(1/9) Hello again! I left off yesterday with U.S. policy during the Soviet-Afghan War and the effect of the war - and the #mujahideen - on Afghan women. Picking up the story today where I left off.
The Soviet-Afghan War was a complex war with multiple conflicts happening...
The Soviet-Afghan War was a complex war with multiple conflicts happening...
(2/9) simultaneously. It was 1) a civil war between the Afghan communist government and the mujahideen rebels; 2) an international war between the Soviet Union and the mujahideen rebels; and 3) a proxy war in which the U.S., Pakistan, Iran, and several other countries backed...
(3/9) different Afghan factions (i.e., Iran supported the Shia mujahideen factions). Ultimately, the USSR withdrew from #Afghanistan in defeat in 1989. The U.S. and many other countries then turned their attention elsewhere, but the war was not over for Afghans. The civil war ...
(4/9) cont'd until the mujahideen finally overthrew the communist government in April 1992. The rebels quickly formed a government headed by President Burhanuddin Rabbani, but this didn't bring peace or stability. Instead, the mujahideen turned on one another almost immediately, 
(5/9) plunging the country into yet another civil war. The rebel movement fractured along ethnic, linguistic, religious, and ideological lines, and intra-mujahideen disputes were made worse by foreign manipulation. Hekmatyar was one of the major reasons for the break, for
(6/9) although he initially endorsed the Rabbani govt., he then tried to seize power himself. Any chance for national unity evaporated. Instead, faction leaders acted as warlords who waged bloody battles with one another for control. Along the way, many of them committed
(7/9) atrocities against innocent civilians. Thus, while most of the world ignored Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, Afghan civilians continued to suffer from war, displacement, political instability, the destruction of infrastructure, loss, economic deprivation, and all
(8/9) that goes along with the destruction of warfare. It was in this context that the #Taliban began to develop and eventually take over parts of Afghanistan. Mynext thread will discuss the development of the Taliban and their takeover of the Afghan government from 1992-1996.
(9/9) I'll also add an additional thread after that listing some good sources on the 1979-1990s. Stay tuned for more! - KJS @TheGingerProf
Image credits: All from Wikimedia Commons. The last is the famous "Afghan Girl" Time Magazine cover photo from 1984
Image credits: All from Wikimedia Commons. The last is the famous "Afghan Girl" Time Magazine cover photo from 1984
