We went to Kabul with a lot of gloryand pride. . . .[W]e were encouragedthat our country would lead forward, gain strength, and we would stand on ourown two feet.The recent attacks on Kabul have shattered allthe hopes of the Afghan people and caused us tremendous humiliation in theinternational community.

-Hamid Karzai, deputy foreign minister, to the AssociatedPress, August 23, 1992.

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I.Introduction

Afghanistan has suffered from over two decades of war.This is the typical opening of most reports,articles, and speeches written about Afghanistan today.The statement, usually used to help explainthe country's post-Taliban challenges, is repeated so frequently that it hasbecome a clich.Yet few efforts havebeen made to study the history itself and its significance for Afghanistan'scurrent situation.More remarkable,despite the fact the two-decade period was marked by widespread human rightsabuses, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, the statement is rarely followedby suggestions that perpetrators of past crimes, most of whom are still alive,should be brought to justice. Afghanistan'spast is often invoked, but rarely addressed.

This report, which documents only one short part of thattwo-decade past, is not an attempt to remedy the situation.This report is not a comprehensive history ofarmed conflict in Afghanistanover the last two decades or a full accounting of the crimes of thisperiod.Nor could it be.Complete documentation of the most seriousatrocities committed in Afghanistanin the 1980s and 1990s, when it is accomplished, will require broad-based andlong-term efforts backed fully by both the Afghan government and theinternational community.When such ahistory is written, it will not fit within the covers of a book; it will fillbookshelves.

Rather, this report focuses on a single year in Afghanistan's history: the Afghan year of 1371(April 1992 to March 1993), immediately succeeding the collapse of theSoviet-backed government in Kabul. It alsofocuses on events in a single place: Afghanistan'scapital, Kabul,and its immediate environs.

Why Kabul,and why 1371?To start, there is thescale of the abuses and their context.The year 1371 was Afghanistan'sfirst full year of freedom from Soviet manipulation, in the wake of ten yearsof Soviet occupation in the 1980s.Thechange of power in Kabul in 1371 could easilyhave marked a new beginning for Afghanistan.

Instead, it was one of its darkest eras.As this report shows, Kabul in 1371 was the scene of almostconstant armed conflict among hostile Afghan military factions-rival mujahedinforces and defecting army forces who swept into the city after theSoviet-backed government collapsed.During this period, the various factions battled over Kabul and committed countless atrocitiesagainst the Afghan civilian population.Tens of thousands of civilians were killed and injured amidst thefighting. Many if not most of thesecivilian casualties were the result of direct or indiscriminate attacks on thecivilian population and other serious violations of international humanitarianlaw (the laws of war).Militias abductedthousands of civilians during this period; most were never seen again.Much of the city was looted anddestroyed.Most of the destruction thatscars Kabul even today took place during thisperiod and in the years immediately following-before the Taliban marched on Kabul.

The crimes of this period have not received as muchattention as crimes committed during other phases of Afghanistan's wars.The whole history of conflict in Afghanistanfrom the Soviet invasion to the present was marked by atrocities.In the 1980s (Afghan years 1359-68), theSoviet Red Army and its allied Afghan army committed massive war crimes andcrimes against humanity, intentionally targeting civilians and civilian areas forattack, killing prisoners, and torturing and murdering detainees.And in the mid- to late-1990s (Afghan years1375-1380), the Taliban committed numerous war crimes during militaryoperations, and as a governing power operated almost entirely outside ofestablished human rights standards.

Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups havealready documented, in numerous earlier reports, the atrocities of Soviet armedforces and the Afghan client government, and the crimes and repression of theTaliban in the 1990s.In addition, theUnited Nations has compiled an index of war crimes, crimes against humanity,and human rights violations during the entire period from 1978 to 2001,focusing largely on Soviet and Taliban abuses (this report was never publiclyreleased, but was supplied to the Afghan government in January 2005).Abuses from the Soviet and Taliban periodshave also been covered widely in international media.

The early 1990s, however, including the Afghan year 1371,have received relatively little attention. Internationally, this period was overshadowedby other events, including the U.S.presidential campaign between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush in 1992, thebreakup of the Soviet Union, and war in the former Yugoslavia.In the United States, the fall of the Soviet-backed regime in lateApril 1992 was upstaged by violent race riots in Los Angeles, California.

Generally, little information is available today about whathappened in Afghanistanduring 1371.A relatively small numberof Afghan and international journalists covered events during this period, andmedia editors and producers often passed on the stories journalists filed.There were no functioning Afghan newsservices.No international human rightsmonitors were deployed in the country at the time, few humanitarian groups wereoperating, and there was only a modest United Nations presence with no directmandate to report on the human rights situation.This report attempts to fill some of theseinformational gaps.

A second reason for our focus on the early 1990s lies inthis period's specific relevance to the present.Many of the main commanders and politicalfaction leaders implicated in the crimes detailed in this report are nowofficials in the Afghan government-serving in high level positions in thepolice, military, intelligence services, and even as advisors to PresidentHamid Karzai.Others may be activelyseeking such positions.Many Afghans,and Kabulis in particular, believe that these leaders' history of abuse makesthem unsuitable to hold such positions.

We agree.HumanRights Watch has been working in conflict and post-conflict settings in four continentsfor over twenty-five years.We haveobserved the successes and failures of numerous peace-building processes, anddocumented time after time how post-conflict leaders with records of pastabusewith their penchant for resolving political issues through force insteadof law-have continued to commit abuses and allowed lawlessness to persist orreturn.

These lessons are applicable in Afghanistan today.Despite the 2001 Bonn Agreement, whichestablished a government under President Karzai, most parts of Afghanistanare still controlled by autonomous commanders-warlords-who control militiafactions of varying sizes and continue to threaten the country's peace-buildingefforts.Many of these warlords andfactions, named in this report as being implicated in past abuses, have beeninvolved in contemporary human rights abuses in the Kabul area since 2001,including looting of homes, abduction, torture of detainees, rape, andmurder.

Human Rights Watch has documented much of this abuse in pastreports.[1]Many high level officials named in thisreport, and in our past reports, have also been implicated in widespreadland-grabbing schemes in reports by the Afghan Independent Human RightsCommission (AIHRC).

Simply put, many of the warlords involved in abuses in theearly 1990s are repeat offenders.Thispattern of recidivism is common sense to many Kabulis, many of whom haverepeatedly told Human Rights Watch over the last three years: "Jangsalaran jangsalar hastand."("Warlords are [and remain] warlords.")But the lesson seems to be lost on manyAfghan and international officials.

Specific Findings

This report documents numerous serious human rights abuses,war crimes, and crimes against humanity that occurred from April 1992-thecollapse of the government of President Najibullah, the leader once backed bythe Soviet Union-to March 1993.

Section II, following this introduction, provides an historicalbackground to the events of that year.Section III (A) details the capture of Kabul by various anti-Najibullah mujahedinforces in late April 1992, and describes violence in the city from Aprilthrough December of 1992 as these forces began to fight among themselves.The report documents the different abuses committedby each of the factions during this period, including indiscriminate militaryattacks, intentional targeting of civilians, murders and assaults on civilians,abductions, forced labor, and looting of civilian homes.It also discusses allegations that members ofparticular factions raped women as well as girls and boys.

In section III (B), the report documents how fightingintensified in January 1993.Section III(C) describes how that fighting culminated in the February 1993 Afsharcampaign-a military attack by various mujahedin forces against Shi'a mujahedinforces in the west of the city.As thereport shows, in the lead-up to the attack, hundreds of people were killed inindiscriminate or intentional attacks on civilian homes, and thousands morewere displaced.As documented here,militias murdered scores of civilians in front of their homes during theattack.Hundreds more were abducted andnever seen again.

In section IV, we discuss the legal culpability of variousfactions and leaders for their involvement in the documented abuses, includingnumerous commanders who hold positions in Afghanistan's government as of mid-2005.

Section V sets forth detailed recommendations.

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During most of the period discussed in this report, thesovereignty of Afghanistanwas vested formally in "The Islamic State of Afghanistan," an entity created inApril 1992, after the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government.This government was headed from April to June1992 by Sibghatullah Mujaddidi, a relatively weak political leader from a smallmujahedin party in Peshawar, chosen to be president as a compromise by most(but not all) of the parties named above.For the remaining period covered in this report, and until the Talibanentered Kabulin 1996, the presidency was held by Burhanuddin Rabbani, the political leaderof Jamiat.

With the exception of Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, all of theparties listed above were ostensibly unified under this government in April1992 (but as described below, Wahdat later changed sides, in late 1992, andallied with Hezb-e Islami).Themilitary, police, and intelligence forces loosely organized under thisgovernment were, at least at the beginning of the period covered in thisreport, comprised mostly of Jamiat and Junbish troops, although these militiasalso allied with soldiers from the Ittihad, Wahdat, and Harakat factions.Commanders and officials from the Jamiat,Junbish, and Ittihad parties often met at the office of the president andMinistry of Defense to coordinate.

Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, for its part, refused torecognize the government for most of the period discussed in this report andlaunched attacks against government forces and Kabulgenerally. (Mazari's Wahdat forcesjoined in these efforts in late 1992.)

As shown in this report, each of these forces in 1992-1993had hierarchical military structures with a chief commander, sub-commanders atvarious levels, and soldiers.[2]These hierarchies made it possible forfactional leaders and commanders to have effective control over subordinates,and leaders and commanders could order troops to act, and not to act, andensure that troops would obey.Thesehierarchies were not always transparent or consistent-and complicated ethnic,tribal, and family relations made the command structures fluid.But the groups were organized, and commandersin many respects did control troops.Manyof the atrocities and abuses documented in this report were avoidable, notunstoppable.Some abuses, as shownbelow, may have been directly ordered by commanders.

For more information on the make-up and characteristics ofthe factions listed above, see Appendix A.

The Value of Justice

Everyone has blood ontheir hands.This is anotheroft-repeated phrase about Afghanistan.For many Afghans, it is an indictment: adenunciation of the warlords in Afghanistan'scurrent government with past records of abuse and war crimes.Many if not most Afghans hated the crueltyand viciousness of Taliban rule.ButAfghans also remember the period before their rule, when many of Afghanistan's current military and politicalleadership were in Kabul,serving as factional commanders or officials in the erstwhile government.They remember how the factions looted andfought bloody street battles throughout Kabul,typically with total disregard to their effect on the civilian population.And they also remember the Soviet period,with its terrible crimes.

However, for many Afghan and international officials,Everyone has blood on their hands is anexcuse: a justification for inaction in holding some of the world's mostserious human rights offenders accountable for their crimes."No one has clean hands," officials sometimesay, referring to Afghanistan'spotential leaders, a statement that disregards the millions of Afghans insideand outside the country who never took part in Afghanistan's hostilities.

There are literally millions of Afghans without "blood ontheir hands."And many of them would beeligible to serve as officials in Afghanistan's government, or runfor office.Some have, and have servedwith distinction.Yet many qualifiedAfghans are today afraid of taking part in governance, fearful of more powerfulmilitia leaders whose hands, they say in Dari, "be khoon agheshteh hast"-are indeed stained with blood.

The truth is that most Afghans want these factionalcommanders and officials involved in this fighting to be held accountable forthe crimes committed during this period-along with those involved in Soviet-eraand Taliban-era abuses.The AfghanIndependent Human Rights Commission completed a survey in 2004, based onin-depth interviews and focus groups with thousands of Afghans across thecountry, focusing on citizens' views on past crimes and what to do aboutaddressing them.The findings made itclear that the vast majority of Afghans want the crimes of the past to beconfronted.This is not surprising,given the extent to which the Afghan population has been affected byconflict.As the commission noted in thereport:

The atrocities that were committed in Afghanistan are of an enormousscale, and the sense of victimization among the people we spoke to iswidespread and profound. Almost everyone had been touched by violence in someway.When we asked 4,151 respondents aspart of the survey whether they had been personally affected by violationsduring the conflict, 69 percent identified themselves or their immediate familiesas direct victims of a serious human rights violation during the 23-yearperiod.Out of over 2,000 focus groupparticipants, over 500 referred to killings among their relatives.Almost 400 had experienced torture ordetention either themselves or in their immediate family.These are staggering statistics, incomparison to any other conflict in the world.[3]

According to the AIHRC survey results, 94 percent of Afghansconsider justice for past crimes to be either "very important" (75.9 percent)or "important" (18.5 percent).Whenasked what the effects would be for Afghanistan in bringing warcriminals to justice, 76 percent said it would "increase stability and bringsecurity," and only 7.6 percent said it would "decrease stability and threatensecurity."Almost half of those questionedsaid war criminals should be brought to justice "now," and another 25 percentsaid perpetrators should be tried "within two years."[4]

Human Rights Watch, along with numerous other internationaland Afghan non-governmental organizations, has repeatedly called on Afghanofficials and international actors involved in Afghanistan to help organizeindependent and impartial mechanisms to hold accountable persons responsiblefor war crimes and serious human rights abuses committed since 1978, and wefully agree with the AIHRC on the need for this issue to receive moreattention.

The AIHRC has also made a number of recommendations formoving forward, including short-term and immediate measures for sidelining pastabusers from government service ("vetting"), building up the capacity forcriminal trials, and exploring options for reparations and compensation forvictims.

Human Rights Watch in general supports the AIHRC'srecommendations (see section V, below), especially on the need for vettinggovernment officials and rebuilding the judicial system to allow for fairtrials of those implicated in serious international crimes.

In short, we agree with the majority of Afghans-and theAIHRC-that justice for past crimes in Afghanistan is important, and thatongoing impunity is damaging efforts to develop Afghanistan and reestablish therule of law.

Continued impunity is an affront not only to the victims ofpast abuse, but to all Afghans, and a stumbling block on the road to Afghanistan'speaceful future.The purpose of thisreport, among other things, is to help pressure the Afghan government andinternational community to take action to address this impunity, so thatAfghans get what they want: justice.

As an immediate first step, we recommend that the governmentimplement a set of vetting processes for government officials.We also recommend that immediate efforts betaken to accelerate judicial reform.Wefurther recommend that the government work to create a Special Court to try past offenders, andthat the court be comprised of both Afghan and international judges, with aninternational majority, and that the prosecutor's office be led by aninternational prosecutor.

A complete recommendations section appears on page 125.

Methodology of thisreport

This report is based on over 150 in-depth interviews withwitnesses and victims of abuses in 1992-1993 and faction members and officialsfamiliar with events at the time.Thoseinterviewed include civilians in Kabul during the fighting, Afghan andinternational print, radio, and television journalists who ventured throughKabul during the hostilities, health workers at Kabul's hospitals, governmentand factional officials and troops, among others.Human Rights Watch has also interviewedmilitary experts and analysts familiar with mujahedin groups and the weaponssystems and military tactics these groups used in 1992-1993.

In most cases, Afghan and international sources interviewedby Human Rights Watch voiced serious concern about their ongoing security, giventhe sensitivity of the issues and the continuing power of some of the personsimplicated in the abuses discussed.Forthese reasons, most sources are identified by initials (e.g., "G.H.K.") whichare not associated with their actual name.

The use of ethnic group identifications in this report doesnot constitute endorsement or approval of the use of ethnically baseddistinctions in identifying Afghan citizens.Many Afghans share more than one ethnic ancestry or areintermarried.Still, most Afghans identifythemselves as belonging to a single particular ethnic group-usually theirfathers'.Except where otherwise stated,all references to Afghans' ethnic identities (for instance, Tajik, Pashtun,Uzbek, Hazara) and religious identities (Sunni and Shi'a) are based oninterviewees' own identifications.

II. Historical Background

Before it allstarted, the city was very much intact.It was surprising to me that it was so intact.Afterwards, of course, it was all destroyed.

-Jeremy Bowen, correspondent with the BritishBroadcasting Corporation (BBC), discussing fighting in Kabul between mujahedin factions after thefall of the Soviet-backed government in 1992.[5]

The history of modern armed conflict in Afghanistan began in April 1978, whenSoviet-backed Afghan communists took control of the government in a coup,overthrowing the president of Afghanistan,MuhammadDaoud Khan, the cousinof Afghanistan's formerking, Zahir Shah, who was earlier overthrown in a bloodless coup by Daoud in1973.[6]

The "Saur Revolution" (named forthe Afghan calendar month when it occurred) went badly from the start.The communists who seized power in Kabul consisted of twoopposed political parties-Khalq and Parcham.[7]Each had little popular support, especiallyoutside of Kabuland other main cities, and many segments of the country's army and policeopposed the coup.

The new government soon came to bedominated by a ruthless Khalq leader, Hafizullah Amin, who sought to create acommunist economy in Afghanistanvirtually overnight through purges, arrests, and terror.An insurgency was launched against the newregime, and in 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to support the failingrevolution and government, and installed a new leader from the Parcham party,Babrak Karmal.

But it was too late to put down the insurgency, which wasalready well-advanced and widespread.The rebels included former officers and troops of the Afghan military,members of exiled Islamist groups in Pakistanand Iran,and militias of numerous other disgruntled political groups.Loosely allied under a common theme-defendersof Islamic and Afghan values against Soviet occupation and ideology-thesediverse parties enjoyed widespread support within and outside Afghanistan.They came to be known as "the mujahedin" andtheir battle as "the jihad."

There was never any real unity between the mujahedinparties: some were openly hostile and occasionally fought battles with eachother.But for most of the 1980s, the mujahedingroups-with the indispensable support of the United States, as well as theUnited Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, and Pakistan-fought an effective andoften brutal guerrilla war against Soviet and Afghan national forces, attackingconvoys, patrols, arms depots, government offices, airfields, and even civilianareas.The Soviet and Afghan nationalarmies, for their part, regularly attacked or bombed mujahedin bases andvillages, and harshly suppressed mujahedin organization and otheranti-government activities.Much of thecountryside became a battle zone in the 1980s.

