ABSTRACT
The resistance parties' Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA, April 1992–September 1996) began and ended with a civil war and political anarchy, before they were driven out of the capital city by the Taliban (1996–2001), whose rule equally began and ended with fighting fierce battles. After President Najibullah failed to escape from the country on 17 April 1992 and took refuge at the United Nations mission building in Kabul, high officials from his government began to negotiate with the resistance parties on handing over of the government. The resistance forces that surrounded Kabul, and their leaders in Peshawar of Pakistan, were still not sure who should take over political power and form a government or how. While the resistance leaders were negotiating on power sharing and formation of a supreme leadership council, and a political road map to take over political power and eventually prepare the path for a general election, fierce battles were fought between Hikmatyar's forces, which infiltrated Kabul, and Ahmad Shah Masoud (d. Sep 2001) and his allied forces. Eventually, the resistance parties' interim government led by Sebghatullah Mujaddidi entered Kabul and took over the government from the fallen PDPA on 30 April 1992. However, political disagreements, the quest for a monopoly of power among the resistance parties, and foreign interference by, and muscle twisting between, regional powers led the conflict in Afghanistan into a deadlock. The nineteenth century-like independent and semi-independent kingdoms began to divide the country into many sub-governments. The city of Kabul itself was divided among the resistance parties. The quest for the monopoly of power soon turned into an ethnic war, in which religion was used as a political mechanism to justify the war, in which thousands of civilians in the western part of Kabul were massacred. It was under such circumstance that a new political project, named the Taliban, emerged in 1994 and took over political power in Kabul by September 1996. The Taliban, under the guise of restoring peace, order, and stability brought a new phase of horror, civilian massacres, ethnic and religious hatred. The Taliban's hospitality and support of Osama bin Laden and refusal to hand him over to the United States, particularly after the 11 September terrorist event in New York, brought them down in November 2001.
