Integrity Score 380
No Records Found
No Records Found
Chapter 2 continues…
The third goal was to contain India in the Kashmir front by preventing a friendly relation between India and Afghanistan. Afghanistan was used as a training ground for militants who could fight in Kashmir. According to sources in Pakistan, in the period 1995-2000, approximately 60,000 to 80,000 Pakistani nationals were trained in Afghanistan and they participated in conflicts in Afghanistan, Kashmir and the CARs. Pakistan was even more involved with the Taleban movement by the civilian support to the movement along with the growing involvement of the military and the ISI in the affairs of Afghanistan.
Establishing a friendly government in Kabul with some military assistance from Pakistan became the most favourable option for the Pakistani leadership.
As the Taleban continued to capture more and more provinces transforming the strategic balance in Afghanistan, the Afghan peace plan proposed by Mahmoud Mestiri was in jeopardy. Taleban sources said that Mehmoud Mestiri’s mission had failed to achieve anything and that his announcement of the final date for President Rabbani to resign from office had become a unilateral statement.
In the meantime Taleban leaders at Charasyab and elsewhere around Kabul had developed liason with the people through its prayer leaders who expressed their desire to enter Kabul peacefully and disarm the Rabbani-Masood forces ‘with the support of the people.’ The Taleban leader, Mullah Omar, in the meantime, accused President Rabbani of conspiring to foil the UN peace plan and prolong his rule.
A major blow to Rabbani came when the Taleban Islamic militia took the key western Afghanistan city of Herat in September 1995, compelling its provincial governor Ismael Khan to escape across the border to Iran. After the capture of Herat, the Taleban continued their successful military campaign in western Afghanistan, capturing Ghor province on September 6, controlling 14 of Afghanistan’s 32 provinces. Ghor’s fall completed the elimination of the Rabbani government and its ally Ismael Khan, from western Afghanistan. The Taleban took Farah, Nimroz, Herat and Ghor out of the five Ismael Khan-controlled provinces while the fifth, Bagdhis, fell into Dostum’s hands.
To be continued…