The war had terrible effects on civilian life in Afghanistan.Both sides regularly committed serious humanrights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law. The Sovietsoften targeted civilians or civilian infrastructure for military attack, andgovernment forces under their control brutally suppressed the civilianpopulation.Mujahedin forces alsocommitted abuses and violations, targeting civilians for attack and usingillegal methods of warfare.[8]It is estimated that well over one millionpeople were killed by conflict and violence during the Soviet occupation andover seven million people were displaced from their homes.[9]

Militarily and financially exhausted, and spurred on byperestroika, the Soviet Union finally withdrew from Afghanistan in1989. It continued to support the Kabulgovernment, which was now headed by Najibullah, a former head of Afghanistan'sSoviet-trained intelligence service, KHAD.[10]

The Afghan nation, however, had been shattered by communistrule and Soviet occupation.By 1989approximately one-fifth of its population had fled abroad and much of Afghanistan'srural infrastructure was destroyed.Thecohesion of the Afghan nation and concepts of national identity were severelycompromised, and there were deep social, ethnic, religious, and politicaldivisions within and between the existing regime and mujahedin parties.

The conflict also filled the country with weapons.Afghanistan was not particularlymilitarized in the late 1970s, when the communist coup took place.The mujahedin in 1979 were severelyunder-equipped to fight a standing Soviet army, and the communist Afghangovernment was severely disorganized and poorly outfitted.All that changed.In the 1980's, the United States and SaudiArabia, and to a lesser extent Iran and China, allocated an estimated $6 to $12billion dollars (U.S.) in military aid to mujahedin groups, while the SovietUnion sent approximately $36 to $48 billion of military aid into the country tosupport the government.[11](Pakistan, where some of the mujahedinparties set up exile headquarters, arranged large military training programsfor the mujahedin and controlled how much of the Saudi and U.S. assistance was delivered.)During the 1980's, Afghanistanlikely received more light weapons than any other country in the world, and by1992 it was estimated that there were more light weapons in Afghanistan than in Indiaand Pakistancombined.[12]

Despite the Soviet withdrawal, through 1989-1991 battlesbetween mujahedin and government forces continued.The mujahedin parties made few attempts atcompromise, and Najibullah stubbornly refused to step down as his powereroded.The mujahedin-deeply dividedwith historical rivalries and religious, ethnic, and linguisticdifferences-also increasingly began to fight among themselves as they took moreterritory from the government.The U.S. government began to turn its attention awayfrom Afghanistan, even asit, along with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, continued to arm mujahedinforces.The Soviet Union continued its support for Najibullah.There were few international efforts tomediate to prevent the increasing fragmentation of armed groups in Afghanistan.Peacemaking efforts were mostly put in thehands of the U.N. Secretary-General's office, which lacked the political cloutto force the parties to compromise.Thewar-increasingly a multi-party civil war-went on.

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A Soviet soldier in a military parade in Kabul marking the start of the pullout of Soviet forcesfrom Afghanistanin 1988. 1988 Robert Nickelsberg

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President Najibullah, the last Soviet-backed leader of Afghanistan.Formerly the head of Afghanistan'sSoviet-trained intelligence agency, KHAD, Najibullah retained power for four yearsafter the Soviet withdrawal. He agreed to resign in March 1992, threemonths after the Soviet Union cut offassistance to his government. He was killed by the Taliban in 1996. 1990 Robert Nickelsberg

The disunity among the mujahedin-a key obstacle to peace-makingefforts-was aggravated throughout this period by the continuing policy of theUnited States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia to give a disproportionate amount ofmilitary assistance to one particular mujahedin party: the Hezb-e Islami ofGulbuddin Hekmatyar.[13]Through the 1980's, Hekmatyar received themajority of assistance from these countries, and in 1991, the CIA (withPakistani support) was still channeling most U.S. assistance throughHekmatyar-including large shipments of Soviet weapons and tanks the UnitedStates captured in Iraq during the first Gulf War (weapons used by Hekmatyarlater to attack Kabul in 1992-1996).[14]Unity among the different mujahedin groupswas made especially difficult because of Hekmatyar's constant demands for adisproportionate share of power in a post-Najibullah government, and theresentment and hatred toward Hekmatyar in other parties, who believed they hadfought against Soviet forces just as decisively as Hezb-e Islami (if not more)and with less assistance.[15]As the Soviet Union collapsed, there wereincreasing signs that the war it started in Afghanistan would last for a longtime, even as the regime it supported collapsed.

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In September 1991, the Soviet Union and the United Statesagreed to a reciprocal cut-off in funding and assistance to Najibullah'sgovernment and mujahedin forces respectively, starting January 1, 1992.At this point, it was clear to all partiesthat the government's days were numbered.Whole sections of Afghanistan,including areas on the Pakistanborder, were already in the hands of mujahedin factions, and without Sovietsupport the Najibullah government's grip on Kabul was loosening.[16]

Mujahedin leaders, however, were still in disagreement abouta post-Najibullah power-sharing plan.Through the spring of 1992, the United Nations, along with Saudi andPakistani officials, worked with major Sunni and Shi'a parties to fashion anagreement.

On March 18, 1992, under strong pressure from the United States and Pakistan (via the United Nations),Najibullah agreed to resign as head of state as soon as a transitionalauthority was formed.He appeared onAfghan television to make the announcement.[17]The next day, the government's main militaryleader in the north, General Rashid Dostum, defected from the government andagreed to form a coalition force with commanders from the Wahdat and Jamiatforces.This unified force then tookcontrol of the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif and surrounding areas.[18]With the border of Pakistanalready held by other mujahedin forces, Kabulwas now effectively surrounded.

As the Afghan New Year of 1371 began at the springequinox-March 21, 1992-it was clear that the communist era was over in Afghanistan,but it was unclear whether 1371 would be peaceful.The government in Kabul stood, as the U.N. continued to try towork out a post-Najibullah power sharing plan.

On April 10, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghalipresented a plan to the mujahedin parties, which they in turn approved, to forma "pre-transition council composed of impartial personalities" to accept formalsovereignty from Najibullah and then convene ashura (traditional Afghan council) in Kabul to choose an interimgovernment.[19]The plan was for the U.N. to fly thecouncil-mostly elder exiled community and tribal leaders-into Kabul the night of April 15 and then flyNajibullah out of the country to exile.Mujahedin parties would remain outside the city throughout.

On the ground, however, events were already in flux.Massoud's forces seized control of the Bagramairbase north of Kabul and much of the Shomali plain north of the capital,along with forces working for Dostum, who had now formed a newpolitical-military party: Junbish-e Melli-ye Islami (the National IslamicMovement).Both forces were literallyjust outside Kabul.Hekmatyar, meanwhile, had moved Hezb-e Islamiforces just to the south of the city.

Government forces en masse were beginning to defect to thedifferent mujahedin parties, offering assistance to each of the partiesentering Kabul.Hekmatyar and Massoud had each worked tocultivate defectors among government security forces, and Dostum, as a former governmentofficial, already had links to officials in Kabul.

The dynamics of these defections were heavily influenced byethnic identity.Most Pashtun officialsand police officers in the interior ministry (mostly from the Khalq faction)now sought to build alliances with Hekmatyar, while Tajik officers in themilitary and government (mostly Parcham) were defecting to Massoud.Turkmen and Uzbek officials were siding with Dostum.

On April 15, as Najibullah prepared to resign, some mujahedinparties balked at the U.N. arrangement, undermining the agreement.That night, the chief U.N. mediator, BenonSevan, flew alone to Kabulto pick up Najibullah.But asNajibullah approached the airport, his car was blocked by militia forces.Najibullah backtracked into the city and tookrefuge in the Kabul U.N. compound (where he was to remain for the next fouryears, until the Taliban took control and killed him).[20]Sevan flew back to Pakistan to continuenegotiations.Meanwhile, Pashtungovernment officials in the interior and defense ministries were starting toallow forces from Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami party into the city, to prepare forhis entrance into the city.Massoud andDostum remained north of the city while mujahedin representatives continued towork on a power-sharing agreement in Peshawar.

On April 24, as Hekmatyar was about to seize control of thecity, Massoud and Dostum's forces entered Kabul,taking control of most government ministries.Jamiat and Junbish attackedHezb-e Islami forces occupying the interior ministry and Presidential Palace,pushing Hezb-e Islami south and out of the city.There was shelling and street-to-streetfighting through April 25 and 26.

On April 26, the mujahedin leaders still in Pakistanannounced a new power-sharing agreement, the Peshawar Accords.The agreement provided for SibghatullahMujaddidi, a relatively independent religious leader with a small politicalparty, to become acting president of Afghanistan for two months,followed by Jamiat's political leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, for another fourmonths.After Rabbani's term, a shurawas to choose an interim government to rule the country for eighteen moremonths, after which elections would be held.According to the agreement, Massoud was to act as Afghanistan's interim minister ofdefense.Hekmatyar was entirelysidelined from the government.

By April 27, Hekmatyar's main forces had been pushed to thesouth of Kabul,but remained within artillery range.Thecity was breached, however, and all the mujahedin parties, including Ittihad,Wahdat, and Harakat, now entered the city.Thousands of former government soldiers and police now switched theirallegiances to the militias or to the Massoud-led forces in Mujaddidi's newgovernment.Others just deserted.Some of the Pashtun officials who had earliersided with Hezb-e Islami now left Kabuland allied with Hekmatyar to the south; some others joined the predominatelyPashtun Ittihad party.[21]Kabulhad suffered a few days of fighting, but was generally intact.The Soviet-backed government had fallen, withminimal damage to the city.

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Jamiat commander Ahmed ShahMassoud on April 18, 1992, speaking to commanders on a field telephone justnorth of Kabul,soon after meeting with Junbish commander General Rashid Dostum. Jamiatand Junbish forces moved into Kabulsix days later, while Hezb-e Islami forces entered the city from thesouth.

1992 Robert Nickelsberg

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Defecting soldiers from the Soviet-backed government greet Jamiatmujahedin on the Jalalabad road, east of Kabul,April 25, 1992. After Najibullah's resignation, government forces put upno resistance to the mujahedin and Kabulwas captured without fighting. The subsequent violence within the citywas primarily due to rivalries among mujahedin factions. 1992 RobertNickelsberg

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Junbish troops in a street battle with Hezb-e Islamiforces in eastern Kabul,April 25, 1992.

1992 Robert Nickelsberg

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Junbish troops carrying rocketpropelled grenades, south Kabul,April 25, 1992. 1992 Robert Nickelsberg

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A civilian, wounded in crossfire between Junbish andHezb-e Islami troops, south Kabul,April 27, 1992.

1992 Robert Nickelsberg

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A boy wounded during street battles in Kabul in May 1992, treated at the Karte Seh hospital inwest Kabul, May1992. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed or injured in fightingin Kabul in1992-1993. 1992 Robert Nickelsberg

III. TheBattle for Kabul:April 1992-March 1993

[Washington Post, May 3, 1992]Kabul today is anything but a city basking intriumph. . . .[R]ockets and shellscontinue to crash into residential neighborhoods, fired by the forces offundamentalist guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. . . .Hundreds of civilians lie in hospitalslacking electricity, water, and basic sterilization equipment.More arrive each day. . . .Heavily armed, ethnically divided guerrillasand militiamen prowl the city streets, defending patchwork blocks from theirrivals, speaking in heated tones about their various enemies and sometimeslooting homes and shops. . . .[22]

The small measure of calm restored after Hekmatyar's retreatto the south was not to last.Many ofthe factions still in the city were openly hostile to one another, andHekmatyar still wanted a major share of power in the new government.

After peace talks between Massoud and Hekmatyar on May 25, thegovernment initially agreed to name Hekmatyar as prime minister, but theagreement collapsed in less than a week, when President Mujaddidi's plane cameunder rocket fire as he returned from a trip to Islamabad on May 29.Mujaddidi claimed that both Hekmatyar'sforces and former agents from the Najibullah government had conducted theattack, and that Hekmatyar had earlier threated to shoot down his plane.[23]Meanwhile, Hekmatyar continued to demand thatDostum's Uzbek militias leave Kabul(which might then allow him to seize the city and expel Massoud's forces).[24]By May 30, Jamiat and Junbish forces wereagain fighting with Hetmatyar's forces in the south of the city.Hekmatyar began shelling and rocketing Kabul in early June, hittingall areas of the city, and Junbish and Jamiat forces shelled areas to the southof the city.Meanwhile, Sunni Ittihadand Shi'a Wahdat factions in Kabul beganfighting with one another in west Kabul.

As shown in sections below, the fighting between Jamiat andHezb-e Islami, along with the clashes between Ittihad and Wahdat and laterconflicts between Wahdat and Jamiat, led to tens of thousands civilian deathsand injuries, and caused hundreds of thousands to flee Kabul for saferareas.

A:April December 1992

Ethnic fighting in West Kabul and the Hezb-e Islamiattacks onKabul

This section describes inter-factional hostilities in WestKabul and rocket and artillery attacks on Kabulby Hezb-e Islami forces to the south of the city.The section concludes with a sectiondiscussing the violations of international humanitarian law and human rightslaw which took place during these hostilities.

Wahdat, Ittihad and Jamiat inWest Kabul

In May 1992, mere days after Hekmatyar was first driven fromKabul, the predominately Sunni-Pashtun Ittihad forces (under Abdul Rabbal-Rasul Sayyaf) and the predominately Shi'a-Hazara Wahdat forces (under AbdulAli Mazari) began skirmishing in west Kabul, shooting rockets at each other andengaging in street battles.Each soughtto dislodge the other from various neighborhoods or government buildings whicheach force occupied.

The battles, taking place in the midst of a dense civiliansetting, predictably caused high numbers of casualties and lead to widespreaddestruction of civilian homes and infrastructure.The battles also became increasinglymeaningless as the buildings each side occupied in the areas in disputedisintegrated into rubble.Much of west Kabul remains in ruins asof mid-2005, mostly because of fighting in 1992-1996.

There is no single explanation of which side started thefighting between Ittihad and Wahdat.Some observers believe the first problems arose over a relativelymundane issue: posters.Ittihad andWahdat forces were reportedly tearing down posters of each other'sleaders-Mazari and Sayyaf-which in turn led to arguments between the two side'stroops, in turn leading to conflict between the forces.

A high-level Afghan military officer, General Mohammed NabiAzimi, who served as a Soviet-era general and was cooperating at the time withthe new government to create a national army, recounted in his 1998 memoirs thebeginning of the fighting between Wahdat and Ittihad forces:

The first battle between Hazaras and Ittihad-e Islamibegan on 31 May 1992. First, four members of Hezb-e Wahdat's leadership wereassassinated in the area near the Kabul Silo-Karimi, Sayyid Isma'il Hosseini,Chaman Ali Abuzar, and Vaseegh-of whom the first three were members of thecentral committee of the party.Shura-eNazar [i.e., government officials] informed Hezb-e Wahdat that Sayyaf's men hadassassinated them.Next, the car of HajiShir Alam [a top Ittihad commander] was stopped by Hezb-e Wahdat near the Pol-eSorkh area, and after releasing him, there was firing at the car which killedone of the passengers.[25]

Regardless of the proximate causes of the first clashes, thefact that conflict arose between Ittihad and Wahdat forces was notsuprising.There was high tensionbetween Wahdat, who were predominately Shi'a Muslims, and the Sunni Ittihadfaction, whose members follow an ultra-conservative Islamic creed, Wahabbism,which views Shi'ism as heretical.Agreat deal of tension was also caused by the influence of foreign combatants andforeign military advisors and intelligence agents from Iran and possibly SaudiArabia, who were working with some of the factions-Iranians with Wahdat andSaudis with Ittihad.Numerous Iranianagents were assisting Wahdat forces, as Iran was attempting to maximizeWahdat's military power and influence in the new government.Saudi agents of some sort, private orgovernmental, were trying to strengthen Sayyaf and his Ittihad faction to thesame end.

Rare ceasefires, usually negotiated by Jamiat commanders,representatives of Mujaddidi or Rabbani, or officials from the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commonly collapsed within days.Compounding the problem, some of the otherparties in Kabulperiodically joined the fighting at various times, serving to intensify theconflict. Harakat forces sometimesjoined the fight with Wahdat against Ittihad.After Wahdat attacked Jamiat positions in July 1992, and hit civilianareas around them, Massoud's troops launched retaliatory artillery attacks onwest Kabul(which likewise killed numerous civilians).[26]

Human Rights Watch interviewed scores of witnesses andvictims of the fighting in west Kabul in 1992who described the violence and its effect on the civilian population.

S.K., a health worker in a hospital in west Kabul,described the horror of everyday life after fighting started in Kohte-e Sangi,a neighborhood in the west:

What can I say?What I saw in those days I can never forget.Hundreds of people were wounded when theyfought-every time they fought.Thehospital would be full of patients, overwhelmed; we couldn't treat everyone whowas brought there.People were dying inthe halls.People would not gettreatment.There were dead bodieseverywhere, and blood.When the fightingwas very bad, and we couldn't transport anyone anywhere, there would be deadbodies in the hospital for weeks at a time. . . .Whenever the journalists came, they would askthe same questions: "How many rockets hit?How many were killed?How manywere injured?"That's all they wereinterested in. . . .

I saw dead bodies in the streets, and everywhere, allaround west Kabul.In the hospital there were so many deadbodies, and because of the fighting, people could not come to take away thebodies.[27]

S.K. said that hospitals in west Kabul were repeatedly hit during the fightingbetween Ittihad/Jamiat and Wahdat."Onetime, the children's ward at the hospital was hit, and twice the operatingtheatre.Patients were killed, andstaff."[28]

A Kabul resident told HumanRights Watch about terrible scenes he encountered in west Kabul early in the summer of 1992:

My wife was delivering our first child.Because I was poor, we were in our home, wecould not leave to go anywhere [i.e. to a hospital].So my wife told me to bring her sister, tohelp.So I went to west Kabul, to Qargha [on theborder of Paghman district], to get her. . . .[T]he fighting had started while I was there.So we took the road up through Afshar.So we were going on the road, mysister-in-law on the bicycle behind me.

