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As a geographically fragmented state, Afghanistan is separated into as many as 14 ethnic groups that have historically faced divisions that devolved into political violence. This conflict reached its culminating point in the 1990s with the rise of the Taliban.
There are 14 nationally recognized[1]ethnic groups in Afghanistan, includingTajiks,Pashtuns,Hazaras,Uzbeks, and others who make up less than 2% each.[2] The most recent figures on the ethnic affiliations come from a survey conducted by theAsia Foundation in 2014. According to the representative survey, 43% of the population identifies as Pashtun, 27% as Tajik, 15% as Hazara, 8% as Uzbek, 2% asTurkmen, 2% asAimaq, 1% asBaloch, 1% asNuristani, and 1% asPashayi.[3]
Afghanistan's ethnic groups are, for the most part, separated into 4 distinct zones of the country. These zones are referred to asHerat,Kabul,Mazar-i-Sharif, andKandahar. The country's mountainous terrain, rivers, and lack of infrastructure limit communication and travel between these zones which reinforces existing divides between major ethnic groups.[4]
Abdul Rahman Khan was theAmir of Afghanistan between 1880 and 1901. During this time, the historic ethnic majority held by the Pashtuns fluctuated greatly. The number of Pashtuns decreased in 1893 after Rahman ceded Pashtun held areas toBritish India. However, the Pashtun population soon returned to higher numbers when the Emir resettled many of the group into the country's north.[1]
In the 1880s and 1890s, Abdul Rahman Khan fought for the removal ofHazaras from the country, even going so far as to order their murders.[5] During this time, the Hazaras were set apart from Afghanistan's other ethnic groups due to their status asShia rather thanSunni Muslims.[5] As a Sunni Muslim and a member of the Pashtun majority, Abdul Rahman Khan encouraged violence against the Hazaras.[5]
This genocide of the Hazaras was also perpetrated by Pashtun religious leaders. Members of the Pashtun group were told that they would likely be rewarded by Allah if they participated in this violence towards the Hazaras.[6]
During this period of conflict, around 60% of Afghanistan's Hazaras were killed and even more were forced to migrate into surrounding countries.[7]
During this time, the Pashtuns sought the creation of an independentPashtunistan that was separate from Afghanistan. This hypothetical state was intended to exist along theDurand Line, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to unite Pashtuns living in both states.[8] This issue and others saw political groups in Afghanistan increasingly forming along ethnic lines.[1] For example, Pashtun nationalists banded together to formAfghan Millat, a political party that fought for the creation of Pashtunistan.[1]
In 1973,Muhammad Daoud came into power as the president of Afghanistan.[9] Though he is considered to be an authoritarian leader, he declared Afghanistan to be a republic during his rule.[9]
1978 saw the spawning of theSaur Revolution.[1] This period of turmoil involved a coup led by Afghan Army officers loyal to theKhalq faction of thePeople's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) which would take control of the government until and remain in power until 1992.[10] On April 27, 1978, perpetrators of the revolution assassinated Daud and took control of the government.[9]
The coup was orchestrated byHafizullah Amin, who hadMir Akbar Khyber murdered on April 17, 1978.[11] ManyParchamites at the time blamed Daoud while Daoud blamedHezbi Islami Gulbuddin.[9] Most of the PDPA leadership was arrested except Amin who orderedKhalqist officers to launch the Saur Revolution.[12] ThePashtunKhalqist regime would launch mass repression especially against theHazaras executing over 7,000 Hazaras in the span of a couple of months.[13][14] AHazara uprising in Kabul would be brutally suppressed between June and July of 1979 with over 10,000 Hazaras being arrested and executed.[15][16] The Khalqists would also carpet bomb the city ofHerat during aTajik led Islamist uprising backed by the new fundamentalist government in Iran. It is estimated over 25,000 people were killed in the bombing of Herat.[17]
In 1979 under General SecretaryNur Muhammad Taraki theKhalqists regime inAfghanistan changed the official map to includeNWFP andBalochistan as new "frontier provinces" of theDRA.[18] The Khalqist regime also sought to makePashto the sole language of the Afghan government and the lingua franca, they did so by underminingDari.[19] TheAfghan anthem at the time was only in Pashto and not Dari. Up until theoverthrow ofDr Najibullah'sHomeland Partyregime in 1992, Afghan governments had favored Pashto in the media and over 50% of Afghan media was in Pashto.[19] After 1992 with the formation of theTajik ledIslamic State of Afghanistan, this number dropped drastically.[19]
Following the overthrow of theNajibullah Regime many PashtunKhalqists in theAfghan Army allied withHezbi Islami forming their own secular enclaves while nominally loyal to Hezbi Islami in their fight against theTajik ledIslamic State of Afghanistan.[20] ManyKhalqists would join theTaliban movement in the mid-1990s flying Mig-21s and driving T-62 Tanks. The Taliban would begin committing atrocities against their opponents, theHazaras,Tajiks, andUzbeks who would do the same to them.[21] In 1998, the United Nations accused the Taliban of denying emergency food by the UN's World Food Program to 160,000 hungry and starving people (most of whom were Hazaras and Tajiks) "for political and military reasons".[22] The UN stated that the Taliban were starving people for their military agenda and using humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war.[23] The colonization ofPashtuns in the north andPashtun nationalism was a major part of the ideology of theAfghan Communist regime,Monarchy andTaliban.[24][19]
The Northern Alliance was formed in originally as an AntiPashtun alliance against the perceivedPashtun ethnocentricNajibullahregime in 1992, it would be disbanded however it would reform in 1994 to fight the Taliban and was composed of Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbeks.[7][25][19] The group was supported by a number of countries, such as the United States, Iran, Russia, and India.[25] In 1997, the Northern Alliance killed 2,000 members of the Taliban that they had captured in conflicts between the two groups.[7]
On August 8, 1998, the Taliban launched an attack onMazar-i Sharif. Once in control, the Taliban began to kill people based on their ethnicity, especially Hazaras and Uzbeks. Men, women and children were hunted by Taliban forces as a result of the 1500-3000 Taliban fighters executed by the UzbekJunbish-i Milli militia.[26] This act ofethnic cleansing left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 dead.[27][28]
In 2001,Human Rights Watch voiced the fear thatethnic violence in Afghanistan was likely to increase due to the escalation of conflict between factions.[29] Thousands of Pashtun people became refugees as they fled UzbekJunbish-i Milli troops, some of whom were reported as looting, raping and kidnapping. These crimes were said to have occurred when the troops were disarming Pashtuns accused of being former Taliban supporters in northern Afghanistan during the early stages of theWar in Afghanistan (2001–2021) which removed the dominantly Pashtun Taliban from power.[30]
In 2010 Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai set up a panel to investigate continuing ethnic violence as he believes it is hampering the military efforts to contain theTaliban insurgency.[31]
