Word: peshawar
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...surrender of power is a precondition to peace talks. In their view, he is the enemy, and Afghans have little inclination to forgive foes. "How can you expect the people to forget the blood loss of families, the destruction of entire villages?" asks a guerrilla leader in Peshawar. "How can you expect them to give up that feeling and say, 'Fine, let's sit down and talk'? It is like asking the Jews to pardon the Nazis and enter a government with them...
...which has given $2 billion in aid to the rebels over the past decade, the Soviet pullout provoked smug smiles among State Department officials. At the American Club in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, a hangout for aid workers, diplomats and intelligence types, the champagne was already flowing. Still, the U.S. has difficult decisions to make in the months ahead, as do the Soviets. In the ten months since the accord was signed in Geneva securing the Soviet withdrawal, the operating word has been "symmetry." Last week the Bush Administration held a one-hour high-level review of U.S. policy...
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...
...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 power before the interests of the nation," says Massoud...
Mujahedin leaders, most of whom are based in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, were less pleased. Not invited to the Geneva talks at the insistence of Kabul and Moscow, the rebels made it clear that since they were not part of any pact, the war would go on. Said Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a key mujahedin leader and spokesman for the seven-party resistance alliance: "The accords are not binding on us. Even if the Soviets start withdrawing, we will attack...