From Qargha to Afshar, on the road, I saw manycorpses-seventeen, eighteen, I don't know-all civilians.They were commuters, people riding on theroad [i.e., on bicycles], not fighters.Their bodies were swollen up.Also, I saw combatants, Hazaras, tied to trees, shot dead.I saw four fighters like this.My sister-in-law, of course, was very upset,and she started vomiting, so I had to stop.She was vomiting, and could not go on.Till this day, she does not eat meat. . . .So we turned back.We went back to Qargha, and then we went onanother road. . . .When I got to myhome, my wife had delivered my first child, and my first child was dead.To bury him was very difficult, with so muchfighting going on, it was very difficult.[29]

An Afghan journalist who worked regularly in west Kabul through 1992described how the fighting typically took place:

They were constantly shelling the civilian areas of west Kabul, and Afshar. . ..Shura-e Nazar would sometimes attackthem from the zoo, and the silo [a grain warehouse in west Kabul].Sayyaf's forces would attack from the west:Dasht-e Barchi [to the southwest] and Kohte-e Sangi [central west Kabul].West Kabulwas destroyed by the fighting between Ittihad and Wahdat, and by the artilleryand rockets fired by Shura-e Nazar off of Television Mountain and Mamorine [thetwo peaks in the center of Kabul city]. . . .I went to a lot of places where the rockets and shells would fall.I saw many bodies, terrible sights.[30]

The first week of June1992 was particularly bad, as Hekmatyar's forces were also launching artilleryattacks on the city from the south.[31](Formore on Hekmatyar's shelling of the city, see the following section).Jamilurrahman Kamgar, a resident of Kabul wholater published his contemporaneous chronicle of events in this period, wroteof heavy clashes between Wahdat and Ittihad forces, including attacks on agovernment mediator attempting to stop the fighting (June 2); the abduction ofdozens of civilians by Hazara and Ittihad forces (June 3); hundreds of injuriesand deaths, the Red Cross hospital filled to capacity, and hundreds of familiesforced to leave destroyed houses (June 5).[32]

Sharon Herbaugh,a correspondent with Associated Press who died in a helicopter crash north of Kabul in 1993, filed adispatch on June 5:

[Friday, June 5, 1992] -- [A]ttacks continued, and moreshops, schools and homes were destroyed in the ravaged capital.At least 20 more people were killed and 100others injured. . . .Rival forcespounded each other with rockets and mortars, destroying entire blocks of shopsand houses, and knocking down power lines.In downtown Kabul,rockets slammed into three empty schools, killing four passers-by and settingfires.Missiles also fell on a house innorthern Kabul,killing a family of six, witnesses said.Unidentified gunmen raked a row of shops near the Kabul zoo, killing or injuring 10 people,witnesses said. . . .Residents inpredominantly Shiite neighborhoods also accused Sunni rebels of looting shopsand houses, killing prisoners, gouging out the eyes of wounded guerrillas andburning dead bodies.[33]

A journalist from Agence France-Presse saw hundreds ofcivilians fleeing from the west the same week, and witnessed some being shot byrandom gunfire and wounded children being carted to hospitals in wheelbarrows.[34]

One civilian who lived near the large grain silo in westKabul described fighting between Wahdat and Ittihad that he believes took placein June 1992, right after a brief ceasefire:

People were really hoping [the ceasefire] would last:they were moving about, doing things that they hadn't been able to do untilthen. . . .It was around nine o' clockin the morning.

Suddenly, there was an explosion and a lot of firing ofweapons.Everything was bullets, it wasvery severe.Everyone was rushing toflee from the violence.Husbands forgotwives, brothers forgot sisters, mothers forgot children, uncles forgotnephews-everyone was running away, and could only think of safety. . . .People were fleeing into our neighborhoodbecause it was controlled by Shura-e Nazar.Wahdat was attacking from the south side of Kohte-e Sangi [a trafficroundabout south of the silo], and Sayyaf's forces were in Khushal Khan [to thewest of the silo].Both sides wanted to seizethe property in that area: they wanted to use the places there to establishmilitary positions.Both sides marchedinto the civilian areas and took up positions in people's houses.They were shooting at each other withrockets, guns, all sorts of weapons.

My house was where Shura-e Nazar had a checkpoint.I could see the women and men rushing awayfrom the fighting, running down the street towards us.At the same time, some of the bullets, orshrapnel from the explosions, was hitting people.So men and women were falling down into thestreet.They would be running, and thenthe bullets would hit them, and they would fall down.The other people just kept running, and werenot bothering to save those who fell.They were all rushing to save themselves.It was a terrible day. . . .

They were shooting everywhere.Everything was being hit: civilians,anything.Sayyaf's forces were shootingoff their guns and rockets, they were flying into the side of Mamorine mountain[behind the silo], where there are houses and where the civilians were fleeingto, behind the silo.Rockets were goingeverywhere.The fighting lasted untildark.Sayyaf's troops came up into ourneighborhood.We could see the Kandaharipeople [Pashtuns from Kandaharcity] among Sayyaf's troops.[35]

A journalist in Kabuldocumented severe attacks on Hazara households by Ittihad troops on the nightof June 4, 1992, interviewing residents who reported that Ittihad troops hadattacked and looted homes in Kohte-e Sangi, and killed six civilians."The guerrillas were going from house tohouse, saying they wanted to kill all the Shi'as," one frightened resident toldthe journalist.[36]

Fighting continued through the month and into thesummer.Jamhuriat hospital, near theInterior Ministry, had all its windows blown out and closed around June24.Journalists who visited the hospitallater in the week saw "a scene of utter despair"-no doctors or nurses, surgerypatients lying in their own excrement and urine.[37]

Rocketing and shelling by Hezb-e Islami

West Kabul was not the onlydanger zone in the city.As Ittihad andWahdat fought in the west, with occasional flare-ups involving Jamiat,Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami forces to the south continued to launch attacks onthe city with rockets and artillery-attacks which were often aimed at the cityas a whole, and not directed at specific military targets.Cumulatively, these were the most deadlyattacks of the period.

President Mujaddidi handed over formal power to Rabbani atthe end of June-as provided for in the Peshawar Accords-although Rabbani andMassoud's forces already controlled most security apparatuses and ministries inthe capital.Hekmatyar continued torefuse to join the government.Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami forces increased their rocket and shellattacks on the city.Shells and rocketsfell everywhere.

Conditions were such that anyone in Kabul could be killed at any time, almostanywhere: rockets and shells would hit homes, offices, bus stations, schools,or markets.[38]Kabulresidents were often able to tell Human Rights Watch about rocket and artilleryattacks they say they knew were launched by Hekmatyar's forces, since theycould often see rockets streaking in from the southwest, from areas underHezb-e Islami control, or hear artillery being fired from the same area.

Click to expand Image

President Sibghatullah Mujaddidi's damaged airplane sitting on the tarmacat Kabulairport, May 29, 1992. The airplane, which had ferried Mujaddidi backfrom Islamabad, came under rocket attack whileapproaching Kabulairport. During the attack, the airplane's nosecone was sheared off andthe co-pilot suffered shrapnel wounds, but the pilot managed to landsafely. Mujaddidi, who was unharmed, blamed the attack on both Hekmatyarand agents of the former communist government. Jamiat and Junbish forcesattacked Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami forces in the south of Kabul the next day. 1992 Ed Grazda

One resident described to Human Rights Watch a rocket attackin the summer of 1992:

Hekmatyar would rocket civilian areas all the time.One time, in the summer of 1992, I wasstanding behind the ministry of education, in Da Afghan Nan.I was waiting for a bus.A poor old man had a little cart and wasselling chocolate and peanuts and almonds.The bus came, and it moved past me, so I moved down the block to get onthe bus.I was getting on the bus, andsuddenly, a rocket hit, where I had been.That man disappeared completely.No one found even one piece of his flesh.He completely disappeared.I think that 20 other people died there, andmany more were wounded.[39]

A woman in west Kabuldescribed indiscriminate shelling in the west of Kabul in June 1992. She believes the attacks were by Hekmatyar'sforces south of Kabul,since she heard artillery firing to the south during the attack:

It was about 4 p.m., and I was baking some bread outside,over a fire.Suddenly, there was a bigexplosion.I took cover, on theground.Then, there was anotherexplosion.I got up and I could see thiswoman here [pointing to a neighbor who is crying], and she was just runningabout.[The women asked her neighbor totell her story for her, and nodded throughout.]Her son had been sitting near this wall outside, where the artillerylanded, and he was completely blown up.This woman here was running about, collecting pieces of [his] flesh inher apron, and crying.Her son's namewas Sakhi.He was completely blown up,disappeared.Her grandson, Mukhtar, wasalso killed in the same explosion.[40]

A middle-aged man described a rocket attack that occurredaround the same time, when Hekmatyar was firing rockets and artillery regularlyinto the city:

We were in Micrayon 3 [in the east of the city,controlled by Jamiat and Junbish forces], it was about three o' clock in theafternoon.I was near this man's house,Alaz.We were in his yard, by atree.He had some tomato plants, therewere some good tomatoes, and I was asking him how much they cost.Suddenly there was a missile, and it hit theland, about 40 meters away.I dove to theground.After a minute, I saw Alaz.He was bleeding.He was still alive.I asked him, I said, "Let's go to thehospital!"But he said: "No, there's notime.I am about to die."I held him, and then I carried him-he wasbleeding from the side, the left side.My clothes were soaked with blood.The family came and gathered, they were screaming and crying.After about ten minutes, he died.This was in Block 19, in Micrayon.[41]

A journalist working in Kabulrecounted seeing the terrible effects of the attacks in Kabul hospitals at the time, hospitals filledafter the city came under fire from the south:

I remember pretty terrible scenes from those days, fromthe hospital.I saw children, kids,women wounded.Kids with their legsblown off.I once saw some kids arrivingat the hospital in a car; their legs had been blown off by a bomb and they werejust lying in the boot of the car.Theywere shelling into the city.It wasHekmatyar's forces.[42]

-

Two young men in Kabul hold up posters ofGulbuddin Hekmatyar, the military and political leader of Hezb-e Islami. 1992 Ed Grazda

A photojournalist described the typical scene at a hospitalin west Kabulafter rocket attacks: "There'd be four or five bodies by the door, somecoffins, then the bodies inside. . . . It was a grim scene, bleak.These rockets would rip pieces out of you."[43]

In August 1992, Hekmatyar's forces-who had already beenrocketing civilian areas regularly since April-launched a new artillery androcket blitz, bombarding all areas in Kabul held by Jamiat, Junbish, Ittihad,Harakat, and Wahdat-essentially the whole city.The apparent aim of the blitz was to force the government into apolitical compromise with Hezb-e Islami, as Hekmatyar likely did not haveenough troops to launch an actual invasion of the city.

During the attack, hundreds of homes were destroyed,approximately 1,800 to 2,500 persons were killed, and thousands more wereinjured.[44]Governmental functions, already severelyhampered, ceased.The PresidentialPalace and numerous government buildings were hit, as well as the headquartersof the Red Cross and at least two of its hospitals.The city's water and electricity grids wereseverely damaged.[45]On some days, shells and rockets fell withoutinterruption, and the city was gripped with terror.

The contemporaneous notes of a Kabul resident, Jamilurrahman Kamgar, who wasquoted above, chronicle the daily barrage:

August 1, 1992: Kabul'sairport came under rocket attack.Hezb-eIslami took responsibility and said [via the radio]: these attacks were aresponse to the government's attacks on southern Kabul yesterday.

August 2, 1992: Nearly 150 rockets hit different parts ofKabul; thegovernment blamed Hekmatyar. . . .As aresult of the attacks, many people were killed.

August 5, 1992: The recent missile attacks have killed 50people and injured nearly 150.

August 10, 1992: At 5 a.m. there was heavy fightingbetween government forces and Hezb-e Islami.The government said that Hezb forces attacked from three directions,Chelsatoon, Darulaman and Maranjan mountain.There was not enough medicine in the hospitals and medical personnelcould not be seen.A shell struck theRed Cross hospital.

August 11, 1992:Nearly a thousand rockets hit various parts of the city of Kabul. The airportsustained at least 250 hits. It's possible that a thousand people were killed.These attacks came from Hekmatyar's direction. . . .

August 14, 1992: The war is progressing severely.The people of Kabul are escaping.The Pol-e Charkhi prison has become a refuge.. . .[46]

Ittihad and Jamiat forces, in turn, were launching artilleryand rocket attacks on Hekmatyar's positions to the south, which were alsohitting civilian areas in the southwest of Kabul.

Hamid Karzai, now the president of Afghanistan and at the time a deputy foreignminister in the government, told a journalist in Kabul on August 9, 1992: "I don't know what'sgoing to happen. . . .We're justkilling each other.It's senseless."[47]

Click to expand Image

President Sibghatullah Mujaddidi speaking at a news conference in June1992. Hamid Karzai, deputy foreign minister at the time, is visible justbeyond the microphone. 1992 Ed Grazda

Kabul'shospitals were hard pressed to keep up with the violence.An ICRC representative in Kabul, quoted in a U.N. memorandum in 1992,described the situation on August 13, 1992 in the following terms:

This afternoon we had 353 patients in our hospital whichhas only 300 beds.There are patients inthe entrance hall, in the courtyard.Thirty-eight wounded died before they could be treated, 77 were waitingto be operated on, 60 were admitted this afternoon, 91 yesterday and 183Saturday.[48]

The chief of the United Nations mission in Kabul told journalists on August 20:

It's a terrible situation.The government no longer controls anything;there is no longer law and order.Thestreets are entirely deserted, except for armed soldiers.Water and electric power have been cut offfor nearly a week and my colleagues from WHO [the World Health Organization]are afraid of an outbreak of epidemics.[49]

The United Nations estimated that approximately 500,000persons fled Kabul by the end of the summer forsafer areas inside and outside of Afghanistan, primarily because ofHekmatyar's rocket and artillery attacks.[50]

Violations of International Humanitarian Law

The armed conflict in Afghanistan in 1992-93 was anon-international (internal) armed conflict in which the Geneva Conventions andcustomary international humanitarian law applied to government forces and non-statearmed groups. (The specific legal statusof the conflict and culpability of specific individuals are discussed in moredetail in section IV below.)

Many of the events described above amounted to warcrimes.Launching indiscriminate attacksthat may be expected to cause loss of civilian life, or intentionally targetingthe civilian population and civilian objects, are violations of internationalhumanitarian law, amounting to war crimes.More specifically, customary international law prohibits treating anentire city as a single military objective,[51]and requires belligerents to take feasible precautions to protect civiliansagainst the effects of attacks, including choosing methods and means of warfarethat avoid loss of civilian life, and to cancel or suspend attacks causingunnecessary civilian loss.In addition,deliberate and widespread killing of civilians, through prolongedindiscriminate shelling and artillery attacks, can amount to crimes againsthumanity.[52]

Individuals-combatants and civilians-are criminallyresponsible for war crimes they commit.Commanders are criminally liable for war crimes committed pursuant totheir orders or as a matter of command responsibility.Command responsibility makes a commanderculpable for war crimes committed by subordinates if the commander knew or hadreason to know such crimes were being committed and did not take all necessaryand reasonable measures to prevent the crimes, or punish those responsible forcrimes already committed.[53]

With respect toWahdat,Ittihad, and Jamiat hostilities in west Kabul, there is compelling evidence thatfactions regularly and intentionally targeted civilians and civilian areas forattack, and recklesslessly and indiscriminately fired weapons into civilianareas.There is little evidence that thefactions made meaningful efforts during hostilities to avoid harming civiliansor stopped attacks once the harm to civilians was evident.

One Afghan journalist, quoted above, told Human Rights Watchthat he witnessed on several occasions Ittihad and Wahdat forces intentionallyfiring rockets into occupied civilian homes during hostilities in 1992.[54]He also said that Jamiat forces, once theyjoined Ittihad in battling Wahdat late in 1992, regularly fired randomly intocivilian areas in west Kabul:

It was a normal, everyday experience that they would fireoff of the television mountain, and from the top of Karte Mamorine, at Dasht-eBarchi, Karte Seh [District 3], and Deh Mazang.Also, on Koiatub [or Koiatab] mountain, there was a tank on top ofit.This was the place that during theKing's time [before 1973] they would fire off a canon there, everyday at 12noon.They would fire from there also.[55]

A former high-level official in Shura-e Nazar confirmed thatJamiat troops on the Mamorine mountain (the western peak next to TelevisionMountainand above west Kabul) regularly launched rocketsand artillery into the civilian areas of west Kabulin 1992 and 1993.[56]

"There was little effort [by any of the factions] to aim attargets," an international journalist told Human Rights Watch, describing thefighting between Wahdat, Ittihad, and Jamiat.[57]"It was Massoud and Sayyaf versus theHazaras.Deh Mazang [an area in west Kabul] was a frontline.They would shoot at anything in between,whatever it was."[58]

S.K., a hospital worker quoted above, also told Human RightsWatch about the attacks on civilians by Jamiat forces stationed on TelevisionMountainin the center of Kabul:

There was a time when the Jamiat troops on TV Mountain wouldtarget anything on Alaudin Street[the main road running north-south through Karte Seh].They would target anything that moved, even acat. . . .

I remember [one time] I went out to go to this clinic [toobtain medical equipment], and as soon as they saw me on that mountain theywere shooting.

