Word: mujahedin
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Assuming that victory is within reach, Massoud has been devoting time to his second major concern, the maneuvering for advantage among the seven mujahedin parties. All members of the Peshawar alliance are fighting for a country under an Islamic dispensation, but the political shape of that concept is something on which they differ sharply...
...ruler. Jamiat leaders reject the suggestion outright because they regard the King as a feudal holdover as well as accountable for the steady growth of Soviet involvement in the country until his ouster in 1973. "Free elections will have their limits," says Massoud. "Even if one of the other mujahedin parties were to propose it, we would not agree to people who have betrayed this country having a chance to participate...
...principle, "but under these conditions an election is not simple. It may even & be impossible. If so, I see another solution, namely military administrative units strong enough to establish order and bring about the conditions for elections." Last week Rabbani assumed the rotating leadership of the mujahedin alliance...
...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 power before the interests of the nation," says Massoud. "In ten years of war, he has never yet managed to achieve one solid accomplishment...
Massoud and Rabbani insist that they hope to build a common platform with other mujahedin parties and have invited their help in building a more broadly based national "Islamic army." Says Rabbani: "We believe that all other parties should join in, and we are working hard toward this end." If unity proves as difficult to achieve in victory as it has been up to now, Jamiat's leaders may look on their army as more than a dagger aimed at Najibullah's heart: the force may prove to be what one Jamiat official calls an "insurance policy" for a postwar...