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|---|---|
| Location | Embassy of Pakistan, Kabul, Afghanistan |
| Date | 6 September 1995 |
| Target | Pakistani embassy |
| Deaths | 1 |
| Injured | 26 |
The 1995 attack on the Pakistani embassy in Kabul occurred on 6 September 1995 when hundreds of angry protestors attacked and sacked the embassy of Pakistan in Kabul, Afghanistan, after the Taliban militia with Pakistani support had captured Herat from the internationally recognized Islamic State of Afghanistan. One person was killed and twenty six others, including the Pakistani ambassador, were injured.
Background
The post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the peace and power-sharing agreement Peshawar Accord in April 1992. All Afghan parties agreed on the accord in April 1992 except for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who strived to become the sole ruler of Afghanistan. According to academic sources, Pakistan's ruling military establishment was also opposed to the new developments in neighboring Afghanistan. Afghanistan expert Neamatollah Nojumi writes, "hese new political and military developments in Afghanistan forced the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI to organize a military plan with forces belonging to Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami". The Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, Amin Saikal, describes in "Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival" that Pakistan wanted to install a favorable regime - which the Islamic State was not - under Hekmatyar in Kabul so that it could use Afghan territory for access to Central Asia. Hekmatyar subsequently started a destructive bombardment campaign against the capital city Kabul. Amin Saikal states that without Pakistan's support Hekmatyar "would not have been able to target and destroy half of Kabul." According to documents published by the George Washington University, "when Hekmatyar failed to deliver for Pakistan, the administration began to support a new movement of religious students known as the Taliban."
After initial victories against local rulers in southern Afghanistan independent from the Islamic State, the Taliban started to move against the Afghan government itself in the course of which the Taliban suffered a series of defeats that resulted in heavy losses especially against government forces in Kabul. Additionally, the Taliban's first major offensive against the important western city of Herat, under the authority of Islamic state ally Ismail Khan, in February 1995 was also defeated. Ahmed Rashid writes: "The Taliban had now been decisively pushed back on two fronts by the government and their political and military leadership was in disarray." And that to many Afghans the Taliban had become "nothing more than just another warlord party." International observers already speculated that the Taliban as a country-wide organization might have "run its course".
But, after rebuilding in the summer of 1995, the Taliban militia conducted a surprise offensive against Herat in September 1995, capturing the city when Ismail Khan's troops abandoned their positions. When the Taliban took control of Herat, they arrested hundreds of its citizens, closed down all the schools and "forcibly implement their social bans and Sharia law, even more fiercely than in Kandahar". The Taliban imposed as rulers over the city and region extremist Taliban officials "many of whom" did not even speak the local regional language Persian. The attack against the Pakistani embassy by pro-government protestors in Kabul took place a day after the Taliban militia had successfully established control over Herat.
Kamal Matinuddin, Lt. General of the Pakistan army and former member of Pakistan's diplomatic corps, alleges the Afghan government sacked the embassy in "retaliation for the capture of Herat" because they "felt" the Taliban could have only done so with Pakistan's help. But according to William Maley, the Director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, the attack by angry protestors against the Pakistan embassy was due to "bitter resentment towards Pakistan which had built up among the victims of Pakistan's strategy" first using Hekmatyar in a destructive bombardment campaign and then the Taliban to install a client in Afghanistan.
De facto, scholars such as Pakistani analyst Ahmed Rashid, write:
"he Taliban had spent the summer rebuilding their forces with arms, ammunition and vehicles provided by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and a new command structure created with the help of ISI advisers. The ISI also helped broker and agreement, never made public, between the Taliban and General Rashid Dostum ... to repair Mig fighters and helicopters the Taliban had captured a year earlier in Kandahar, thereby creating the Taliban's first airpower. ... the Taliban quickly mobilized some 25,000 men, many of them fresh volunteers from Pakistan."
According to "Pakistan and the Taliban" by Ahmed Rashid, also published in April 1998 as a column in The Nation, Pakistan furthermore directly provided limited "military support" in the Taliban's September 1995 offensive against Herat which led to the capture of the city and the subsequent anti-Pakistan protests in Kabul.
Rizwan Hussein in "Pakistan and the emergence of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan" summarizes: "As has now been established by several scholarly and journalistic works, the Pakistan military establishment directly assisted the Taliban's rise and subsequent capture of this region in Afghanistan between 1995 and 1996." The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs describes Pakistan's support to the Taliban as "at its height" in 1995. Anthony Davis describes "covert Pakistani support for the Taliban" as "fundamental ... to its expansion as a regional and then national force".
The Pakistani ambassador to Kabul, Qazi Humayun, himself alongside Pakistan's Consul General in Herat, Colonel Imam, later attented Taliban meetings in Kandahar. These meetings discussed how the Taliban could best conquer Afghanistan militarily and how "best to impose Sharia law" over Afghanistan.
Pakistani politicians during that time repeatedly denied supporting the Taliban, which has been described by reliable sources as an explicit 'policy of denial'.
See also
References
- Amin Saikal. Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (2006 1st ed.). I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., London New York. p. 215. ISBN 1-85043-437-9.
- Neamatollah Nojumi. The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War and the Future of the Region (2002 1st ed.). Palgrave New York. p. 260.
- Amin Saikal (2006). Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (1st ed.). London New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. p. 352. ISBN 1-85043-437-9.
- "The September 11th Sourcebooks Volume VII: The Taliban File". George Washington University. 2003.
- ^ Ahmed Rashid. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Yale Nota Bene Books. p. 36. ISBN 978-0300089028. Cite error: The named reference "Ahmed Rashid" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- "PAKISTAN'S SUPPORT OF THE TALIBAN". Human Rights Watch. 2000.
- ^ Ahmed Rashid. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Yale Nota Bene Books. p. 40. ISBN 978-0300089028.
- Matinuddin, Kamal (1999). The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan 1994-1997. Oxford University Press. p. 261. ISBN 9780195792744.
- William Maley. The Afghanistan Wars (2009 ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. p. 216. ISBN 978-0230213142.
- Ahmed Rashid. in William Maley's "Fundamentalism Reborn?: Afghanistan and the Taliban" (March 1998 ed.). NYU Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-0814755860.
- Rizwan Hussein. Pakistan and the emergence of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan (2005 ed.). Ashgate Pub Ltd. p. 203. ISBN 978-0754644347.
- Pakistan Institute of International Affairs. Pakistan horizon (2006 ed.). p. 40.
- Anthony Davis. in William Maley's "Fundamentalism Reborn?: Afghanistan and the Taliban" (March 1998 ed.). NYU Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0814755860.
- ^ Ahmed Rashid. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Yale Nota Bene Books. p. 42. ISBN 978-0300089028.
- Amin Saikal (2006). Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (1st ed.). London New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. p. 342. ISBN 1-85043-437-9.
- Hussain, Rizwan. Pakistan And The Emergence Of Islamic Militancy In Afghanistan. p. 208.
