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Originally Posted by Team Sergeant
The only reason the Russians and the Afgans fought so long was the Afgan tribalism. I think it took seven years to unite the Afgan tribes, and when we did the Russians were on the run. And as soon as the last Russian stepped off Afgan soil they once again were fighting among themselves.
Some of us understand it quite well AL. 
TS |
Afghanistan's tribes have never been united.
Our efforts were to form a coalition of mujahideen parties that could effectively fight the Soviets. We were hamstrung by Afghan politics, but also by Pakistani interference. Pakistan banned all but 5 of the 60 or so parties that formed among Afghan refugees in the wake of the Soviet invasion (a 6th party was a splinter faction of one of the original 5, and a 7th party was formed initially as an umbrella for these 6, and became its own party later). All leftist parties, such as the Maoist Shula-ye Javed and any social democrats, were banned, as well as any Shi'ite parties (a coalition of Shi'ite parties would be formed in Iran) or explicitly ethnic parties.
The 5 parties were divided into 2 "fundamentalist" or Islamist parties - Hezb-e Islami (Party of Islam) and Jami'at-e Islami (Islamic Society), a predominantly Tajik group - and 3 traditionalist parties - Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami (Islamic Revolutionary Movement), Jabha-ye Nejat-e Melli (National Liberation Front) and Mahaz-e Melli-ye Islami (National Islamic Front).
Harakat had its power base among the Pushtun tribes, and operated in the field through a network of tribal leaders and village religious teachers, or maulawis (its leader was a maulawi, Maulawi Mohammed Nabi Mohammedi). Jabha was the most traditionalist, and its leader was a soft-spoken Sufi, Prof. Sibghatullah Mojadedi. Mahaz, or NIFA, was the most Western-oriented, and had its power base among former officers of the Afghan Army, though its leader was also a Sufi, Pir Sayyed Ahmed Gailani.
Hezb and Jami'at, the two Islamist parties, drew strength from Afghans for whom tribe had lesser meaning - non-Pushtuns, especially Tajiks, in the latter case and de-tribalized Pushtuns from the north and the cities in the former. Hezb soon split into two factions - Hezb-e Islami Hekmatyar, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and Hezb-e Islami Khalis, led by Maulawi Mohammed Yunus Khalis. Khalis' faction had its strength among village religious leaders. Jami'at, while it had a number of Pushtun and Uzbek commanders in the field, was a heavily Tajik group. Its leader was the former chair of the faculty of Islamic law at Kabul University, Burhanuddin Rabbani.
The seventh party was formed as an umbrella movement - the Islamic Unity for a Free Afghanistan (Ittehad-e Islami bira'ye Azad-e Afghanistan) - under Prof. Abdurrab ur-Rasul Sayyaf. Sayyaf's movement was initially heavily underwritten by the Saudis, and the party became the 4th Islamist party.
Of course, what happened in Peshawar and what happened on the battlefield were only partly related. The Pakistanis disfavored the traditionalist parties for two reasons: (i) all favored a return of the king, Zahir Shah, who had pushed the concept of Greater Pushtunistan, threatening Pakistani control of the NWFP, and (ii) Islamism was growing in the Pakistani officer corps due to the influence of Pakistan's Islamist movement, the Jamaat-e Islami. As a result, Harakat's early power withered under Soviet attacks and a lack of resupply, while NIFA, whose stable of former officers gave great press briefings, lacked the resources to take action in country. Jabha was always a small party.
Pakistani intelligence made sure Hekmatyar received the lion's share of aid to the mujahideen, but Hekmatyar was unpopular and his commanders were never very effective. The most effective commanders in the field were affiliated with Jami'at and Hezb-e Khalis. The most famous of these was Ahmed Shah Massoud, a Tajik known as the "Lion of the Panjshir" (Panjshir is the name of the valley where he was from and where he fought, but it means "five lions" so his nickname also meant the Lion of the Five Lions).
The Communists drew their main strength from de-tribalized Pushtuns, especially in Kabul. Tribe played something of a role - many Communist leaders were Ghilzai Pushtuns, while the monarchy had been dominated by Durrani Pushtuns - but among most Communists, tribe was a bourgeois notion at best. The Communists did take advantage of tribe to divide and conquer, though, paying off the Jowzjan tribal militias among the ethnic Uzbeks to keep the northwest of the country relatively quiet. Also, although tribe was not a big issue, a number of top Communists, such as Hafizullah Amin and Mohammad Rafi', were from the Kharoti tribe of the Ghilzai tribal family (as is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who flirted with the Communists in his student days).
The Taliban also de-emphasized tribe, except for tactical purposes, but were a heavily Pushtun organization. Taliban leader Mullah Omar was from the Hotak tribe of the Ghilzai tribal family, and had fought in Hezb-e Khalis in the Afghan-Soviet War.
In 2001-02, we did a moderately good job of recognizing and using tribal loyalty. The Taliban tried to play the Pushtun card, noting that the opposition was dominated by non-Pushtun Tajiks and Uzbeks, as well as Shi'ites (also non-Pushtun). The OEF coalition countered by making contacts with various Pushtun tribes in Taliban-controlled areas, offering some bribes, others power. Some efforts ended in failure or ambush, but others worked. The most famous was getting the Popolzai tribe of the Durrani to join the anti-Taliban forces through the efforts of Popolzai leader Hamid Karzai.
And Popolzais weren't just any other tribe. Ahmad Shah, the father of the Afghan nation ("baba-ye mellat") and king from 1747 to 1772, was from the Sadozai clan of the Popolzai. He gave his nickname, Durr-e Durrani (Pearl of Pearls) to the Abdali Pushtun tribal family, who are now called Durrani Pushtuns. Sadozai Popolzais ruled Afghanistan until 1929, when power passed to their cousin clan, the Mohammadzai clan of the Barakzai tribe, another Abdali/Durrani tribe (Mohammadzai Barakzais dominated Afghanistan until the Communist coup in 1978).
There is an Afghan proverb that mirrors what was said in an earlier post. "Me against my brother; me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother and my cousin against the world."
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