 Hazaras being arrested and executed. [15] [16] The Khalqists would also carpet bomb the city of Herat during a Tajik led Islamist uprising backed by the new fundamentalist government in Iran. It is estimated over 25,000 people were killed in the bombing of Herat. [17]
In 1979 under General Secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki the Khalqists regime in Afghanistan changed the official map to include NWFP and Balochistan as new "frontier provinces" of the DRA. [18] The Khalqist regime also sought to make Pashto the sole language of the Afghan government and the lingua franca, they did so by undermining Dari. [19] The Afghan anthem at the time was only in Pashto and not Dari. Up until the overthrow of Dr Najibullah's Homeland Party regime in 1992, Afghan governments had favored Pashto in the media and over 50% of Afghan media was in Pashto. [19] After 1992 with the formation of the Tajik led Islamic State of Afghanistan, this number dropped drastically. [19]
Following the overthrow of the Najibullah Regime many Pashtun Khalqists in the Afghan Army allied with Hezbi Islami forming their own secular enclaves while nominally loyal to Hezbi Islami in their fight against the Tajik led Islamic State of Afghanistan. [20] Many Khalqists would join the Taliban movement in the mid-1990s flying Mig-21s and driving T-62 Tanks. The Taliban would begin committing atrocities against their opponents, the Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbeks who would do the same to them. [21] In 1998, the United Nations accused the Taliban of denying emergency food by the UN's World Food Program to 160,000 hungry and starving people (most of whom were Hazaras and Tajiks) "for political and military reasons". [22] The UN stated that the Taliban were starving people for their military agenda and using humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war. [23] The colonization of Pashtuns in the north and Pashtun nationalism was a major part of the ideology of the Afghan Communist regime, Monarchy and Taliban. [24] [19]
The Northern Alliance was formed in originally as an Anti Pashtun alliance against the perceived Pashtun ethnocentric Najibullah regime in 1992, it would be disbanded however it would reform in 1994 to fight the Taliban and was composed of Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbeks. [7] [25] [19] The group was supported by a number of countries, such as the United States, Iran, Russia, and India. [25] In 1997, the Northern Alliance killed 2,000 members of the Taliban that they had captured in conflicts between the two groups. [7]
On August 8, 1998, the Taliban launched an attack on Mazar-i Sharif. Once in control, the Taliban began to kill people based on their ethnicity, especially Hazaras and Uzbeks. Men, women and children were hunted by Taliban forces as a result of the 1500-3000 Taliban fighters executed by the Uzbek Junbish-i Milli militia. [26] This act of ethnic cleansing left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 dead. [27] [28]
In 2001, Human Rights Watch voiced the fear that ethnic violence in Afghanistan was likely to increase due to the escalation of conflict between factions. [29] Thousands of Pashtun people became refugees as they fled Uzbek Junbish-i Milli troops, some of whom were reported as looting, raping and kidnapping. These crimes were said to have occurred when the troops were disarming Pashtuns accused of being former Taliban supporters in northern Afghanistan during the early stages of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) which removed the dominantly Pashtun Taliban from power. [30]
In 2010 Afghan President Hamid Karzai set up a panel to investigate continuing ethnic violence as he believes it is hampering the military efforts to contain the Taliban insurgency. [31]
Babrak Karmal was an Afghan communist revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Afghanistan, serving in the post of general secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1986.
Mohammad Najibullah, commonly known as Dr. Najib, was an Afghan politician who served as the General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the leader of the one-party ruling Republic of Afghanistan from 1986 to 1992 and as well as the President of Afghanistan from 1987 until his resignation in April 1992, shortly after which the mujahideen took over Kabul. After a failed attempt to flee to India, Najibullah remained in Kabul. He lived in the United Nations headquarters until his assassination during the Taliban's capture of Kabul.
The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), renamed the Republic of Afghanistan in 1987, was the Afghan state during the one-party rule of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) from 1978 to 1992. It relied heavily on assistance from the Soviet Union for most of its existence, especially during the Soviet–Afghan War.
Pashtunistan or Pakhtunistan is a historical region on the crossroads of Central and South Asia, located on the Iranian Plateau, inhabited by the Pashtun people of southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, wherein Pashtun culture, the Pashto language, and identity have been based. Alternative names historically used for the region include Pashtūnkhwā or Pakhtūnkhwā (پښتونخوا), Pathānistān, or simply the Pashtun Belt.
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was a Marxist–Leninist political party in Afghanistan established on 1 January 1965. Four members of the party won seats in the 1965 Afghan parliamentary election, reduced to two seats in 1969, albeit both before the party was fully legal. For most of its existence, the party was split between the hardline Khalq and moderate Parcham factions, each of which claimed to represent the "true" PDPA.
