Soviet-Afghanistan

Although Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan another critical fact of Afghanistan War, Islamic events, started. Islamic State of Afghanistan was founded by Mujahideen instead of Najibullah regime in 1992. After the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan, even though Afghanistan government kept receiving the aid coming from the USSR, Mujahideen began to receive much more aid than before. According to Hegghammer, the US and Saudi Arabia gave financial, logistic and military aid to Afghan Mujahideen. Arab Gulf and Western states agreed foreign combatant to Mujahideen; however, they did not give direct support. The foreign fighters were financed by private donors and the nongovernmental Islamic establishments (n. d). As mentioned above, after the withdrawal of Soviet, the countries against communist regime began to give support to Afghanistan. In order to remove communism, they used Islamic belief of Afghan people by promoting Mujahideen. So they supported the Mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Najibullah regime began to get weak because of build-up of Mujahideen. Mujahideen won the war in 1992; besides, Hekmatyar, who is called the butcher of Kabul, became the prime minister and Rabbani became the president. Initially, Pakistan supported Hekmatyar government because Pakistan had an expectation of Pashtun dominated government. However, failure of the government in the expectation of Pakistan was understood by Pakistan government; thus, Pakistan’s aids were shifted into Pashtuns. In addition to the events, Taliban was established by receiving help from contiguous countries. Firstly, Taliban emerged in 1994 and acquire Kabul in 1996. Taliban was founded by students studying in madrassas in Pakistan and was supported by Pakistan in the foundation phase. According to Tomsen, Pakistan had given military assistance into different groups in Afghanistan since 1975. The last military support began with Soviet’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988; moreover, it was maintained until 9/11 attacks (2011). Pakistan gave a remarkable amount of support to Taliban. Taliban consisted of thousands of Pakistani soldiers. Taliban acquired Kabul by receiving help from Pakistan in 1996; furthermore, Taliban established Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan. Hekmatyar government fled to Iran; however, local commanders of Hekmatyar joined Taliban and Hekmatyar camps were caught by Taliban. A second remarkable event is Anti-Taliban that was assembled by important politicians of Afghanistan.

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