ABSTRACT
Pakistan played a crucial role in the Afghan war after the Soviet invasion in 1979. The biggest operation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was conducted, with the support of Pakistan, during the Cold War against communist Russia. The joint military operation between Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the CIA created an environment that ultimately forced the USSR to retreat from Afghanistan in 1989. Pakistan supported the Afghan resistance movement through a seven-party alliance based in the Pakistani city of Peshawar (Grare 2003). After the Soviet forces withdrew, fighting Afghan Mujahideen groups, because of their internal ethnic and sectarian differences, failed to reach any consensus about the future political setup of Afghanistan. Simultaneously, key regional actors supporting the Afghan jihad (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran) backed their own favorites, which further complicated this crisis. Eventually, these internal differences and complications led to civil war among the Mujahideen themselves. However, after the intervention by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan an accord was signed between different Mujahideen groups on 24 April 1992 in Peshawar. But it could not be sustained for more than 4 months when Kabul was attacked by Hikmatyar in August 1992 with ISI support (Jones 2002).
