President Mohammad Najibullah, whom the U.S. government predicted would not last the summer when Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan in February 1989, continues to rule his war-wracked nation from a precarious position. A Moscow-brokered plan calls for Najibullah to step aside in favour of Prime Minister Khaliqyar, who would serve as a transitional administrative leader until a new government could be elected. However, on October 13 moderate guerrilla officials in Pakistan highlight the remaining obstacles to peace by withdrawing their support for Khaliqyar. The mujaheddin say his association with Najibullah makes him unacceptable. Afghanistan is like a maimed patient after 13 years of civil war. The streets of Kabul are full of one-legged men, victims of land mines. The government says it has released more than 19,000 prisoners in the past four years and has abolished the special tribunals set up to try those accused of political crimes. Meanwhile, fierce fighting continues between government troops and the Muslim guerrillas. The guerrillas launch their long-planned assault on Najibullah's hometown, the garrison town of Gardez in southeastern Afghanistan, and coordinate a series of attacks aimed at demoralizing the Afghan Army and destabilizing the government, but none of the attacks is decisive. In 1991 the guerrillas control 6 of Afghanistan's 31 provinces. In their only major gain during the year, they overrun a series of government-held garrisons to gain control of strategic areas along the border with the breakaway Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. They also hold the narrow corridor linking Afghanistan with China.
Najibullah proposes a five-point peace plan to end the 13-year war that has killed an estimated 1.5 million people and maimed hundreds of thousands of others. The plan calls for an end to weapons shipments to the warring factions, a cease-fire, and an intra-Afghan dialogue leading to the formation of a national unity government mandated to oversee elections. The national unity government would share power with the Pakistan-based government-in-exile, guerrilla commanders, Afghans living in exile, and the deposed king, Zahir Shah. Besides organizing elections, it would rewrite Afghanistan's constitution and oversee the return of the more than five million refugees who had fled to Pakistan and Iran. However, the Muslim guerrillas accuse Najibullah of merely repackaging old ideas in order to portray himself as a peacemaker. Most of the guerrillas vow to continue fighting until he is overthrown.
In a surprise move, the government restores the citizenship of Zahir Shah, who has been living in virtual banishment in Italy for 18 years. Nearly 77, Zahir Shah had been overthrown in 1973, and he and his family were stripped of their Afghan citizenship after the Communist revolution of 1978.
The U.S. and the Soviet Union take the first step toward a negotiated settlement by agreeing to end arms shipments to their respective clients, the rebels and the government in Kabul, as of Jan. 1, 1992.
The forces of both Masood and Hekmatyar enter Kabul, and the Communist regime collapses, but 14 years of civil war, which have claimed two million lives and forced at least five million people out of the country, leave the nation divided and almost in ruins. Sibghatullah Mojadedi, a 70-year-old former Islamic philosophy teacher, becomes caretaker president on April 28. The country is renamed Islamic State of Afghanistan. When peace seems imminent, fighting among the various guerrilla groups, divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, brings on a new struggle. Kabul, once a bustling city of 1.5 million people, looks like a ghost town after the takeover by Islamic resistance forces. Throughout the year, the city is the centre of battles between forces friendly to the new government and Hekmatyar's renegade Hezb-i-Islami (Islamic Party). An acting Council of Ministers is formed, in which Masood is defense minister and the premiership is set aside for Abdul Sabur Farid Kuhestani, a Tajik commander from the Hezb-i-Islami.
Mojadedi surrenders power to Burhanuddin Rabbani, who heads a 10-member Supreme Leadership Council of guerrilla chiefs. Rabbani announces the adoption of a new Islamic flag, the establishment of an economic council, which is to tackle the country's severe economic problems, and the appointment of a commission to draw up a new constitution. The changeover does not end the bloodshed, however. The most serious fighting breaks out as the Hezb-i-Islami, led by firebrand fundamentalist Hekmatyar, rains thousands of rockets on Kabul from hilltop positions on the southeastern outskirts, bringing more destruction than has taken place in the 14-year war between Soviet-backed Communist regimes and the Muslim resistance. The government also faces a serious challenge from an Iranian-backed alliance of Shi`ite Muslims. The Unity Party, a coalition of eight Shi`ite Muslim parties that enjoys the moral and financial backing of Iran, demands that the interim government honour past promises to share power. The Unity Party claims to represent 35% of Afghanistan's population, mostly the downtrodden Hazaras living in the central highlands, the country's poorest and most neglected region.
