National Islamic United Front for the Rescue of Afghanistan
The National Islamic United Front for the Rescue of Afghanistan ( Persian جبهه متحد اسلامی ملی برای نجات افغانستان Dschabhe-ye Eslami-ye Mottahed-e Melli-e baraye Nedschat Afghanistan ), in Western media commonly known as the Northern Alliance , was against the Taliban -looking loose coalition of rival Tajik , Uzbek and Hazara - warlords . It was founded in October 1996 as a military alliance in response to the Taliban's nationwide advance.
At the end of 2001, the United Front was able to conquer virtually all of Afghanistan with the help of massive US air support .
Members
The United Front was made up of around five mostly Islamist political groups , depending on how they were counted :
- The Islamic Association of Afghanistan ( Persian جمعيت اسلامی افغانستان Jamiat-e Eslami-ye Afghanistan ) was Tajik dominated and was designed by Burhanuddin Rabbani out of but later more and more in favor of his defense minister Ahmad Shah Massoud lost influence.
- The Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan ( Persian حزب وحدت اسلامی افغانستان Hezb-e Wahdat-e Eslami-ye Afghanistan ) was formed by Shiite Hazara . It received support from Iran, which is also Shiite,and was led by Mohammed Mohaqiq and Karim Khalili .
- The National Association of Afghanistan ( Persian جنبش ملی افغانستان Dschonbesh-e Melli-ye Afghanistan ) was the party of the Uzbek general Abdul Raschid Dostum . She received support mainly from Uzbekistan and Turkey .
- The Islamic Movement of Afghanistan ( Persian حركت اسلامی افغانستان Harakat-e Eslami-ye Afghanistan ) was a Shiite association under Ayatollah Mohammad Asif Mohseni, which more or less merged into the Jamiat-e Eslami in the following years.
- The Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan ( Persian اتحاد اسلامی ملی برای آزادى افغانستان Ettehad-e Eslami Baraye Azadi-ye Afghanistan ) was a Pashtun groupledby Abdul Rasul Sayyaf that joined the United Front but remained politically insignificant.
Most of the members and leaders of the United Front were Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara. The largest Afghan population group, the Pashtuns , was hardly represented.
The rise of the Taliban
After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union in 1989, the mujahideen had a long struggle against the Soviet-backed regime of President Mohammed Najibullah , until it was overthrown in 1992 with the capture of Kabul . To the surprise of most observers, this was not done by the well-equipped Pashtun parties, but by the more organized Tajik militias of Massoud and the Uzbek forces of Dostum, who formed a government headed by Rabbani. An internal Afghan civil war broke out when the Pashtun Gulbuddin Hekmatyar declared war on the new government and began to besiege Kabul. Later Dostum also terminated his alliance with the Rabbani government and attacked the capital together with Hekmatyar. The Hazara, whose militias controlled the Hazara core settlement areas in central Afghanistan, intervened in the fighting in changing alliances.
The state of Afghanistan was on the verge of disintegration when the Taliban first appeared on the political map in 1993 and quickly expanded their sphere of influence from the city of Kandahar to the Pashtun-dominated areas in the south and east of the country. On September 5, 1995, they conquered the city of Herat for the first time, an important bastion outside their Pashtun ancestral territory. The fall of the city also marked the beginning of the end of the Rabbani government . Although the subsequent attacks on Kabul were initially repulsed by Massoud, the Taliban finally succeeded on September 26, 1996 in conquering the capital. Massoud fled north with his troops.
The creation of the United Front
During the fighting between the Taliban and Massoud, it was long unclear what position the Uzbek leader Dostum would take. In view of the Taliban's absolute claim to power and their seemingly unstoppable advance, however, he decided to form an alliance with Massoud. On October 10, 1996, President Rabbani, disempowered by the Taliban, his military commander Massoud, Hazara leaders Chalili and Dostum met on a road north of the Salang Pass . The rival leaders, under the pressure of events, formed an alliance of convenience and founded the Supreme Council for the Defense of the Fatherland . This was the birth of the new anti-Taliban alliance, which would keep the struggle going throughout the Taliban's reign.
When the Taliban captured the military headquarters of Dostum on May 24, 1997 and invaded the city of Mazar-e Sharif for the first time, the National Islamic United Front for the Rescue of Afghanistan was officially launched on June 13 . Its president became the former head of state Rabbani, while Dostum was elected military leader and vice-president. The VF has been recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by most states with the exception of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The fight against the Taliban
When the Taliban finally conquered Dostum's stronghold of Mazar-e Sharif on August 8, 1998 and also the Hazara capital Bamiyan fell into their hands on September 13, the Uzbeks and Hazara lost control of their core areas and their influence in the VF. In the following years this was almost exclusively dominated by the Tajik Jamiat-e Eslami Rabbanis and Massouds. In view of the low political power of the VF, however, Rabbani also became more and more a symbolic figure, while the general Massoud determined the fate.
Only the provinces of Badachschan , Kapisa and Tachar in northeast Afghanistan formed the core of the areas still controlled by the VF , so that the term Northern Alliance caught on in the western media . The term was also deliberately coined by the Pakistani side, as they agreed that the VF would represent the entire Afghan population. During the five-year struggle against the Taliban, the fortunes of war changed constantly, but neither side could gain a decisive advantage. The Taliban continued to rule over 90% of the country, but were unable to seriously threaten the remaining VF-controlled area.
The United Front has been accused of serious human rights violations during the civil war. In a report published in 2001, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch accused the VF of crimes against the civilian population, including ethnic displacement , rape and extrajudicial executions.
The time after September 11, 2001
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA , the US-led so-called "international coalition" wanted to avoid its own major ground operations and therefore decided to support the VF militarily, in particular through air strikes. As a result, it was able to conquer the entire country quickly: Mazar-e Sharif fell on November 9th, and on November 12th the VF armed forces marched into the capital of Kabul, which the Taliban had abandoned. Rabbani resumed the position of president, which he had only de iure since 1996, also de facto.
At the Afghanistan conference in Bonn on pacifying and democratizing the country in November 2001, the VF therefore played a key role as the de facto government. Although the incumbent President Rabbani did not take part in the interim administration appointed there under the new President Hamid Karzai , the three most important ministries could be filled by members of the VF: Abdullah Abdullah became foreign minister, and the new VF delegation head Junus Ghanuni took over the interior Defense minister was Mohammed Fahim , who succeeded Massoud after the assassination of 9 September 2001 by members of al-Qaida .
Although the interim government dominated by the VF resembled the catastrophically failed mujahideen government of 1992 in terms of personnel and party politics, the repetition of the chaos feared by many remained largely absent. The dominant influence of the members of the VF in the cabinet was pushed back somewhat after protests, especially by the Pashtun side, in cabinet reshuffles, without causing major government crises.
The VF militias have since been largely integrated into the newly created Afghan National Army.
In March 2007, Rabbani founded the National United Front ( Persian جبهه متحد ملی افغانستان Jabhe-ye Mottahed-e Melli ), which was joined by many former important members of the VF, including Raschid Dostum, Mohammed Fahim, Junus Ghanuni and Ismail Khan . She describes herself as "loyal opposition" to the Karzai government. However, there are fears that the former militia leaders gathered in it could try to restore their old positions of power by founding a party, as the National United Front advocates weakening the strong role of the president and the central government.
literature
- Ahmed Rashid: Taliban. Afghan warriors of God and jihad. Droemer, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-426-27260-1 .
