Word: hekmatyar
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...fundamentalist country and will have to get used to a strict Islamic code." The most surprising aspect of the takeover is the complete disappearance of government forces, who may still control the surrounding mountains. A rift between government factions led by President Burharunuddin Rabbani and Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had been patched up months ago, and the two controlled the infrastructure left by Najibullah's government. Red Cross officials said hundreds of fighters on both died in intense fighting outside Kabul on Thursday. "More fighting can be expected in the coming days; I don't think Rabbani and Hekmtyar will...
Behind the mayhem is rebel mujahedin leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who apparently decided he could not afford to allow President Burhanuddin Rabbani's interim government to gain much stability. On Aug. 2, Pakistan's Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif was due to arrive in Kabul, and Hekmatyar's rockets closed the airport. On Aug. 8, Rabbani was to fly to Tehran. The attacks intensified again. Since he was due in Pakistan last week for meetings with Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif, it was predictable that the rockets would come in more heavily than ever. Last week's barrage left 600 people dead...
Last week Massoud's troops moved into Kabul, where they met and mixed with thousands of guerrillas loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who heads the main southern mujahedin unit. Most government troops and police surrendered without a fight, but rifle fire echoed over neighborhoods on the outskirts. Some of the shooting was celebratory, but some resulted from brief skirmishes between the factions...
Massoud, a member of Afghanistan's Tajik minority, had initially held his men out of the capital, partly to avoid chaos in the city of 1.5 million and , partly to try to seal it off from Hekmatyar, his principal rival. Hekmatyar, an ethnic Pashtun and Islamic fundamentalist, had demanded that the rump government in Kabul surrender to him so that a strictly religious Muslim regime could be installed. Now both mujahedin forces are in the center of the city, including the grounds of the presidential palace, where even a small clash could spark another round of civil...
...Kabul until their arrival. The U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, Benon Sevan, asked all factions to set aside their differences and cooperate, but he was less than optimistic. "What they agree to in the morning," he said, "they reject in the evening as if it were signed in invisible ink." Hekmatyar talked with Massoud for two hours by radio and then rejected the compromise plan...