CIVIL WAR:
Three years after the #Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan communist regime finally collapsed. In April 1992 the victorious #mujahideen converged on #Kabul. The long-term rivalry between #Hekmatyar and Massoud would now play out on a grand scale. 1/11
@FazelQazizai

Unable to reach a power-sharing agreement in a new mujahideen government, they tried to seize the Afghan capital by force. #Massoud enlisted the help of a former communist #militia commander, Abdul Rashid #Dostum. #Hizb, meanwhile, began to move into the city.2/11

Two elite military units within the party, the #Fatah_division and the #Army_of_Sacrifice, spearheaded the operation.On April 25 #Hizb took control of the #presidential_palace, only to be driven out soon afterwards by the forces of #Dostum and #Massoud. 3/11

Unable to enter the capital himself, #Hekmatyar set up base on the city’s outskirts, in #Chahar_Asyab. It would remain his headquarters for much of the ensuing #civil_war. In the months that followed Kabul began to divide into warring fiefdoms, 4/11

as different #mujahideen factions vied for greater power in the government. Burhanuddin #Rabbani became president and #Massoud was defence minister, but Hekmatyar refused to serve alongside them as prime minister. Hizb bombarded the capital with frequent rocket attacks 5/11

and stopped aid convoys reaching the city. #Massoud’s men harassed and abducted civilians at makeshift checkpoints and razed swathes of west Kabul to the ground. Even while the #civil_war raged, #Hekmatyar did not lose sight of his global ambitions. 6/11

In 1993 he sent Hizb fighters to #Azerbaijan at the request of the country’s deputy interior minister, #Rovshan_Javadov. The Hizbis bolstered Azerbaijan’s forces in a conflict with #Armenia over the disputed territory of #NagornoKarabakh . #Iran supported the deployment. 7/11

When the #Taliban emerged in southern Afg n1994, Rabbani & #Massoud sensed an opportunity to vanquish Hizb once and for all. After sending a delegation to #Helmand to secretly meet Taliban leaders including #MullahOmar, they began to funnel money and weapons to d new movemnt.8/11

The #Taliban used the resources to sweep through #Hizb territory in southern Afghanistan and by 1995 they had reached the outskirts of #Kabul. Hizb retreated from Chahar Asyab. Now the Taliban were ready to turn on the Rabbani government. Having crushed Hizb militarily, 9/11

the #Taliban tried to persuade #Hekmatyar to swear allegiance to #MullahOmar. A prominent Talib, #Mullah_Ehsanullah, met Hekmatyar for talks in the province of Logar but the Hizb leader rejected his offer.
By 1996 Hizb’s power and influence seemed to be in terminal decline. 10/11

#Hekmatyar, however, had other ideas. That spring he sent one of his #commanders, Fazel Haq Mujahid, to meet his old ally #Osama_bin_Laden in #Sudan. Fazel Haq persuaded bin Laden to relocate to #Afghanistan.11/11
@FazelQazizai