Anything that looked like a human being would betargeted.They shot everything: rockets,shells, bullets.There were times whenthe streets were littered with bullets. . . .[59]

A photojournalist who worked in Kabul regularly during 1992,and visited numerous military posts, told Human Rights Watch about Jamiatforces firing into civilian areas from the same mountain:

Yeah, they'd fire off T.V.Mountainall the time.Some of the wackos upthere, they'd get bored.They'd strafethe neighborhoods below with anti-aircraft fire.For fun-just for the hell of it.The civilian homes below, near the zoo, bythe traffic check-post, near the silo.They wouldn't aim at any ministries [government buildings], that'd betheir own turf.No, they'd fire towardthe southwest, and not just at Wahdat but at civilians.And there were Tajiks down there too [sameethnicity as Jamiat], not just Shi'as [Hazaras are predominately Shi'a].[60]

Wahdat, Ittihad, and Jamiat forces regularly used impreciseweapons systems, including Sakr rockets and UB-16 and UB-32 S-5 airborne rocketlaunchers clumsily refitted onto tank turrets.The aiming of these rocket systems are considered "dumb" or non-precision.[61]Sakr rockets are "like bottle rockets,"according to one military analyst,[62]and rocket systems generally as not designed for accuracy in close combat: theycannot be adequately aimed within urban settings or made to distinguish betweenmilitary targets and civilian objects.The use of the makeshift S-5 system in particular, within Kabul city, demonstratedan utter disregard of the duty to use methods and means of attack thatdistinguish between civilian objects and military targets.[63]

Further research is needed into the exact command structureof the Wahdat, Ittihad, and Jamiat forces involved in the fighting detailedabove.Discussion of the commandstructure of the Wahdat, Ittihad, and Jamiat forces, and the responsibility ofindividual commanders, appears in sections below and in Section IV.

Hezb-e Islami forcesused artillery and rockets in a manner indicating that they were intentionallytargeting civilian areas, failing to properly aim (with respect to artilleryguns), recklessly using weapons which could not be aimed in a dense civiliansetting (with respect to rockets), and treating the whole city as one unifiedmilitary target.

With respect to artillery attacks, there is evidence thatHezb-e Islami had the capacity to aim artillery at military targets, but eitherrecklessly chose not to do so, or intentionally aimed artillery at civilianobjects instead, in violation of international humanitarian law.As the primary recipient of internationalassistance and training from Pakistan,the United States, and the United Kingdom, Hezb-e Islami was arguably themost well-trained mujahedin group in Kabulat the time.Many commanders and troopswere trained by Pakistani, American, and British experts on the use of rocketand artillery systems.Journalists whovisited sites held by Hezb-e Islami forces to the south of Kabulsaw numerous D-30 122mm cannons that were being used for attacking Kabul-a relatively preciseartillery system.[64]Reporting and footage from 1992 and 1993suggests that Hezb-e Islami forces could, when they wanted to, precisely aimsuch artillery: BBC film footage from May 1992 shows accurate targeting ofartillery by Hezb-e Islami of Jamiat and Junbish positions in Kabul.[65]Terence White, a correspondent with AgenceFrance-Presse, reported precise artillery fire against Jamiat positions insouth Kabul inearly 1993.[66]Yet in many cases, including ones documentedin this report, Hezb-e Islami artillery and rockets hit civilian areas,suggesting that they were either purposely targeting such areas, or recklesslyaiming at Kabulas a whole.The prolonged timeframe inwhich the attacks took place, their scope, and their continued inaccuracy, stronglysuggest there was neither a fixable problem with artillery aim calibration, norweapons systems' failure.Accurate and aimableweapons were being shot into civilian areas in violation of internationalhumanitarian law.

Hekmatyar's forces also often used BM-40, BM-22, BM-12rocket launchers and Sakr Soviet-made rockets in their attacks on Kabul.[67]As noted earlier, such rocket systems aregenerally considered "dumb" or non-precision: these weapons are not designedfor accuracy in close combat and cannot be adequately aimed within urbansettings or made to distinguish between military targets and civilian objects.[68]The very use of such rocket systems within Kabul may have been anindiscriminate method or means of warfare in violation of internationalhumanitarian law.

The pattern and characteristics of the attacks also suggestthat Hekmatyar and his commanders were attacking the whole city, or treatingthe city itself as a single target.[69]

General Mohammed Nabi Azimi's memoirs, discussing the Julyand August blitzes, reinforce the view that Hekmatyar's forces bombardedcivilian areas intentionally:

So once again, Hekmatyar's heavy weapons roared andrained fire on Kabul.The height of the fighting and clashes was inlate July and early August 1992.As soonas it became light, Hekmatyar's rocket launchers and artillery would come tolife.Hekmatyar now controlled the Takht-eShahi heights which command Kabul[to the south].There, the artilleryteams had wireless communication sets.Hekmatyar's artillery teams were reinforced by trained officers. . ..Hekmatyar could now accurately fire onmilitary targets. But he preferred to fire on the city and defenselesscivilians in order to create tension and dissatisfaction among the peopleagainst Rabbani and Massoud.[70]

"They weren't picking out military targets," one journalistwho witnessed the repeated attacks in Kabultold Human Rights Watch."Once theshelling started, artillery would fall everywhere, across the city.Across the city, you could hear the shells."[71]

The pattern of casualties, and how so many civiliansdied, suggested that they were firing indiscriminately. . . .I suppose, yes, they hit some militarytargets, whatever that means, but mostly the bombs were just hitting variousparts of the city, and it was mostly civilians who were getting hit, as youwould see at the hospital.[72]

Marc Biot, a medical official at the Jamuhuriat hospital,told Human Rights Watch:

It was like this:At any moment a missile could fall. . . .When you were outside, you never knew if amissile would fall on your head.Theywere shooting them blindly, anywhere: into roads, markets, houses. . . .The most awful thing was that any bomb couldfall on any place at any time. There was a clear political will to shell thecity, as a city-to shell the city as a civilian place.The shelling was ubiquitous, everywhere.[73]

One journalist cited above, who visited Hezb-e Islamipositions to the south of Kabul,suggested to Human Rights Watch that artillery spotters must have beenintentionally directing artillery at civilian areas:

We talked to the officers pretty regularly-they hadspotters, observers.They insisted theywere hitting military targets.But they[the officers] knew what was going on.Both Massoud and Hekmatyar had a lot of artillerymen who weretrained.They could aim.Elevation and windage [lateral and verticalmovement] could be changed.But they[Hezb-e Islami forces] were aiming into the city.They had spotters in the city: Hezb-e Islamiwere able to infiltrate Kabul,it was easy.The aim was to terrorizethe population.[74]

The testimony above suggests that Hezb-e Islami andHekmatyar were deliberately targeting the city of Kabul as a whole entity, to terrorize andkill civilians.

Further investigation will be needed to determine the roleof specific commanders in the attacks.According to the Afghan Justice Project, an independent non-governmentalgroup that has investigated military operations in Afghanistanfrom 1979 through 2001,[75]besides Hekmatyar the following commanders had operation control over themilitary posts firing artillery and rockets at Kabul during the period discussed in thisreport:

• Commander Toran Khalil, chief artillery officer in Hezb-e Islami who supervised shelling and rocketing operations during late 1992 into 1993, commander of a base at an oil depot at the south of Charasiab, south of Kabul.
• Toran Amanullah, commander of theFirqa Sama, stationed at the Rishkor military base, south of Kabul.
• Commander Zardad, commander of a military post at the Lycee Shorwaki.
• Engineer Zulmai, of the Lashkar Issar, commander of a post at the Kotal Hindki pass to the south of Chilsatoon, south of Kabul, near the Rishkor base.
• Nur Rahman Panshiri, commander of a post in the village of Shahak, to the southeast of Kabul, directly controlled by the Sama division.
• General Wali Shah, an officer in the Najibullah government who joined Hezb-e Islami in 1992, commander of a base at Sang-e Nevishta, Logar, south of Kabul.
• Shura Nizami (military council) commanders Faiz Mohammad, Kashmir Khan, and Sabawon.

The legal responsibility of these Hezb-e Islami commanders,as well as Hekmatyar himself, is discussed further in section IV below.

Abductions, "Disappearances," Torture, and OtherMistreatment of Detainees

[Reuters, June 4, 1992]Gunfire and explosions echoedacross western Kabul.. . .Guerrillas of the Hezb-e-WahdatShi'a alliance fought gunbattles with Sunni Ittehad-i-Islami fighters close to Kabul university, a Shi'a base, for the third day running.. . .Guerrillas of the two groupsrounded up hundreds of civilians at gunpoint on Tuesday and Wednesday and tookthem to makeshift detention centres after demanding to see identity papers,which state the bearer's ethnic group, at street checkpoints.Shi'a guerrillas took away Sunni Muslimethnic Pashtuns, while Ittehad guerrillas detained ethnic Hazaras, who areShi'as.Witnesses said some people werebeaten with sticks as they were led away. . . .[76]

In addition to the war violence, the fighting betweenIttihad and Wahdat through 1992 was spawning another problem with especiallyterrible effects on civilians: ethnic abductions.Ittihad and Wahdat forces were increasingly abductingcivilians and holding them for ransom or exchange-Ittihad holding Hazaras, andWahdat holding Pashtuns, Tajiks, and other non-Hazaras.A journalist told Human Rights Watch:

There was a lot of kidnapping in the west.The commanders under Sayyaf and thecommanders under Hizb-e Wahdat would stop buses or cars, and look for Hazarasand Pashtuns.Sayyaf's men would lookfor Hazaras.Hizb-e Wahdat forces wouldlook for Pashtuns.[77]

As shown below, the practice seems to have begun in May of1992.Gen. Mohammed Nabi Azimi, thehigh-level military officer quoted earlier in this report, described how thetwo forces began erecting checkpoints and engaging in routine abductions:

Hazaras abducted Pashtuns and Pashtuns abducted Hazaraswherever they saw each other. Theypulled out the fingernails of prisoners, cut off hands, cut off legs, evenhammered nails into prisoners' skulls. Humanswere kept in [shipping] containers and containers were set on fire. . . .Cruelty, injustice, and inhumanity began, andbecame a chronic disease; humanity and honor were crucified.[78]

Many of the civilians abducted by the two sides during thistime were never seen again.Some didmanage to be released, however, usually after prisoner exchanges or personalinterventions by government officials or religious or tribal leaders withconnections to those detained.

Human Rights Watch spoke with several former detainees in Kabul in 2003-Hazaras,Pashtuns, and Tajiks-who described their experiences.Their stories follow:

-

Abdul Ali Mazari, the military and political leader of Hezb-e Wahdat inthe early 1990s. Mazari's faction, as well as Abdul Rabb al-RasulSayyaf's Ittihad faction, committed war crimes and other atrocities in westKabul in the early 1990s. 1994 Robert Nickelsberg

Abductions by Wahdat

A young Tajik man from west Kabul,who said he was held by Wahdat forces in December 1992 after some streetsfighting that occurred near the government silo, told Human Rights Watch abouthis abduction and detention by men he identified as members of Wahdat:[79]

[M]y brother came and said he wanted us to leave the areawith him.We were talking about this,sitting in our home, drinking tea, when some gunmen [Wahdat] came and knockedon the door.

"Whose house is this?" a commander said.He was at the door.-"It is mine," I said.-"What is your name?"I said my name was [deleted].-"Where are you from?" he asked.-"Kabul,"I said.-"You're lying," he said.He pulled out a list, and found my name onthe list: my parents and brothers names were on the list also, and next to myname it said we were from Shomali [a predominately Tajik area north of Kabul].The commander said, "Are you fromShomali?"And I said yes, that I wasstudying in Kabuland lived there.He said, "Let's goinside," and pushed me into my own house.As I came in, I told my brother [with my hands] to hide himself, but hedidn't understand.So then the commandersaw him also. . . .Before taking usaway, they arrested a guy from Wardak next door.He was complaining a lot, so they blindfoldedhim. . . .They put us all in a vehicle,and when we got to Kohte-e Sangi they put blindfolds on us too.After that, we couldn't see and could notunderstand where they were taking us. . . .

When the vehicle stopped, the men assumed they were atDasht-e Barchi, where Wahdat had a base, but the man later discovered he was atOnchi Baghbanan [to the north of Dasht-e Barchi, about 4 kilometers west ofKarte Seh].

We got out.Theythrew the three of us into a container . . . .Then, a commander with two bodyguards came, and he came into thecontainer, and questioned us."You bothare some guys from Shomali and you are helping Massoud!" he said.-I said, "I am a medical student; neither Inor my brother are soldiers.We are fromShomali, but we are not soldiers."-"Keep quiet," he said.And thenthe guards cocked their Kalashnikovs [assault rifles].The commander signaled to his troops to takeus away.We were blindfolded, and madeto walk somewhere else.They werekicking us.Finally, we were imprisonedin a small room.

The man said he and the other prisoners were later given aplate of rice to share.But that night,other prisoners were brought in and together they were transported to anothersite:

We drove there.Then they threw us into a basement-no, the basement of a basement.It was dark, and dirty, and very cold.We could hear machine guns were being firedabove us.We assumed that we weresomewhere near the front line.

That night, they brought three other guys: a guy fromJalalabad, a worker from Shomali, and a lecturer from the university.They were also thrown into the basement withus.There was not enough room forus.There was dirty air, and it wascompletely, completely dark.We werethere for several days.They would letus out two times a day, to urinate.

The basement room was freezing, and the young man said attimes he was so numb that he feared he was going to die.After a week, the man and his brother werereleased, apparently because of the intervention of relatives who were able tomake contacts with Wahdat commanders.But the man said his fellow prisoners met a different fate:

Those other people who we were imprisoned with were neverreleased.They disappeared.I know because they told us to find theirfamilies.And I contacted theirfamilies, several times.Those familiespressured us, to help them.We gave themsome advice.But a month later thoseprisoners were not released.And lateron, when I spoke with them again, I learned that those prisoners had never beenreleased.

An elderly Pashtun man described being arrested by Wahdatforces in mid-May 1992, and seeing other prisoners killed by them:

It was morning, I was going by Chelsatoon garden.I was with my 10-year-old son.We were stopped by Hezb-e Wahdat troops.Two men.They took us to Habibi high school.They didn't give me any problems at first, they were just questioningme. . . .But I saw this containernearby, with prisoners.The two men were arguing.One was saying, "Leave him, he'sinnocent."The other was saying, "No, weshould arrest them because they're Pashtuns."They had arrested some other Pashtuns, and I saw them putting them intoa container there.

The first one was saying, "Put him in thecontainer!"And the other was saying,"No, he has a young kid with him."Thenthe first one was saying, "No-he is Pashtun.Put him in the container!"Theirargument lasted a few minutes.Finally,they let me go and I was set free.[80]

The man said the troops sometime soon after apparently fireda missile or rocket-propelled grenade into the container:

I was walking away with my son.We heard the explosion.The container had been closed after they putthe prisoners in it.I heard theexplosion and I looked, and then I took my son and started to move away,because we were in danger. . . .When Ilooked I saw that all these people were running away from where the containerwas. . . .I heard screams from thecontainer and there was smoke coming out of the hole.The rocket had penetrated and exploded. . . .[81]

Human Rights Watch interviewed several other Pashtuns andTajiks held by Wahdat forces in 1992 and released when family members oracquaintances were able to convince leaders in the various factions to havethem released.A senior civilianofficial in the Jamiat-dominated government told Human Rights Watch thatnumerous complaints were made to the government about Wahdat arrests, and thatthey documented that Wahdat had set up a prison at a compound in west Kabulcalled Qala Khana, run by a senior Wahdat commander called Shafi Diwana (Shafithe Mad), in which prisoners were tortured and killed.[82]Petitioners brought allegations to the Jamiatofficials that Wahdat forces were burning the bodies of prisoners inbrick-making furnaces in the compound.[83]

A health worker in west Kabul,quoted above, told Human Rights Watch that hospital staff in west Kabul knew that thousandsof prisoners were kept by Wahdat forces in Dasht-e Barchi, and that they weresometimes able to negotiate to have them released, although most were neverseen again.[84]

Abductions by Ittihad

As noted above, Ittihad was holding prisoners too.Human Rights Watch interviewed a Pashtun manwho, despite his Pashtun ethnicity, was held by Ittihad forces in the summer of1992 because of a non-ethnic dispute with troops.The man said he was put in detention withapproximately thirty to forty Hazara prisoners who said they were abductedbased on their ethnicity.[85]He described his experience:

[S]ome of Sayyaf's men, from Paghman, came and tookme.They were looking for mybrother-in-law [because of a private financial dispute], but they took meinstead, as a hostage.They took me toKhoshal Khan Mina, the headquarters for the electric buses, near thesilos.They put me in a room there, andthey told me that they would hold me there, for a night, and then I would bereleased.The commander there was namedTourgal.But the next day, Wahdat andSayyaf started fighting.

That night, as fighting raged outside, the man said that theIttihad forces brought in Hazara civilians: "Sayyaf's forces brought thirty orforty Hazara civilians. . . .They werenot fighters, but civilians, old and young."Later in the night, according to the man, the Ittihad forces shot at theprisoners in their holding cell with an automatic weapon:

[T]he fighting got severe.We could hear the artillery.There was a lot of shooting.I could hear these people, Sayyaf's people,talking about retreating.And at onepoint, one of them said to Commander Tourgal, "What should we do with theseprisoners?"They were speaking inPashto, and the Hazara people couldn't understand them.But I could understand.Somebody said, "Go and shoot them."

I was near the door.When I heard this, I hurried away and hid away from the door, in thecorner of the room [on the side of the room with the door].A person came, and opened the door, and shotall over the room with his kalashnikov, on automatic.He just fired randomly all over theroom.About ten people were killed,immediately, and four were wounded. . . .After, no one moved.We [who werestill alive] were trembling with fear.The fighting outside was serious-the commander called on this guy tocome back to fight at the windows with them, so the man left, to go back tofighting.

