IB History Soviet Withdrawal Civil War and Ethnic and Tribal Factionalism Notes

Soviet withdrawal: Rival armed networks prevented a stable Afghan settlement

Soviet withdrawal and Najibullah's survival

1. The last Soviet troops left Afghanistan on 15 February 1989, but Moscow continued supplying Najibullah's government with fuel, weapons and funds. Withdrawal ended the occupation itself without ending the civil war.
2. Under his policy of National Reconciliation, Najibullah reduced overt communist language and appealed instead to Islam and Afghan nationalism, offering ceasefires and government positions to selected opponents. Reconciliation bought time but never overcame the regime's underlying dependence on patronage and force.
3. Government forces defended major cities and used allied militias effectively, and the failed mujahideen assault on Jalalabad in 1989 exposed the weaknesses of a divided opposition. Najibullah's regime survived as long as it did chiefly because its opponents lacked unified command.

Militias, ethnicity and the end of Soviet support

1. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 cut off essential support to Kabul, and fuel and financial shortages rapidly weakened the government's military cohesion. This external change transformed the domestic balance of power more than any single battlefield defeat.
2. Regional militias became central to government survival, and Abdul Rashid Dostum commanded a powerful, mainly Uzbek force in the north. Militia loyalty depended heavily on resources and could shift rapidly once those resources disappeared.
3. Political parties increasingly drew on Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara and Pashtun networks, though ethnicity mattered alongside ideology, region, leadership and access to arms rather than on its own. Describing the war as purely ethnic hides the changing alliances and political goals that actually drove it.

Collapse into civil war, 1992

1. Dostum and other regional commanders changed sides in 1992, and Najibullah lost control of the capital and sought refuge in a United Nations compound. The Afghan state fragmented as rival mujahideen forces entered Kabul.
2. Mujahideen parties agreed on an interim Islamic government in the Peshawar Accords of April 1992, giving leading roles to Burhanuddin Rabbani and Sibghatullah Mojaddedi. The agreement excluded or left dissatisfied powerful actors, especially Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
3. Rival factions shelled and fought across the capital in the Battle for Kabul, as Hekmatyar, Massoud, Dostum, Hizb-i-Wahdat and Ittihad forces competed for territory while foreign patrons continued backing their preferred clients. Heavy civilian casualties and destruction discredited the mujahideen just as they had won.
4. No faction could establish accepted national institutions in the aftermath, and this state collapse created exactly the conditions in which the Taliban would later expand.