International Community in
Afghanistan: The War on Terror
and the Bonn Agreement begins....

Foreign intervention has been a recurrent theme in Afghanistan’s history, the latest being the America-led war on terror in October 2001, which came in less than a month after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre (WTC) and Taleban’s refusal to hand over Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind that attack. Foreign aggression on Afghan sovereignty, traditions and values has historically been the factor uniting the multi-ethnic Afghans into a single nation-state. In contrast, the state ceased to enjoy popular support whenever it was perceived that the regime in power is associated, in some way or other, to foreign patrons or ideology. The communist coup d’etat of 1978, followed shortly by the Soviet intervention, marked a new era of state-building aimed to disseminate the communist ideology for a massive social change.

The Soviet Union provided huge financial and military aid. But such aid produced little or no results and after nine years of war with the Afghan Mujahideen, a defeated Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1988.

However, in Kabul, President Najib’s pro-Soviet
regime endured until 1992. Unfortunately, the Soviet withdrawal and the fall of the communist government in Kabul did not bring an end to violence and instability.

From 1992, the anti-Soviet factions of the Mujahideen created by Pakistan and supported by the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran started to fight among themselves for power.

Throughout history, Afghanistan had a centralised state structure which had co-existed uneasily with a fragmented and decentralised traditional society. The interplay, and at times conflict, between the state and society has been one of the features of modern Afghanistan.

To be continued..