The prisoners were too afraid to move the dead bodies.But when the fighting stopped, the mandesperately pleaded with the troops to release him:"The next time the troops came by, I rushedto the door and said, "Listen, I am a Pashtun, and I was not arrested withthese people."The man said the troopsthen put him into another room, presumably because he was not Hazara."I don't know what happened to the [other]people in that room," the man said.

Ultimately, the man was released after a relative, who knewsome members of Ittihad, visited Sayyaf in Paghman, to plead for hisrelease.The relative told Human RightsWatch that Sayyaf ordered another minister (the name is deleted here to protectthe man and his relative) to order the man's release.[86]The minister then wrote an order to CommanderTourgal, the relative said, which he took to Tourgal, who then released theprisoner-a series of events that suggests that Sayyaf had knowledge ofIttihad's regular detention of civilians and that he had control over thecommanders holding them.

Human Rights Watch interviewed numerous other Hazara men inwest Kabul who were held by Ittihad forces in 1992 and early 1993, forced towork in manual labor for Ittihad forces (their stories are in the followingsection: "The Attack on Afshar").

Abuse of Prisoners

Human Rights Watch received consistent and credibletestimony that many of the persons detained by Wahdat and Ittihad were forcedto work, mistreated, or tortured while in the custody of Ittihad and Wahdatforces.S.K., a hospital worker quotedabove, described seeing detainees after their release from both factions who werebadly injured, who told her they had been subjected to torture and othermistreatment:

I saw hostages who had been tortured: civilians andnon-civilians.This was somethingcommon: people released by each side, their families would bring them to the hospital[because they had been abused in captivity].Wahdat would capture Pashtuns and Tajiks, and Ittihad would captureHazaras.

I saw what they had done to them:People beaten up.People who had been tortured.They had put RPGs [Rocket Propelled Grenades]into the anus.They gang-rapedgirls.I saw these victims.[87]

Human Rights Watch interviewed several Afghan journalistswho spoke with detainees in 1992 and 1993, who described abuses while indetention.[88]Journalists with the British BroadcastingCorporation and Associated Press in 1992 interviewed detainees of variousethnicities who related descriptions of their arrests and abuse.[89]

It is likely that the abductions and abuse were fueled inpart as retaliation for continuing atrocities.Abdul Haq, a mujahedin commander who served as police chief in Kabul in1992 (Haq was later killed by Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan in October2001), told a journalist in 1992 that non-Wahdat and non-Ittihad commanders hadworked to arrange large prisoner swaps between Wahdat and Ittihad in the firstweek of June, but that the exchanges collapsed after both sides saw that someprisoners had been tortured or mistreated.[90]

(Further descriptions of abuse of detainees captured byIttihad and Wahdat appears in the "Rape" section below, and in the section "TheAttack on Afshar" below.)

"Disappearances"

Human Rights Watch interviewed several families in west Kabul who said that theirrelatives had been abducted in 1992 by Wahdat or Ittihad, and never seenagain.For fear of continuing threats totheir security from the same factions, they refused to allow Human Rights Watchto use the names of their disappeared relatives.

In 1996, Afghan aid workers working in west Kabul publisheda book documenting some of the abductions and "disappearances" of persons fromwest Kabul, with names and pictures (when available) of victims.[91]The project, based on research conducted in1993-1995, focused predominately on Hazara disappearances at the hands ofIttihad.But the book does detailabductions by Wahdat and Jamiat as well, and partly reveals the scope of theoverall problem.

The book documents 671 cases of abductions anddisappearances, mostly in west Kabuland mostly in 1992-1993.H.K.,[92]one of the books' researchers, told Human Rights Watch that over 1,000 peoplewere reported missing in west Kabul in the first year after the fall of theNajibullah government:

The number we put in the book was less, because we choseonly the cases where we had some information about the how the people werekidnapped.There were more documents,with more information about the commanders, but we were pressed for time and wejust published some of what we had.

It was very difficult to work on these issues at thetime.One of our employees at the timewas arrested by Harakat forces, and held for ransom, because of the research hewas targeted.[Name deleted.]He was arrested in Dasht-e Barchi, sometimearound the report research.He told uslater that they beat him severely while he was held.[93]

H.K. said that the project staff tried to obtain the releaseof some of those who were held by the different forces:

Almost everyone we documented was never heard fromagain.However, in a few cases, rarecases, where we had all the information about who captured a person, and wherethey were held, we managed to get some people released.There was someone who worked with ourinformation, and negotiated with Ittihad to get people released.That person negotiated with Sayyaf, [andlater] with Ahmadzai [an Ittihad official who later served as primeminister].

All the commanders, in all the groups, would completelyand totally deny that their forces were holding people.But in those rare cases where we had completeinformation about the detained person, and we confronted them with it, theywould release the people.But this onlyhappened in a few cases.

H.K. said that most of those who were released were torturedby their captors and exhibited physical signs of it.He told the story of one man he worked tohave released, from Ittihad's forces, who said he had been forced to work "as aslave" on a commander's farm in Paghman.(The section "The Attack on Afshar" below contains addition informationabout forced labor).

We documented all of this.I interviewed him after he was released.He had been tortured by Ittihad when he wascaptured, and beaten severely in their prison.There were fifty other people being held with him, he said, somewhere inPaghman.After a few weeks, they senthim to this farm, to work on the land, during the day and night.

Former officials in the Rabbani government also suppliedinformation to Human Rights Watch about Wahdat and Ittihad abductions, notingthat commanders in Jamiat, Harakat, Junbish, and Hezb-e Islami sometimesdetained civilians as well, usually just for ransom.[94]R.D., a former official in the interimgovernment who was familiar with ongoing criminality by various factions, saidthat Anwar Dangar, a high-level commander in Shura-e Nazar, was "deeplyinvolved in kidnapping schemes," and that another Jamiat commander, KasimJangal Bagh, was regularly implicated in abduction, or hostage-taking, forransom.[95]

The research project noted above uncovered some of theseabduction cases.As the researcher H.K.explained:

Shura-e Nazar [meaning Jamiat forces under Massoud]arrested people as well. . . .In mostcases, we were unable to do anything, but in three cases we managed to documentwhat happened, and they released three people.They negotiated with the head of Amniat-e Melli [Afghan intelligenceagency] at the time-Fahim [Mohammad Qasim Fahim].To have them released they spoke withhim.

Human Rights Watch also received testimony about abductionsand killings of prisoners by Junbish forces in 1992 and 1993.Former Jamiat and Junbish officials confirmedto Human Rights Watch that Junbish forces regularly engaged in killings ofprisoners in 1992 and 1993.[96]

Pillage and Looting

Human Rights Watch interviewed scores of journalists, healthworkers, aid workers, taxi drivers, civil servants, and soldiers who witnessedwidespread pillage and looting by Jamiat, Junbish, Wahdat, Ittihad, Harakat,and Hezb-e Islami forces after the Najibullah government fell.

Merchants in southeast Kabultold Human Rights Watch about looting by Hezb-e Islami forces in the areaaround Bala Hissar (southeast Kabul)in April 1992.[97]Embassies and diplomatic residencies werealso reported to be targeted.[98]The U.N. human rights rapporteur for Afghanistanreceived reports that apartment complexes built for government employees inMicrayon were a focus of looting.[99]Journalists in Kabul covering the collapse of the old regimesaw shops and houses being pillaged across the city.[100]An Afghan journalist described what he saw inApril 1992:

I saw with my own eyes Sayyaf's troops and Massoud'stroops looting as they entered the city, breaking windows, stealing whateverthey wanted.They were acting likeanimals, doing whatever they wanted.[101]

A BBC journalist described to Human Rights Watch looting hesaw in May 1992:

I saw General Dostum's Uzbek troopslooting. . . .It was easy to recognizethem.I knew who they were from theirclothes and features.They were totallyrecognizable.I saw some of themcarrying refrigerators on their backs, and other things like that, airconditioners.I remember especially someguys, Dostum's Uzbeks, coming out of a compound somewhere.These were happy and contented guys,smiling.They had some refrigerators andother appliances like that, carrying them on their backs.And I saw these smiling guys put the goods intheir trucks and drive away.ThePresidential Palace was looted by government troops [Jamiat and Junbish].The troops went in, and were taking outcarpets and things like that.[102]

Human Rights Watch received accounts that Dostum's highestmilitary commanders in Kabul, including MajidRouzi, were profiting from the looting by Junbish troops.[103]

Click to expand Image

General Abdul Rashid Dostum, leader of the Junbishfaction, August 11, 1992. Junbish forces were implicated in war crimes andother abuses in Kabulin the early 1990s.As of mid-2005,Dostum holds a senior post in the ministry of defense. 2001 Reuters Limited

A former official in Shura-e Nazar told Human Rights Watchabout looting by Jamiat troops working for Kasim Jangal Bagh, a mid-levelJamiat commander:

Kasim Jangal Bagh's troops were responsible for thetrouble that went on in [Micrayon and Wazir Akbar Khan-two neighborhoods ineastern Kabul]:looting, kidnapping, and raping of girls. . . .Kasim had a Ghund [military post]-it was independent I think.Bismullah Khan [a Shura-e Nazar commander]was his operational commander, but he may have reported directly to Massoud. .. .Massoud was giving him money [to payhis troops], but he was taking it for himself.I know-I know how these things work even now.He had cars, houses, but his gunmen werepoor.So they were taking whatever theywanted from people.The soldiers werenot paid, so they were robbing.[104]

A photojournalist who worked in Kabulthrough 1992 described seeing blocks of houses in west Kabul that were looted by Jamiat forces:"You'd notice blocks getting hit.Roof beams were torn out of the houses,electricity wires torn out, appliances, all the possessions."[105]

When questioned in late May 1992 about the looting,Commander Muslim, a senior official in the Jamiat faction and ostensibly in theAfghan ministry of defense, told a journalist, "Every society has its thievesand robbers.Ours is no different.Yes, there's chaos, yes there'sdisorder.But it's no worse than Los Angeles."[106]This was a reference to the large-scale riotsand looting which had broken out in late April 1992 in Los Angeles, California,after a jury acquitted several police officers who had been videotaped beatingan African-American motorist named Rodney King.

But Kabul was not Los Angeles.Many Kabulresidents told Human Rights Watch that a culture of total impunity and chaoshad come over Kabulin 1992, and that there was a general sense that the militia troops could dowhatever they wanted at any time.Besides pillage and looting, there were regular incidents of killingsand other violence.

A journalist with the British Broadcasting Corporation toldHuman Rights Watch about Junbish forces targeting civilians in April of 1992:

Junbish had been looting. . . .We filmed Junbish troops beating up this guywho had a bicycle.I guess they wantedto take the bicycle.I think that thiswas one of those rare cases where the presence of a camera literally stoppedsomeone from being killed.They wereclubbing him with Kalashnikovs, but when one of the troops saw us and pointedat us, they sent the guy on his way.

In another case, near the Intercontinental [Hotel], thecamera led to problems.These Uzbektroops [Junbish] saw us, and they were acting up for the camera.They had this guy, this civilian, and theywanted to show off.They were making himstand a few meters away and they were shooting at his feet with theirKalashnikovs, making him dance. Theywere yelling, "Dance! Dance!" and shooting at his feet.[107]

Human Rights Watch documented several cases of killings byJunbish, Jamiat, and Harakat forces during 1992-1993.Former officials in Junbish and Jamiatadmitted to Human Rights Watch that military forces in their former factionsengaged in killings connected to pillage and looting.[108]

A Junbish official detailed some of the specific commandersinvolved in abuses:

Shir Arab, Ismail Diwaneh ["Ismail the Mad"], and AbdulCherik[109]from the beginning engaged in widespread looting of the market.Killing took place only over looting.In late 1371, early 1372 [January to May1993], they looted the Porzeforooshi Bazaar. . . .Ismail Diwaneh was in Bala Hissar [on thesoutheast edge of Kabul].He regularly killed and robbed Pashtuns fromPaktia who were passing through on the way to Kabul.[110]

Another former Shura-e Nazar official, discussing generallooting by Jamiat forces in 1992 and 1993, described a particularly badcommander, Rahim "Kung Fu," who the official said was "a robber and killer anda thief, in a word, a criminal."[111]The official (who began crying as he wasinterviewed about Rahim) also told Human Rights Watch that Rahim was involvedin killings of Hazara civilians, and children, during an operation againstWahdat forces posted in Timani neighborhood in 1992:"There were many rapes, the killing of manywomen and men.He was killing so manyHazaras.He killed children.I'm sorry, I cannot talk about it anymore."[112]

In a later interview, he described how he heard Rahim boastabout crimes committed during the Taimani operation:

He said hepochaghedHazara [slaughtered, or cut their throats]."We killed 300, 350 people," he said. "I went to a house.I saw an infant.I put the bayonet in its mouth. It sucked onit like a tit, then I pushed it through."[113]

One Kabul resident-a civil society organizer who often actedas a mediator between factions-told Human Rights Watch about an incident hewitnessed in December 1992 when he said Junbish troops executed a Tajik man whohad come to pay a ransom to release his brother, who he said was being held bya Junbish commander, Abdul Cherik:

One day [a woman came to me] asking for a favor.[I] had a few connections with some people inJunbish, she was asking me to help her: her brother's car had been seized bysome Junbish forces in December 1992.The car had been seized by Abdul Cherik-a commander with a checkpointnear the Kabul City Electrical Station (in east Kabul) in Chaman Waziri.

I went to his checkpoint.While I was sitting there, waiting to talk to him [Cherik], a young guy,about 18 or 19, entered with a bag full of money.It was a Panshiri guy-I could tell because ofhis accent, and he looked Tajik.

He asked Abdul Cherik to release his brother.He said: "This is the ransom you have askedfor, for my brother," and he opened up the bag.It was full of money.I don't knowhow much.

Abdul Cherik looked at him, and then looked at hisguards, and said, "Take him to his brother."And his guards motioned him to come, and they took his arm, and went outthe back door.So they went out.

I was waiting in that room.About three minutes later, I heard the soundof gunshots, about fifty meters away.Itwas a burst of automatic gunfire.Andthen a little later, the gunmen came back in.They had some rings and a watch in their hands, and they gave AbdulCherik the rings and watch, on his desk.I had gone to that place to try to convince this commander to releasethis guy's car, but after this happened, I immediately left the compound andwalked away.I got outside and said tomyself, "God save me," and left there.

I asked this guard near the door to the compound, "Didyou kill him, or just take his rings and watch?"The Junbish guy said, "What a question!Can a Panshiri remain alive when he isimprisoned by us or is in our control?"

It was unimaginable to me that they would kill someonelike that.It was something ordinary forthem.You couldn't believe that they hadkilled him.It was like nothing hadhappened.The gunmen who were in theroom there while I was waiting, they showed no reaction when those other menreturned.It was an ordinary thing forthem.[114]

A resident of Tiamani neighborhood of Kabuldescribed a summary execution of a civilian by a Harakat soldier which hewitnessed on a street in a neighborhood in north Kabul in September 1992:

I had [a store] in front of my house.I was selling some things there, one morning,sitting there.I saw this younger guywalk by-he had recently been married.Then I heard some shooting down the street.I looked down the street, and I saw that theguy who had passed was on the ground, and this other guy was over him-he held apistol up to his head and shot him in the temple.The guy was dead.Some other people on the street walked alittle forward [i.e., toward the body, to look], and then stopped.[115]

The man said he did not know the reason for the killing, anddid not know the name of the gunman but recognized him as someone he had seenwith the Harakat faction:

This gunman, he was a Harakat gunman, just walked by us,slowly.Like he could do whatever hewanted.We saw him clearly.We knew who he was-he was a Harakat man.[116]

A Kabulresident, a bus driver, told Human Rights Watch about being arrested, havinghis bus stolen, and almost being executed by Hezb-e Islami forces, in late1992:

One time, I was driving, and I had got to the end of myroute, all the [passengers] had gotten off and the bus was empty. . . .A man and a teenager asked me to stop, and Islowed down, to give them a ride.Suddenly, armed men surrounded the truck, and got in, and ordered me toturn around, and when I hesitated, they beat me.So I turned around, and they made me go on asmall road, toward Gardez. . . .Theytook me to this checkpost there-they were Hekmatyar's people.They made me show them how to use the car,the gears, and how to start it.

Then the commander said, "Take him to the mountain, andshoot him."And they started to lead meaway.On the path [up the mountain], anold man saw me, and said, "What's the matter?"And I asked him to help me if he could.The troops pushed me forward.Theold man went down to the commander [behind me] and told him not to killme.[As an elder, the man presumably hadadditional influence.]The commandercalled up to the troops, "Just beat him."And that's what they did.Theybeat me very severely, and I lost consciousness.When I woke up, they had taken my watch, andI was alone.I went down the mountain onthe other side, and got a cart to stop and take me into the city.I got a rickshaw driver to take me to myhouse, but I fainted on the way, and my family had to carry me into my house. .. .[117]

Violations of International Humanitarian Law

As noted earlier in this report, the intentional targetingof civilians and civilian objects for attack is a violation of internationalhumanitarian law that can amount to a war crime.In addition, article 3 common to the fourGeneva Conventions, which is applicable in non-international armed conflicts,requires the humane treatment of civilians and detained combatants.Arbitrary deprivation of liberty, murder, torture,rape and other ill-treatment violate this requirement. International humanitarian law also prohibits"pillage," which is defined as the forcible taking of private property from anenemy's subjects, and other forms of theft.

