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External Actors in the Afghan Problem continues....
Involvement in Afghanistan and military support to the warring factions between 1996 and 2001 can be broadly divided into two categories. One, where help was directed towards the Taleban or their established Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and second, where it was directed towards the Northern Alliance. Both the Taleban and the parties constituting the United Front repeatedly committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including indiscriminate aerial bombardment and shelling, summary executions, and the use of antipersonnel landmines. Despite its forces’ relative isolation and extended lines of communication, the United Front nevertheless continued to receive military assistance from outside governments.
This assistance came in variety of forms, ranging from the direct transfer of military materials to the provision of limited numbers of military advisors and support personnel.
Almost none of these transfers have been publicly documented via submissions to the United Nations register on conventional arms, and, in fact, much of the United Front’s military support came from the nations participating in the so-called “Six-plusTwo” Contact Group, whose members had publicly pledged not to
provide military support to any Afghan combatants and to prevent the use of their territories for such purposes. The main external actors were Iran and Russia, the secondary roles were played by Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
(at least until 1998), Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
The Taleban had polarized the country between a predominantly Pashtun south and east, on the one side and a Pashtun-minority population on the north and central Afghanistan. Due to their explicit and elaborate tribal system, possession of their own language, and code of ethnic values and norms (pashtunwali), ethnic identity for Pashtuns remained straightforward and was rarely questioned by either by themselves or others.
To be continued.....