Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin

The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG. Arabic: حزب الإسلامي قلب الدين) is an Afghan islamist political party.

The original Hezb-e-Islami was founded in 1977 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is now the head of HIG. The other faction is headed by Mulavi Younas Khalis who split with Hekmatyar and established his own Hezbi Islami in 1979. It is known as the Khalis faction, and its powerbase is in Nangarhar.

Well-financed by anti-Soviet forces during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the HIG was "sidelined from Afghan politics" by the rise of the Taliban in the mid-1990s. It remained so until later in the 2000s (decade) when it "reemerged as an aggressive militant group, claiming responsibility for many bloody attacks against Coalition forces and the administration of President Hamid Karzai" in the post-2001 war in Afghanistan. Its fighting strength is "sometimes estimated to number in the thousands".