Murder, adverse treatment and unlawful deprivation ofliberty of civilians (as well as captured combatants), on the basis of theirethnicity or other distinction, violates common article 3 to the GenevaConventions.Furthermore, widespread orsystematic abductions, killings and "disappearances" that are part of an attackon a civilian population, such as an ethnic group, may amount to crimes againsthumanity.[118]

There is compelling evidence presented above that Ittihadand Wahdat forces abducted thousands of persons in the first year of thepost-Najibullah era, as well as more in later years.The fact that so many persons arrested werenever again seen by their families suggests that both the Ittihad and Wahdatfactions killed thousands of these detainees.There is also compelling evidence that detainees who survived theirdetention were tortured or otherwise mistreated.The widespread murders, arbitrarydeprivations of liberty, torture and other mistreatment committed by Ittihadand Wahdat forces may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Sayyaf, as the leader of Ittihad, is centrally implicated inthe abuses described above, since he exercised ultimate control of Ittihadforces.Officials in the Rabbanigovernment in 1992-1993, allied with Sayyaf, acknowledged to Human Rights Watchthat Sayyaf, as the senior military commander of Ittihad forces, was in regularcontact with his commanders, and that he had the power to release prisonersheld by his subordinates, and in fact ordered such releases on severaloccasions, demonstrating his command over those commanders.[119]Health workers in west Kabul told Human Rights Watch in 2003 ofadditional cases in which negotiators with the International Committee of theRed Cross spoke with Sayyaf to obtain the release of prisoners, furtherdemonstrating his control over subordinate commanders.[120]Human Rights Watch also spoke with anindividual who negotiated with Sayyaf to obtain a relative's release.[121]And in June 1992, when interviewed by ajournalist in Kabulabout the abductions, Sayyaf did not deny that Ittihad forces were abductingHazara civilians, but merely accused Wahdat of being an agent of the Iraniangovernment.[122]

Further investigation will also be needed into other Ittihadcommanders and their role in the abductions and abuses documented here.Investigations will need to focus inparticular on the role of Ittihad commanders Shir Alam, Mullah Ezat, ZalmayTofan, Abdul Manan, Dr. Abdullah, and Noor Aqa, who were named by severalsources in this report as being implicated in abductions and holding ofprisoners for forced labor.[123]More detailed discussion of the potentiallegal responsibility of Sayyaf and his other commanders, for the abusesdescribed here and elsewhere in this report, is set forth in section IV below.

As for Wahdat, its leader, Mazari, who was killed in 1995,was implicated in the abuses above.Mazari and his deputy, Karim Khalili (now the vice-president of Afghanistan),acknowledged taking Pashtun civilians as prisoners in interviews with Reutersand Associated Press.[124]Mazari defended the practice by stating thatIttihad troops had first seized Hazaras.[125](Mazari later said that detained prisonerswere kept in houses, given food and water, and not tortured.[126])

Further investigation will be needed into thecommand-and-control structure of Wahdat and the culpability of the commanderswho are still alive.More investigationis needed into Karim Khalili's involvement in military decision-making and hiscontrol over Wahdat forces.Shafi Dawanaand Nasir Dawana have been killed, but Wahid Turkmani, Mohsin Sultani, TahirTofan, Sedaqat Jahori, and CommanderBahrami are believed to be still alive, and shouldalso be investigated for their role in the Wahdat abuses documented here.The potential legal responsibility ofWahdat commanders for the abuses documented here is further discussed in sectionIV below.

In addition to the abductions and killings, the widespreadlooting and pillage that took place in Kabulduring the period discussed above should also be investigated.Troops or commanders from all the factionsnamed above who were involved in pillage need to be thoroughlyinvestigated.

Rape and Sexual Violence

Several health workers in Kabulwho spoke with Human Rights Watch stated that rape and other forms of sexualviolence were commonly committed against women who were abducted by Wahdat andIttihad forces in 1992-1993, as well as generally during the hostilities aroundKabul at the time.[127]Human Rights Watch was unable to obtain directaccounts from victims of rape during this period, in large part due to deepreluctance among women and girls to grant interviews on the subject, orrefusals by families of the victims to allow such interviews.But there is evidence of its occurrence.H.K., who worked on a documentation projectinto abductions discussed earlier in this report, told Human Rights Watch thatresearchers working on this issue in the early 1990's knew of widespreadabductions and rape of women in west Kabul,although he said that families were in most cases unwilling to give informationabout details:

It was impossible to document the rape or kidnapping ofwomen in these cases.The familiesalways denied cases where the women were kidnapped or raped, because of thedishonor and shame.The families woulddeny that their women were kidnapped, or refuse to discuss these cases; it isbecause Afghan families are very conservative.There would be lots of stories, lots of talk about how "other families"had had the women abducted.A set ofpeople would tell us, "Look, that family over there, across the street, theirwomen were kidnapped," but when we went over to ask the family themselves, theywould deny it, and say nothing had happened.This is how it always happened.Maybe they would admit it if a boy was abducted, for rape, but not thewomen.[128]

Human Rights Watch did receive accounts from severaljournalists and civil society organizers about cases of rape which theydocumented-specifically, cases of troops from Jamiat, Hezb-e Islami, and Wahdatbreaking into houses and raping women.[129]Human Rights Watch also received credible informationfrom government sources about cases of rape by Jamiat, Wahdat, and Junbishforces.[130]S.K., the health worker in west Kabul quoted earlier, said she treated numerous women whosaid they had been raped by militia forces in west Kabul in 1992-1993, and collected bodies ofwomen in the streets who showed signs of having been raped.[131]

More investigation is needed to determine the scope of rapeas a practice among the various troops in Kabulin the post-Najibullah period.Based onthe available information, rape may have been a chronic problem in Kabul during the periodand numerous commanders, including at the highest levels of each faction, appearto have failed to take appropriate steps to prevent further cases fromoccurring.In some cases, sub-commandersthemselves may have been involved in rapes.[132]

B:October1992-February 1993

Kabulsuffered relatively less intense fighting after the August 1992 blitz on thecity, but serious firefights and shelling rocked the city throughout the laterpart of the year.

In October, the leadership council set up under the Peshawar accords voted toextend Rabbani's term for forty-five days, until December, on the grounds thatthe summer fighting had made the summoning of the council impossible.Jamiat forces repeatedly battled Wahdat inthe west, near KabulUniversity, causingfurther casualties and damage.At thesame time, there were increasing signs that Dostum's Junbish faction wasstarting to negotiate with Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, despite the fact Hekmatyarhad initially opposed Dostum, and used Dostum's presence in Kabul (as a formercommunist government official) as a pretext for opposing Massoud.

In December 1992, Rabbani convened the council ofrepresentatives called for under the Peshawar Accords to choose the nextgovernment-or just reelect him as president.[133]The council, however, was not representativeof the different warring factions or the general Afghan population.Many of the invited members boycotted thevote, including representatives of Junbish, Wahdat and Hezb-e Islami.Rabbani was "reelected" by his supporters,allies and proxies in the meeting, and stated his intention to serve aspresident for another 18 months.Hekmatyar,however, refused to accept the outcome of the council, and vowed to dislodgeRabbani's government, and Massoud's forces, in the coming months.Wahdat rejected the new government as well,and soon made an official alliance with Hekmatyar.Junbish, for the most part, stayed on thesidelines.[134]

-

Burhanuddin Rabbani,seated, the political leader of Jamiat-e Islami and President of Afghanistanafter

Mujaddidi. 1992Robert Nickelsberg

January February 1993: Conflict Continues

Fighting between Jamiat and Hezb-e Islami/Wahdat flared upthe week of January 19, 1993.Jamiatforces attacked several Hezb-e Islami positions to the south and southeast of Kabul early in the week,and Hekmatyar's forces soon restarted rocket and shelling attacks on the citycenter.[135]Heavy fighting broke out later in the weekbetween Wahdat and Jamiat forces in west Kabul,near the Intercontinental Hotel and the large agricultural compound west ofMamorine neighborhood, known as "the Silo," as well as in other places in thewest.Wahdat and Hizb-e Islami forceswere now cooperating.[136]

In statements given to journalists, the two opposingsides-Jamiat on one side and Wahdat and Hizb-e Islami on the other-blamed theother for the resumption in hostilities.[137]

Over the next three weeks, thousands of Kabul residents were wounded and killed inthe fighting, according to health officials interviewed by Human Rights Watchand others who spoke with journalists at the time.Some of the last diplomatic offices in Kabul were evacuated,including the Turkish, Iranian, Chinese, and Indian embassies.

The fighting grew worse as weeks passed.Journalists working in Kabul at the time told Human Rights Watchthat the hospitals they visited were constantly full, with scores of woundedcivilians and soldiers brought in daily.Many of the dead were never brought to hospitals at all.A journalist recalled the general level ofchaos at the time, and driving from the city center to west Kabulto see the fighting:

It was complete madness.No one was on the roads.On themain road [running to Darulman in west Kabul]there were rockets coming in all around.It was terrifying really.Itwasn't really possible to tell where they were coming from.

When you went down to Charasyab [southwest of Kabul] you'd see rocketlaunchers, where Hekmatyar's troops were.And on that mountain behind Wazir [Bibi Mahru hill] also. . . .There were attacks all the time.It was completely arbitrary whether you couldget to the places that had been hit quickly enough to cover it [interviewpeople and file stories].We sawterrible things.Dead people, woundedpeople, corpses on the side of the road.One time we saw the remains of a child, lying on the ground.One time we picked up a guy who had beenwounded, a civilian, with a huge hole in his side.It was horrible really.We had to put him in the boot of the car andwe drove him to the hospital.It wasquite absurd.I don't think that he lived.. .[138]

Many of the rockets and shells fired by both sides wereclearly hitting civilian areas on a regular basis, and most of the patientsbrought to the hospitals mentioned above were in fact civilians.[139]

There is no accurate tally of dead and wounded civiliansduring the fighting, but journalists in Kabulat the time were able to gather limited reports day-to-day:

• On January 19, a health official reported to Agence France-Presse that 33 wounded persons had been brought to a central hospital, of whom eight died.[140]
• On February 4, according to reports gathered by the Reuters journalist quoted above, at least 41 persons were admitted to one hospital in Wazir Akbar Khan, 10 persons died at a nearby military hospital (with "many more" injured) and at the Jamhuriat hospital, there were 26 wounded admitted, of whom four died.[141]Dr. Said Omar, a doctor at Jamhuriat, told the journalist:"This is heavy artillery and it totally cuts up the bodies. . . .This is the worst morning we have had."[142]
• On February 8, 1993, Hezb-e Islami and Wahdat forces fired rockets and artillery at Jamiat positions throughout the day, including in civilian areas in the eastern and central parts of the city, while Jamiat positions on Bibi Mahru hill, behind the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, fired rockets at Hezb-e Islami positions to the south.[143]Scores of shells and rockets fell in the city: in Micrayon, Wazir Akbar Khan, West Kabul, Afshar, and neighborhoods on the lower part of TelevisionMountain, killing and injuring hundreds of people.There was also fighting between Jamiat and Hezb-e Islami in and near the Russian Embassy and the Presidential Palace.That day, a hospital in Wazir Akbar Khan reported 20 dead and 60 wounded; a journalist saw the hallways filled with groaning patients with shrapnel wounds, and dead bodies in the parking lot.Dr. Mohammad Qasem told the journalist: "This is the highest number since the fighting began."[144]Medical staff at other hospitals couldn't count the bodies that day: "We don't have time to count them, we're too busy trying to look after them," a nurse at the Jamhuriat hospital told another journalist.[145]

By the end of the first week of February, medical staff inKabul reported 800 deaths and 3,500 to 4,000 injuries since January 19, 1993-athree week period-while pointing out that the number of dead was likely muchhigher, since most families were not bringing the civilian dead to hospitals orreporting deaths.[146]Armin Kobel, the chief of ICRC, toldjournalists that 368 wounded were admitted to Kabul's hospitals February 10.[147]On February 12, a doctor at an ICRC hospitaltold an Agence France-Presse journalist that the total dead citywide in theperiod (civilian and combatants) was probably around 5,000.[148]

A Kabul resident who waspresent in West Kabul at the time of thefighting told Human Rights Watch:

It was a terrible time.There were rockets coming every day.During the night, bullets and artillery would be launched from Qarghafrom the west [area on the border of Paghman district to the west of Kabul, controlled byJamiat and Sayyaf's Ittihad forces].Andfrom the mountain, Mamorine [controlled by Jamiat], came shells.They were shelling from Mamorine, intoAfshar, hitting the side of mountain.Welived in the basement during this time. . . .[149]

Another witness, a doctor who was a medical student at ahospital at the time, told Human Rights Watch about the situation in both West Kabul and the central city:

There was a lot of fighting going on in our neighborhoodaround this time.There were many timesI saw fighting like this.We sawterrible rocketing and shelling, by Shura-e Nazar and by Hekmatyar.Rockets hitting hospitals; people would bebroken into pieces: hands, feet, heads.

One time, a rocket flew in and exploded at the Amniathospital, where we were studying at the time because of the insecurity at themain university.It was about ten in themorning. . . .Some doctors died, someof the female students died, one girl went crazy, from an injury to herhead.One girl lost her eyes.I myself saw all of this-the damage after therocket hit: people torn into pieces.Manypeople were killed by that rocket.Itcame from the west, over television mountain [the main peak in central Kabul, suggesting it was fired from Hekmatyar's positions insouthwest Kabul].[150]

A resident of Afshar in West Kabultold Human Rights Watch how his brother and later his father were killed byshelling and rockets in his neighborhood in late January 1993:

One early morning [the last week of January], while I wasstill asleep, my older brother went down to a well below our house [down themountain] to get some water for the family. . . .Later, the neighbors woke us, telling us tocome down to this shop . . . .We wentdown: there were seven or eight corpses, lined up near this store there.We were told that a rocket had hit near tothe well, and my brother had been killed.There were explosions all the time in those days. . . .

We couldn't bury him, it was so unsafe to be outside fortoo long. . . .That night, we took himout to bury him near to our house.Webrought a hurricane lamp with us, but didn't light it.It was quiet, as we dug a hole and the clericwith us spoke and we prayed.Then we litthe hurricane lamp, in order to lower him into the ground.As soon as we lit that hurricane lamp, weheard them firing from Mamorine [the mountain southeast of Afshar, held byJamiat], and explosions hit nearby, so we extinguished the light and buried himin the dark.It was Shura-e Nazar[Jamiat forces].They would shoot at usfrom Mamorine all the time-at ordinary civilians.They would shoot at anyone, but especiallycrowds of four or more.[151]

The man's father was killed in an attack three days later:

It was morning, and we thought we could go out, it wasquiet.We needed some food.So my father went out.As he was going down the steps, in themountain, a rocket hit very near to him.My father collapsed.We went tohim.Shrapnel had hit him.He was seriously wounded.We started to carry him, to get a way to goto the hospital.But he was bleeding somuch, and it didn't stop.He bled todeath. . . . When we had to bury him, wefaced the same difficulties as with my brother.[152]

Thousands of civilians fled their homes in Kabul throughout late January and earlyFebruary.Human Rights Watch interviewedseveral men who sent their families out of Kabul during this time, complaining of theconstant fighting."We left becausethere was heavy shelling and a lot of shooting, with heavy weapons," one manwho fled in early February told Human Rights Watch.[153]"Sakr [Soviet-made] rockets were flying intothe area [west Kabul].. . .The artillery and rockets werehitting the houses, indiscriminately.Wedidn't feel safe, so we left."[154]Journalists in Kabul at the time reported seeing familiesfleeing on roads out of the city.Oneman shouted to journalists as he pushed a cart with his belongings out of thecity on February 9: "These mujahedin are taking us back to the first century!"[155]

C:February1993: the Afshar Campaign

The Wahdat and Hezb-e Islami alliance was a new threat tothe Rabbani government, since Wahdat already held positions in central Kabulitself, including much of west Kabul and areas between the eastern portions ofthe city, where most government buildings were located, and the western hillsof Paghman, where Sayyaf and his Ittihad militia were headquartered.Wahdat's possession of the peak of Afsharmountain, north of the main road to Paghman, made their position especiallystrong.

In early February 1993, the government of BurhanuddinRabbani and the senior Jamiat and Ittihad commanders decided to take actionagainst the Wahdat and Hezb-e Islami alliance by attacking Wahdat's mainpositions in the west of the city and, in particular, their positions on thetop of Afshar mountain and in several government compounds to the east of theAfshar residential area at the foot of the mountain.

Human Rights Watch received credible and consistent accountsfrom several officials who worked in Shura-e Nazar and the interim governmentthat a military campaign against Wahdat was planned and approved by officialsat the highest levels of Jamiat and Shura-e Nazar, Ittihad, and the Rabbanigovernment.[156]

The plan was for a coordinated military attack on Wahdatheadquarters located in the Academy ofSocial Science, near the PolytechnicUniversity,at the foot of the Afshar neighborhood in west Kabul.The specific objectives of the campaign werefor Jamiat and Ittihad forces to seize and occupy the headquarters and mainWahdat positions around Afshar so that the government forces could link uptheir control of Kabul from the west (around Paghman district) to the easternparts of the city, and to capture the political and military leader of Wahdat,Abdul Ali Mazari.

