History
During the Soviet War in Afghanistan, Hekmatyar and his party operated near the Pakistani border against Soviet Communists. Areas such as Kunar, Laghman, Jalalabad, and Paktia were Hezb-e Islami's strongholds. The party is highly centralized under Hekmatyar's command and until 1994 had close relations with Pakistan, from which it received as much $600 million in U.S. aid money to fight the war with the Soviets. Despite its ample funding, it has been described as having
| “ | the dubious distinction of never winning a significant battle during the war, training a variety of militant Islamists from around the world, killing significant numbers of mujahideen from other parties, and taking a virulently anti-Western line. In addition to hundreds of millions of dollars of American aid, Hekmatyar also received the lion's share of aid from the Saudis. | ” |
Frustrated by the enormously destructive warlord feuding in Afghanistan, including the Hebi Islami shelling of Kabul in April 1992, Pakistan abandoned HIG for the Taliban in 1994. The bombardment of the capital by HIG in 1994, for example, is reported to have "resulted in the deaths of more than 25,000 civilians."
HIG was expelled from Kabul by the Taliban in September 1996 and many of its local commanders joined the Taliban "both out of ideological sympathy and for reason of tribal solidarity." In Pakistan Hezb-e-Islami training camps "were taken over by the Taliban and handed over" to Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) groups such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).
Read more about this topic: Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)