Sultan Ali Keshtmand, sometimes transliterated Kishtmand, was an Afghan communist politician, belonging to the Parcham faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). He served twice as Chairman of the Council of Ministers during the 1980s, from 1981 to 1988 and from 1989 to 1990 in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
Parcham was the more moderate socialist faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led by Afghan communist politician Babrak Karmal. It was later turned into the Watan (Homeland) Party with a more Islamic outlook under Mohammed Najibullah. The faction was formed directly after the founding of the Party in 1965 following ideological splits in the PDPA. While the Parchamites stressed the need for swift social-economic reforms to achieve revolution, this was in direct contrast with their PDPA rivals, the Khalqists, who sought an immediate and violent overthrow of the government. Karmal believed that Afghanistan was not developed enough for a Leninist revolutionary approach and instead sought a patriotic and anti-imperialist united front to take the next steps toward revolution.
Khalq was a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Its historical de facto leaders were Nur Muhammad Taraki (1967–1979), Hafizullah Amin (1979) and Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy (1979–1990). It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by the same movement. The Khalq wing was formed in 1967 after the split of the party due to bitter resentment with the rival Parcham faction which had a differing revolutionary strategy.
Lieutenant General Shahnawaz Tanai was an Afghan politician and general officer who served as the Chief of General Staff of the Afghan National Army until his defection to neighbouring Pakistan following a failed coup d'état in 1990.
Sulaiman Layeq was an Afghan communist politician, ideologue and poet who held the positions of President of the Academy of Sciences, full member of the Afghan Politburo, and Minister of Nationalities and Tribal Affairs.
Mohammad Hasan Sharq is an Afghan former communist politician who was active in the communist government of Afghanistan. Sharq became Chairman of the Council of Ministers – the government of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He was selected as a compromise candidate after a loya jirga ratified a new constitution in 1987. However, the power of his office was relatively slight compared with the powers held by the presidency.
Pashtun nationalism is an ideology that claims that the Pashtuns form a distinct nation and that they should always be united to preserve their culture and homeland. In Afghanistan, those who advocate Pashtun nationalism favour the idea of a "Greater Afghanistan", which includes Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and be ruled directly under Pashtun principles.
Mir Akbar Khyber was an Afghan left-wing intellectual and a leader of the Parcham faction of People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). His assassination by an unidentified person or people led to the overthrow of Mohammed Daoud Khan's republic, and to the advent of a socialist regime in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
The Kingdom of Afghanistan was a monarchy in Central Asia that was established in 1926 as a successor state to the Emirate of Afghanistan. It was proclaimed by its first king, Amanullah Khan, seven years after he acceded to the throne. The monarchy ended in the 1973 Afghan coup d'état.
The Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif were a part of the Afghan Civil War and took place in 1997 and 1998 between the forces of Abdul Malik Pahlawan and his Hazara allies, Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan, and the Taliban.
Brigadier General Mohammed Zafar Khan is a commander of the Afghan National Army stationed in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. He was appointed for the post of commander of the 4th Brigade, 205th Corps on 11 September 2010.
The Herat uprising, locally known as the Uprising of 24th Hūt was an insurrection that took place in and around the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, across several days in March 1979. It included both a popular uprising and a mutiny of ethnic Tajik Afghan Army troops against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). The communist regime at first appealed to its Soviet allies for help, but the Soviet leadership declined to intervene. After the insurgents seized and held the city for about a week, the regime was able to retake it with its own forces, and the subsequent aerial bombardment and recapture of Herat left 3,000 to 25,000 of its inhabitants dead. It was the worst outbreak of armed violence in the country in 50 years, and was the deadliest incident in the 1978-1979 period following the Saur Revolution and before the start of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Anti-Pashtun sentiment refers to dislike and hostility towards Pashtuns, Pashtun culture, or the Pashto language. This includes fear as well as resentment exhibited by non-Pashtun ethnic majorities who have suffered decades of persecution at the hands of Pashtuns, including disappearances, murder, slavery, Pashtunization, and genocide, including the Tajiks and especially the Hazaras.
General Abdul Jabar Qahraman was an Afghan military officer, warlord and politician who came to prominence for his ability to mobilize large amounts of men to join his pro-government militias. Qahraman played a significant role in Afghan politics in the late 1980s and early 90s. He transitioned from a militia leader to a party leader in the 2010s. Qahraman was assassinated by the Taliban on October 18, 2018.
Nazar Muhammad (1935–1998) was a Colonel General in the Afghan Armed Forces, the Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Air Force, the former Minister of Defense as well as the Chief of General Staff before 1988, being replaced by Shahnawaz Tanai. He was born in 1935 in Shindand District, Herat in the Kingdom of Afghanistan and died in 1998, Quetta, Pakistan. He was the former ambassador to West Germany.