The Afghan Justice Project, the independent non-governmentalgroup that investigated the Afshar incident and other military operations in Afghanistanfrom 1979 through 2001, described the operation in a January 2005 report:

The Afshar operation of February 1993 represented thelargest and most integrated use of military power undertaken by the ISA up tothat time [ISA refers to the Islamic State of Afghanistan, the Rabbani-ledgovernment].There were two tacticalobjectives to the operation.First,Massoud intended through the operation to capture the political and militaryheadquarters of Hizb-i Wahdat, (which was located in the Social ScienceInstitute, adjoining Afshar, the neighborhood below the Afshar mountain in westKabul), and to capture Abdul Ali Mazari, the leader of Hizb-i Wahdat.Second, the ISA intended to consolidate theareas of the capital directly controlled by Islamic State forces by linking upparts of west Kabul controlled by Ittihad-iIslami with parts of central Kabulcontrolled by Jamiat-i Islami.[157]

The attack was not a well-kept secret among themilitias.Wahdat political officialsknew that an offensive was planned several days before it began, as did a smallnumber of well-connected Afshar residents, who fled in the days before theattack.[158]A few Afshar residents who received word ofan impending attack were able to leave.A resident described to Human Rights Watch how he learned of the attack:

A friend of mine, he was involved in Shura-e Nazar.He worked in the headquarters and in thegovernment.He came to me, before theinvasion, two days before, and he said, "You must get out of here.There is an order for an invasion.Paghmani people [Ittihad] will attack thisarea, kill everyone, and loot every house."[159]

Another said:

A family relation we had, who was a fighter with Massoud,told us to leave.He said to us, 'Sayyaf'speople and Massoud's people are going to attack here.'This was four days before.He told us to leave.So we left.[160]

And another:

Five days before the attack, a nephew of mine who was abodyguard for Anwari [Harakat's leader] came and told me: "You should get outof here, this place will collapse.Andeven if you are not a combatant, there will be lots of destruction."Two days later, at night, we left.[161]

Most residents in the area, however, were not aware of theimpending operation and were not warned or evacuated.[162]

The operation's key was the top of Afshar mountain itself,lying above Afshar neighborhood.Themilitary strategy centered around Jamiat taking control of the peaks of themountain, before moving on Wahdat positions at the southeast base of the hill,to the east of Afshar's civilian area.[163]Just before the attack, agents in theJamiat-controlled Afghan intelligence service, orAmniat-e Melli, headed by Mohammad Fahim (Afghanistan's defense ministerfrom 2001-2004 and a key military ally of the United States during operationsagainst the Taliban in late 2001) paid off several Harakat faction commandersto the north and west of Afshar, to cooperate with the invasion and allowJamiat and Ittihad troops to pass their posts unmolested and to seize Afshar'speak.[164]When the attack later began, Jamiat forcesdid seize Afshar's peak, and Ittihad entered Afshar itself and took control ofWahdat positions at the Academy of Social Science and along the road that runs south ofAfshar from Paghman into central Kabul.Jamiat forces also took positions on theroads leading in and out of Afshar.Wahdat forces, meanwhile, fled south into west Kabul, leaving the predominately Hazaracivilian population of Afshar in the hands of the predominately Pashtun Ittihadtroops.

Two days before the attack, Massoud convened a meeting atthe military base at Badambagh in Kabul,comprised of senior commanders in Jamiat and Ittihad, and other commanderswithin the overall structure of Shura-e Nazar.[165]The senior leadership of Jamiat at the timeincluded Mullah Ezat (Ezatullah), a commander in Paghman; Mohammad Qasim Fahim(the head of Amniat-e Melli); Baba Jan; Anwar Dangar;Gadda Mohammad; Baba Jalander; Haji Almas; GulHaider, and Bismillah Khan.

HumanRights Watch was unable to confirm exactly who was at this meeting, but it isalmost certain that Fahim was there, given the importance of his role inorganizing the preparation for the operation.According to a witness interviewed by the Afghan Justice Project,two senior Ittihad commanders-Shir Alam and Zalmay Tofan-were at the meeting,as well as Hossain Anwari, leader of the Harakat faction.[166]

The next day, Sayyaf reportedly met with senior Ittihadcommanders in Paghman to discuss the planned attack.[167]Ittihad's leadership at the time included Sayyaf himself,HajiShir Alam, Zalmay Tufan, Abdullah Shah, and Mullah Taj Mohammad.Several mid-level commanders were probably also at the meeting.

Another commanders' meeting was held by Massoud in a safehouse in Karte Parwan, near the Hotel Intercontinental, on the night before theoffensive.[168]According to the Afghan Justice Project,Massoud also convened a meeting in the Hotel Intercontinental on the second dayof the operation, February 12, attended by military commanders and politicalfigures, including Rabbani, Sayyaf and Fahim.[169]

Human Rights Watch interviewed numerous residents in Afsharwho were present at the time who described how the attack and its aftermathunfolded. As shown here, there iscredible and consistent evidence of widespread and systematic human rightsabuses and violations of international humanitarian law during and after theAfshar operation, including intentional killing of civilians, beating ofcivilians, abductions based on ethnicity, looting, and forced labor.The widespread and deliberate nature of theseattacks suggests that some of the commanders involved in these abuses could beliable for crimes against humanity.

Artillery Attacks

Before the actual ground attack, Jamiat forces positionednew artillery on the peaks of Aliabad hill and Mamorine mountain, nearby;Ittihad already had artillery and rocket launchers in place at Qargha, on thePaghman border to the west of Afshar.Journalists and military officials familiar with the operation believethe weapons deployed on Mamorine and Television Mountains, at the Hotel Intercontinental,and at the Kabul Zoo included BM-40, BM-22, and BM-12 rocket launchers (mountedcubes of 12), Sakr 18 rocket launchers, 120mm mortars, 82mm mortars, and D30(or "DC") 105mm cannons.Jamiat forcesalso put tanks in various areas to use their cannon fire.[170]

There was periodic artillery and rocket fire directed at theAfshar area February 7-10.According toresidents who lived in Afshar at the time, ordinance fell repeatedly on thecivilian homes below the top of Afshar mountain and to the west and northwestof Mazari's headquarters at the Academy of Social Science.[171]A resident who was wounded at the time toldHuman Rights Watch about the effects of the initial artillery fire:

They [referring to Ittihad and Jamiat] were firing at thetop of the hill [Afshar]. . . .Mostlythe artillery was falling into this area.Many houses were hit.Our housewas hit during this time.

I remember: I heard my son shriek.I was wounded also, in the torso here, in thestomach.My granddaughter was alsokilled by the same shell, and my other daughter was wounded in the face anddisfigured.My house was on fire.Three or four other houses were hit as wellaround here [gesturing in a circle].[172]

Another resident, J.L.S., saw the beginning of the attack:"My house is at the foot of the mountain.I woke up early on the morning of the attack, to take ablution forprayer.Suddenly, there was a lot ofartillery firing.I looked up toward thecommunication center [at the top of Afshar mountain] and it was on fire.The base was on fire.There was a lot of artillery landing nearby."[173]

One resident, a Tajik man who lived in Afshar, said that theconstant firing of shells and rockets kept many residents inside:"Before the invasion, there was noannouncement or effort to make people leave, or evacuate.No one knew what was happening, everyone wasa prisoner in their home."[174]The man described seeing a neighbor hit byshrapnel on or about February 7:

Mir Yaqub, a neighbor of mine just next to me, in thehouse below, a rocket hit his house and he was killed.This was about four days before the mainattack started.After the rocket hit, Ilooked out this little space, between the bags of dirt we had laid in thewindows.I looked out and down into hisyard, and I saw that he had been injured, and was lying on the ground.Members of his family picked him up . . . totake him to the hospital, but he died [there], and they brought him back andburied him on the mountain.[175]

The Ground Attack

The Afshar operation started in earnest in the early hoursof February 11, 1993.Jamiat forces(with Harakat's agreement to allow it) seized the top of Afshar mountainitself.Ittihad and Jamiat positionsthen launched a massive barrage of rockets and artillery at the entire areaaround the foot of the mountain-both the Wahdat positions along the main roadsouth of Afshar and the neighborhood to the north.Much of the barrage hit civilian homes inAfshar area through the morning.[176]As the morning continued, Wahdat troops fledsouth, away from Afshar.Ittihad andJamiat forces began to enter the area.[177]

L.S., an Afshar resident, told Human Rights Watch how themorning unfolded:

It was five o' clock in the morning.There were rockets firing and artillery. . ..At first, people thought: "It isfighting between the mujahedin."Imyself thought this, and I didn't worry so much.I thought that they were fighting amongstthemselves-Rabbani, Wahdat-and that civilians would face no harm.But there was a lot of rocketing.Then around ten a.m. we saw the first troopscome from the west, into Afshar. . . .We stayed indoors.[178]

A.L.S., another resident who was a boy when the attackoccurred, said that many families started to flee as the morning progressed,including his own:

It was terrible.There were rockets, explosions. . . .I saw a rocket hit a neighbor's house.His son was killed.There wasblood pouring out of him.I saw that. .. .The [ground] attack started sometimelater.Our family left [then].When we went, we saw a lot of dead bodies onthe street: people who had been killed.[179]

Many families tried to go east,towards the Hotel Intercontinental and into the Timani neighborhood beyond,where many people later took refuge.

A resident, Q.L.N., described the scene of fleeingresidents: "A number of families were fleeing.One family was holding a dead child, wouldn't let it go.One young girl had lost her family; she waswounded, dying on the ground."[180]

Ittihad troops were now arresting Hazara men: numerousresidents interviewed by Human Rights Watch described Ittihad troops stoppingHazara men and separating them from their families.[181]The troops were also killing unarmedcivilians.F.A., a woman from Afshar,told Human Rights Watch about how both her husband and son were killed byIttihad troops the first day of the attack:

As we were leaving [to flee Afshar], three of Sayyaf'sgunmen came up to our house.My husband,my son, and us women.Just as we openedour door, they were there.They came in,and without exchanging a single word, they aimed their guns at my husband andmy son and they shot both of them, right in front of our eyes. . . .We were hitting our heads and sobbing andthrowing ourselves on our men.Thetroops said that if we didn't stop screaming they would throw grenades at usand kill us. . . .[182]

(The woman later fled east with another family to Taimani, apredominately ethnic Ismaili neighborhood where many Afshar residents tookrefuge during the attack.[183])

Another woman, F.W., said she had to leave her woundedhusband behind as she fled:

That first day, a rocket hit our house.My husband was wounded in the foot.He was bleeding. . . .People were rushing around: men, women,children, all fleeing their houses, going toward the IntercontinentalHotel.I told my husband, "Everyone isleaving, fleeing, no one is left."And Isaid that we should go.But he said, "Ican't move.I can't go with you.Leave me here, and flee."And he told me to take the eldest daughter,and that taking her away was the most important thing. . . .

We went out [of the house], but I couldn't go.I couldn't leave him there-my husband.I had to go back.So I went back, and I told him that I wantedhim to come with us, and that I would help him walk. . . .So then we went, I was helping him, he hadhis arm around my shoulder.I was alsocarrying my three-month-old son, and my eldest daughter was holding mythree-year-old.We got as far as thewater canal [about 80 meters away].

At that moment, some gunmen came up to us, MullahEzatullah's men.The commander said,"Qalfak Chapat." [A derogatory term for Hazaras referring to their facialfeatures.]"I'm one of Ezatullah's men,and I've been ordered to seize this area.I'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget, for all of history."He was a fat strong man, in plain Afghanclothes.But they didn't do anything tous.They said, "We can reach youanywhere you go, we are everywhere, we control everything."And they moved on.

So we were very scared.My husband said he could not go on.So we went back to our house.Hemade us leave, he insisted that I take our daughter, and so we went.We went [past] the Intercontinental . . . andwe went to the Ismaili people [in Taimani], who helped us.

A few days later, a neighbor came to us, a Tajik who knewwhat was going on.He told us thatAfshar was destroyed, my house was burned, and my husband was killed. . . .[184]

The woman returned to the house over a year later: "When weentered the house, we found only a skull, and four big bones, on theground.There was nothing else.A neighbor, who knew Sayyaf's people and hadseen more of what happened, told me that my husband was shot with many bulletsand killed."[185]

Another resident, R.J.G., said that he witnessed rocketsfired into crowds of fleeing civilians off the top of Afshar mountain on theafternoon of February 11:

Jamiat took the top of the mountain.Around five in the afternoon, they startedfiring rockets from the top of the mountain, down into this area.They killed people right here on thisstreet.People were rushing out of Afshar.They were rushing down this street here [themain street running north south through the eastern part of Afshar].The street was filled with people, runningaway from Afshar. . . .My house isright there, at the top of the street. . . .Massoud's forces were shooting at them. . . .They were firing into this street.Three times the street was hit.Seventeen people were killed-there wereseventeen bodies lying in the street-we counted.The corpses were lying here in the streets. .. .Clearly they were civilians.Yes, it was clear: they had burqas, therewere children. It was clear they werecivilians.[186]

Another resident, L.M., was almost killed by a rocket thenext day:

As we were walking up towards our compound, a shell or arocket hit right in front of my compound.I was walking with my two neighbors, both of them were hit.One was killed instantly.A piece of the rocket went into his eye, andout the back of his head.He died.And the other person was hit in the knee, andhe was injured, and he fell down.Wewere about fifty meters from where the explosion was. . . .I was not wounded.It was a miracle.[187]

Notably, this incident, which took place in a residentialarea, occurred after Wahdat forces had left the nearby headquarters, suggestingthat whatever force fired the rocket was either intentionally or recklesslytargeting civilians.

Y.B.K., a Hazara Afshar resident who was a boy at the time,said he was arrested in his house by troops he believed were Pashtun-likelyIttihad-and taken to the Academy of Social Science.He said he saw scores of dead civilians onthe way.[188]

I saw some Paghmani people [i.e., Ittihad], searchinghouse by house.I fled into myhouse.This commander, Hasan Yaldar [thewitness said he learned the name of the commander from his neighbor, mentionedbelow], came into our house, with seven or eight gunmen. . . .They grabbed me and took me with them.I was afraid. . . .Hasan Yaldar pushed me down to the ground,and he kneeled on my chest, pulled out his bayonet, and pushed it into[against] my throat.-"Where are theguns?" he yelled at me.-"I don't knowanything, I swear to God," I said.Buthe hit me with a strong slap.And he wasyelling at me.I was crying andcrying.I was so afraid.Then, the other gunmen told him to releasehim, and he did, and they started to beat me, kicking me, punching me, andhitting me with their guns.I had cutsall over my body.I was hurt badly.

My neighbor, a Panshiri [Tajik], came up and he tried tostop them.He said to Hasan Yaldar,"He's just a child!"And he said to themthat when Wahdat was in power, my family had protected them [as Tajiks] as muchas possible, and that he had to protect me.But they took me away.They mademe walk toward the Academy of Social Science.

On the way, I saw fifty or sixty corpses all over theroads.Some were shot.Some were cut up, limbs severed.There was a lot of blood on the ground.It was a shocking scene.It stuck in my mind how awful it was. . ..Some of them were shot.I saw some bodies, their stomachs had beencut open.Others had been hit inexplosions, in rockets, and were burned. . . .I think that most were killed by gunmen. . . .

My neighbor was following us, begging them to releaseme.He was trying to convince them,saying I was just a child, and asking them again and again.Finally, I think he talked to a highercommander, who told Hasan Yaldar to release me.Finally, they released me, and my neighbor grabbed my hand, and took meback to my house, to my mother.We werein a panic. . . .[189]

F.W., quoted above, who fled during the fighting east towardthe Hotel Intercontinental, said that some troops were stopping civilians andkilling some of them at the side of the road, although at least one commanderattempted to stop abuses:

While we were fleeing, toward the Intercontinental, thetroops were stopping civilians, and killing them.One of the commanders said to the troops,"Stop bothering these people.We arefighting with gunmen, not children and wives."But some others disagreed with him, and said, "No, on the battlefield,everyone is an enemy.Everyone who helpsthe enemy is an enemy."[190]

Some residents said that Jamiat troops stopped Hazaras aswell, and arrested them.Q.L.N toldHuman Rights Watch that he saw Jamiat troops stopping Hazara civilians at apost at Bagh Bala:"Qari Moheb, theJamiat commander, stopped me. . . .Theytook my watch, my clothes. . . .Therewere two wounded people in the car with me, Hazara.They [the Jamiat troops] just said 'You'reHazara, you must come with us.'"[191]Q.L.N. said he was able to be releasedbecause another Jamiat commander there knew him."The others were taken," he said.

On February 12, as more Ittihad troops fanned through theneighborhood, residents continued to flee.According to numerous residents interviewed, Ittihad troops were stillstopping Hazara families, separating men from their families and arrestingthem, and sometimes beating or killing them.

L.M., an Ismaili, told Human Rights Watch that Ittihadtroops (after they robbed his store nearby) asked him which houses wereinhabited by Hazaras:"'Where are theHazaras?' they said.I said, 'I don'tknow, we all live in different houses, I don't know.'"[192]A short-time later, as troops continued tomove through Afshar, some Hazara neighbors came to L.M.'s house asking him forhelp:"[T]hese two Hazara guys came intomy house, some neighbors, and they said, 'We live nearby.We know that you are a good person.Please help us, they are looking for us.'"[193]L.M. said that family members later escortedthe two men out of Afshar.[194]

As he fled later, L.M. saw Ittihad troops beating a Hazarateenager at a checkpost:

[H]e was the son of the servant at the mosque.He was behind us [as we left Afshar].The gunmen stopped him, and started to beathim.I turned around, and I said, "Stop,he is the son of the servant at the mosque.He's not a fighter."But theypulled him off and took him away somewhere.Three days later, when I came back, I saw his corpse behind the wall ofthe Academy of Social Science.I saw two corpses; his was one of them.[195]

L.S., a Hazara man quoted above, described what he saw andexperienced:[196]

When I looked into the street, I saw a lot of people,men, women, and children running down the hill, escaping. . . .We decided to leave. . . .I got outside of my house, with my wife andchildren, and we started to flee.Alongthe way, we came upon gunmen, who were arresting people.They were stopping the families, andseparating the men from the families.There were about seven or eight gunmen.They saw us, and some of them came up to us and they separated me frommy family. . . .

L.S. said that he saw thirty to forty other Hazara men andboys lined up against a wall, guarded by Ittihad troops:

The gunmen were tying people up and putting them againstthe wall.Women were crying, or theywere running away.They were veryafraid.The soldiers saw us and cameover to us.I know who the commanderwas: Shir Agha Zarshakh.It was one ofSayyaf's commanders.

