Word: islami
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...Massoud, 35, a onetime engineering student at the Soviet Polytechnic Institute in Kabul, has spent the past nine years molding the mujahedin in Afghanistan's northeast into what is widely considered the country's most effective guerrilla formation. Last May Massoud's men, who owe allegiance to Jamiat-i-Islami, one of the seven mujahedin parties based across the border in Pakistan, watched in triumph as the last Soviet and Afghan government troops retreated from the Panjshir...
...military tactics if they are to oust the government, but they must also position themselves to determine which among the main insurgent groups will predominate once the government in Kabul falls. Though it is impossible to predict which group will be the most influential, Massoud obviously intends Jamiat-i-Islami to play a key role...
...discuss military strategy and the internal politicking with Massoud, the leader of Jamiat-i-Islami, Burhanuddin Rabbani, 53, in September made his first trip to Afghanistan's northeast since the war began. Accompanied by an escort equipped with Stinger missiles, the former Kabul University theology professor met with Jamiat commanders in Panjshir's bomb-scarred villages. Rabbani told TIME that he thought it unlikely that elections could be held soon after Kabul falls. "It is important to establish a government on the basis of the vote of the common people of Afghanistan," he said in a bow to principle...
...Rabbani, both fundamentalist Muslims, are careful to distance Jamiat from radical visions of an Islamic state; specifically, asserts Massoud, "the position adopted by Iran is not laid down by Islam." Massoud also jabs sharply at one of Rabbani's chief rivals, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the head of Hezb-i-Islami, calling him the "extremist" among the conservative Islamic resistance leaders in Peshawar. Throughout the war, armed clashes have flared between Hekmatyar's men and other mujahedin parties -- Jamiat, in particular -- and a personal rivalry between Massoud and Hekmatyar dates back to their university days in Kabul. "Hekmatyar has always put personal...
...guerrillas learned that lesson the hard way at Kandahar last week when insurgents of Jamiat-i-Islami broke off attacks on strategic high ground around Baba Wali, a heavily fortified point overlooking the city, after coming under air and artillery barrages from entrenched government forces. An assault by fighters of Yunis Khalis' Hezb-e-Islami last month on outposts screening Jalalabad was similarly thrown back at the cost of as many as 50 mujahedin lives. Such large-scale attacks under heavy fire are something new for the guerrilla forces. Says Abdul Qadir, a senior rebel commander with Khalis: "The mujahedin...