According to L.S., Shir Agha Zarshakh addressed himspecifically:

He said, "Hey, Hazara: this is your graveyard.Where are you going?"

I said, "I am an ordinary person.I have no involvement with political partiesor fighting.I live here with myfamily."

He said, "Whether you are a civilian or not a civilian,you are Hazara."And immediately thesoldiers started beating me with the butts of their guns.My seven-year old son rushed away from mywife towards me, to help me, but one of the gunmen hit him hard with a gun, andknocked him down to the ground.Then thegunman took the bayonet off his gun, and put it up to my boy's throat, like tocut off his head.I started shrieking,and the women started shrieking, and my wife and some other women threwthemselves on top of the boy. Thesoldier moved back, toward me.Isignaled with my hand to my wife to leave, to go.Then the women rushed off with the boy.

L.S. said he saw two women killed by the same set of troops:

At this time, they killed some women also. . . .This is how it happened:Najaf Karbalie [one who has made a pilgrimageto Karbala], anold man, had come out of his house, and they had separated him from his familyto arrest him.As this happened, hiswife came to him and grabbed him and was pulling on him, saying, "Please, leavehim, he is old.Leave him."But the gunmen did not let go of him.

Karbalie said to the gunmen, "Well, we thought you wereMuslim.If we had known that you wouldbehave like this, you would never have succeeded in capturing Afshar."And the gunmen started beating him.They were also beating someone else, next tohim.Karbalie's wife and another womanthrew themselves on them, their husbands, and were yelling at the troops,insulting them.The troops grabbed theone woman, and then the other, pushed them off the men, and then threw them onthe ground and killed them.

They took their guns, with the bayonets, and stabbed thewomen as they lay on the ground, stabbed them many times over, at least tentimes.[Motions like he is holding a gunwith a bayonet, stabbing it down into the ground.]We saw all of this.

After, the women were lying on the ground.They were shaking at first; their feet weretwitching.They were dead.The two men, both of them, fainted.They were unconscious.The women were about thirty-five, orforty.I think that one of them waspregnant.She looked pregnant. . . .

J.L.S., quoted above, a physically disabled Hazara man inAfshar who was detained in a house by Ittihad troops on February 12, told HumanRights Watch that troops beat him:"Theybeat me, really badly.I am a lameperson [disabled].I said [to them], 'Iam just a lame man, I can hardly walk.'"[197]J.L.S. also said the troops harassed hisfemale relatives:

They went to the women in my family, and they started tograb them, and pull at their chador [to remove it].I threw myself on the legs of the troops, andsaid, "How dare you search these women?"This one troop I grabbed, he took his gun and pointed it down at me [toshoot me], but one of the women grabbed the butt of the gun before it fired,and the shot went into the ground.Thewomen cried, "Please, give us mercy, he is just a lame man."And they let us go.They said, "We'll come back for you later."

Y.B.K., quoted above, said that Ittihad troops startedsearching houses, apparently to look for weapons but also to harass Hazaracivilians.He described seeing one ofhis neighbors being harassed, a 70-year-old man:

They said, "Hey, old man, where are your guns?"The old man said, "I don't have anything, Idon't have any guns."But the troopsknocked him down and punched him.Theytook him by the ankles and held him upside down into the well [hanging into thewell], and yelled at him: "Where are the guns?"But he yelled out, "My dear son, have mercy on me!I don't have any guns!"They pulled him up again, and they threw himon the ground. . . .[198]

R.J.G., quoted above, fled Afshar with his family early onthe morning of February 12.He said thatJamiat forces near the Hotel Intercontinental stopped his family and told themthat the "fighting was over" and told them return to Afshar.R.J.G. and his family returned."But when we got back, we could see thatSayyaf's forces were there-and that there were Kandaharis among them, and thatthey were looting."He fled onceagain:"We saw that there was nosecurity, so we left again.There weremany, many corpses [on the roads]."[199]As he left his house for the second time,R.J.G. said he saw Ittihad troops randomly kill a Hazara boy who was passing anearby checkpost on the way out of Afshar:

I saw Sayyaf's troops kill this guy on the street here, aHazara, about 16 years old.I saw frommy house.There were these gunmen postedhere, and this guy was passing on his way down the road.The gunmen, they were Pashtuns.They didn't do anything to the boy as he wentby, and the boy passed.After he passed,they shot him in the back, two of them I think, and he was killed. . . .[200]

Evidence of Mutilations, and Cases of Looting andForced Labor

Ittihad forces compelled persons they had taken into custodyto bury the dead, and those who did so say they saw evidence of torture andmutilation of corpses.Ittihad forceswere also reported to have forced captured civilians to assist them in lootingproperty and otherwise take part in forced labor.

L.S., quoted above, told Human Rights Watch that after hewas arrested on February 12, Ittihad gunmen forced him to bury corpses and loadtrucks with stolen goods:

[After we were arrested,] three trucks arrived.Since my home was closest, they made us gointo that house, to take out the property.They made us go in and carry all my property to the truck.We loaded property from many houses. . . .[201]

L.S. said that he and other detainees were then taken to thecampus of the PolytechnicUniversity nearby, wherethey were tied up.L.S. said thatIttihad troops beat them once they were tied up, kicking them and hitting themwith their guns.[202]

Click to expand Image

Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf, theleader of the Ittihad faction, speaking on television during Afghanistan's constitutional loyajirga, December 2003. Several delegates to the 2003 loya jirga condemnedSayyaf and other commanders for their involvement in war crimes and humanrights abuses in Kabulin the early 1990s.

2003 Human Rights Watch

The men were later untied, said L.S., and deployed to pickup dead civilians and bury them."Theysaid, 'Go and collect your corpses in Afshar, go collect your dead.'So we went out, with them guarding us."[203]

The first person we found was Faizal Ahmed, an oldman.He was decapitated.One of his arms was cut off and one of hislegs.And his penis was cut off, and hispenis was put in his mouth.

Then we collected three other corpses, near Balki'sshrine, and four others from the street between the Academy of Social Scienceand the police academy.We buried all ofthese eight across from the Polytechnic mosque, in the potato field there.

Then they separated us, the older men from the youngmen.[The witness is an older man.]They took us to Qala Hazrat Sayeed and toQala Qorna [Old Mosque].The old to theold: I was in the Old Mosque.They madeus put property from these areas into trucks.We loaded the property, and they took all the property off toPaghman.These people were fromPaghman.They drove the trucks off tothe west, toward Paghman.

As they were looting, they were saying, "You Hazaras wereasking to be kings,[204]but you don't deserve these things.Wedeserve these things."

Until eight p.m. it was our duty to load property fromthese houses in Afshar into the trucks.We had nothing to eat.When weasked for water, they were saying to us, "You should drink poison."We were drinking water from the wells in someof the houses, as we were taking the property.Almost forty trucks were loaded, I think.[205]

The Ittihad troops, L.S. said, then took L.S. back to theOld Mosque, where he and other prisoners were tied up and kept for thenight."Some people slept," hesaid."Most did not.We feared death."[206]The next morning they buried more corpses,said L.S., although later in the day Ittihad troops made them load more trucksand told them to stop trying to pick up the dead:

From seven to ten a.m., we found eleven corpses. . ..We found one seven-year-old boy, hewas decapitated.His head was nearby, ithad been cut off, from behind: you could see from the head that they cut fromthe back, and that the skin had been torn off from the front of his neck, notcut.We found a woman in the same house,dead.She was holding a copy of theKoran in her arms, embracing it.Then wefound the two women who I told you about before, who had been stabbed.We found seven other bodies, in the streets.Men.They had been shot.Three of themwere shot in the head.We buried thembehind Balki mosque, on the east side. . . .Later, we loaded more trucks: at around two p.m., we went to Cotton Textile Street,and Shir Ali Street,and took the property out of those houses.In a house on Cotton Textile Street, we saw a man, Haji Hasan: his headwas cut off, and his feet, and his hands.There was nowhere to bury him, and no time: they were not letting usbury the corpses.So we put him into thewell there.It would be better for himthan to be eaten by dogs. . . .

The Ittihad troops apparently wanted to leave some evidenceof their crimes-to terrorize the local population:

Then we went on to Shir Ali street.There, there was a woman who was shot.She had been the wife of the servant in themosque there.We wanted to bury her, butthey didn't let us.They said, "Let herlie here.Let the other people learnfrom this, and fear us."

On Jaghori Street, there was a guy there, Hussein Ali, he wasabout eighteen.He had been shot.They did not let us bury him either."There are many others like him, you can'tspend all your time burying people." [They said.]"There are others who will be eaten by dogs,let him be eaten too."These all wereShir Agha Zarshakh's men.He was with usthe whole time.[207]

L.S. said he escaped from custody the second night after hewas arrested.He says that the Ittihadmen guarding them at the Old Mosque left them alone in the evening:

I and an old man and his nephew threw ourselves out of awindow there.We crept up AfsharMountain,and got to the water canal.There, wecrawled all night, on our knees and elbows, across the hill, in the canal, tothe northeast.All the skin was worn offour elbows.We moved on, toward thecenter of the city, and joined the other Afshari people at the Qahraman KarbalaMosque [in Taimani]. . . .Of the fortyother people who were imprisoned with me, we never heard of them again, orfound them.We have talked to theirfamilies: none of them was ever returned, and no one ever saw them again.[208]

A.Q.L.,another Hazara man who was arrested during the operation, told Human RightsWatch that he was also forced to help Ittihad troops loot homes:

Four armed men from Sayyaf's forces came.It was around 10 a.m.I begged for mercy, saying, "We arecommoners."They said: "You are Hazara,you work for Mazari."They beat me up. .. .Sayyaf's men forced me to carry theloot. . . .[209]

Y.B.K., also quoted above, said that he saw Ittihad troopsforcing residents to carry looted goods:"The troops were making [people who they arrested] drag precious thingswith them, like they were porters.Theywere carrying what the troops looted, behind them."[210]He saw civilians forced to "drag the corpsesout on to the street."[211]He also said his own home was looted:"They took everything valuable.What they couldn't take, they broke intopieces-for instance, the refrigerators."[212]

Soldiers involved in looting did so openly, apparentlyunconcerned that their superiors would try to stop them:

At around twelve that day I heard some drums.I was amazed.Who would be having a wedding in the middle of this massacre?I looked outside and saw the troops walkingby, playing on drums, laughing.They hadsome porters with them, carrying some televisions and radios.[213]

L.M., the Ismaili man quoted above, was also detained andforced to work, after he returned to Afshar to look for his son, who had goneback to get some of his belongings and (as L.M. later learned) was detained aswell.[214]

I saw many corpses on the road. . . .Many had been shot, or stabbed.I went to my home.Everything was stolen.There was nothing there.They had taken all the valuable things, andwhat was left, too big to take, had been broken, and shot with bullets, likethe refrigerator.[215]

L.M. said he could not find his son, and he went to a nearbymosque to pray:

I was really upset, and feeling very sad and broken.I went to the shrine, and I prayedthere.When I finished praying, I stoodup, and some gunmen saw me.They calledme over, and they said, "Old man!Whoare you?"I said, "I am an inhabitant ofthis area."And they said, "Oh yes, weknow you.You have two guns.Give them to us."I said, "Believe me, I swear to God, I amonly a shopkeeper."They said, "No, youare a fighter, give us the guns."I saidagain, "I don't have any."But theystarted to beat me.They all beat me,all of them.I fell to the ground, myeyes were hurt, they turned black and blue later.My head was full of bumps.After they beat me, they made me stand up,and they ordered me to walk towards the north of Afshar, with them.As we went, they entered into houses, tosearch, or to shoot people.They werelaughing, enjoying themselves.

L.M. said that the troops took him into a small cemetery,where he says he saw the corpses of about eleven boys:

They made me walk up and stand next to thosecorpses.They said to me, "Give us theguns, or you will face the same fate as these eleven boys."They were all around me, pointing theirguns.They ordered me to sit down on theground.The commander said, "I'll countto three, and you have to confess."

I said, "I am a Muslim, let me pray, and then killme."They told me: "You're dirty, you'renot a Muslim-you're Shi'a."

So then I just started praying, with my mouth [i.e., notout loud].They counted, "One. . . Two .. . Three," and then they fired, right in front of me, so that the dirt on theground sprayed up into my face. . . .Itwas on automatic.

"O.K.," they said."He won't confess.He will diedigging holes for us in Paghman.Thereis no need to kill him."So then theytook me away.

A more senior commander then appeared and asked the othertroops who L.M. was:

They said, "We have arrested him.He has two guns, and he won't give them tous."The man said, "Shoot him.Kill him.Don't waste your time.And puthis corpse with the others."And hepointed towards the cemetery.

But the troops apparently had other ideas.L.M. says they took him to a nearby compound,Qala Said, where there was atokia khana,a Shi'a prayer hall, and made him carry out belongings from it:"They made me go in and carry out manyvaluable things, everything.They sentfor a truck, to load things into."

Then the troops put L.M. in a car and drove west with him,toward Paghman.

When we got to the Qargha, they stopped.There was a house there.We went into that house, and there theydivided up all the property.I carriedthe property into the house.I saw themdivide it.The commander got two shares,and the soldiers got one share.

L.M. spent the night there, sleeping on the ground at theQargha base.The troops, who seem tohave taken an inexplicable liking to L.M., drove him back into Kabul the next morning andreleased him.

A.Q.L., quoted earlier, said that after he was forced tohelp loot homes in Afshar, Ittihad troops took him with them back to Paghmanand made him build fortifications.[216]A.Q.L. says he was then kept there,essentially as a slave, for the next three years, working on a base controlledby Zalmay Tofan, one of Sayyaf's main commanders.

They took me to Khandaq Tarik in Kampani, to ZalmayTofan's base. . . .They threw us in acontainer. There were forty prisoners there, Hazaras, in that one container.Every day they gave us one piece of bread and slapped us.By day we worked, by night we were put in thecontainer. It was very cold; there was no sleep.I stayed there for forty days.Then they transferred us to Badam Ghol inPaghman. . . .There were twelve of us[there].We went to a mountain betweenMaidanshah [district west of Kabul]and Paghman.There were four posts onthat mountain. . . .I built theseposts; I carried all the food and water there.

[When asked how he knew the commander's name:]The men there told us "We are Zalmay's men." Conditions were very bad. . . .At dinner, they manacled us with chains onthe legs, two of us to a chain. . . .Westayed in a room, about three by four meters. . .We never received anything from Sayyaf andTofan.But after Sakhi came [anothercommander], he at least loosed our manacles at night, our food improved.I stayed there for three years.I had no news from my family.Out of the twelve [prisoners], one died dueto disease.We couldn't escape, becauseif one escaped the rest were under pressure. . . .I saw Zalmay Tofan up close personally once;it was in the second year I was up there.[217]

A.Q.L. says he was released in 1996, as the Taliban seizedcontrol of the area and Ittihad troops fled north.He then set off to find his family:

It took me eleven days to walk to Kabul.It was snowy, it was winter. . .[A] car came, he agreed to give us a ride. . . .

[When] I saw my face in the [car] mirror, I wasshocked.The driver paid for the barber,for our shoes and clothes.I was droppedin Taimani.It was quiet, I didn't knowanyone anymore.I found someone I knew;he said your family is in Karte Seh, so I went there.

[Witness was quite distressed, but refused to stopinterview.]

My wife didn't recognize me, only after a few minutes.[218]

Both A.Q.L. and L.M. (quoted earlier) told Human RightsWatch that their sons were also arrested by Ittihad.A.Q.L. said his son was only eight years oldwhen he was taken, and was kept for over three years: "After Sayyaf's forceswere defeated by the Taliban [in 1996], he was kept imprisoned by the Taliban.. . .I paid a lot of money to theTaliban and then he was released."[219]Human Rights Watch has documented that manyyoung boys were and are still held by commanders for the purposes of sexual abuse.[220]A.Q.L. did not allow Human Rights Watch tointerview his son:"It is not good toremind the child from his bitter memories in the past."[221]

L.M.'s son was 16 when he was arrested.L.M. managed to have him released after abouttwo months, when he learned that he was being held at Bagh-e Daoud, in Paghman,by a commander under Mullah Ezatullah, named Masjida:

I went to Bagh-e Daoud, to the post there. . . .I eventually got a meeting with a commandernamed Ghafar, who was under Mullah Ezat, and he ordered Masjida to release myson.And so Masjida released him tome.I took him with me from thatcompound and brought him home.[222]

L.M.'s son, who was held for about two months, becamementally ill soon after his release.Said L.M.: "For a month or so, my son was alright, he was quiet,depressed, but more or less he was of sound mind.Now he is insane."[223]Human Rights Watch researchers observedL.M.'s son in 2003, in a semi-catatonic state.According to his family, he no longer communicates with other people,and spends his days sleeping or staring into space, sometimes muttering orlaughing.L.M. described what his sontold him before his mental health problems set in:

[Before the mental health problems,] I asked about whathad happened to him.He wouldn't talk somuch about it.But he said this: he saidhe tried to escape from that compound once.He said he had tried to run away, but that they had fired guns athim.He said that that had reallyshocked him. . . .There were five orsix other prisoners who were held with my son.He told me that. . . .They weremade to work, my son said.He said theydid work for the commanders and troops, washing their clothes, chopping wood,and that sort of thing.[224]

As detailed in earlier sections, Ittihad was not the onlyfaction implicated in abductions.TheAfshar campaign also exposed further Wahdat abuses: An Ittihad soldier whofought in the Afshar campaign told Human Rights Watch that after his troopsseized the Academy of Social Science fromWahdat, they found several women there who said they had been raped byWahdat.They also found a small pile ofcorpses of women prisoners.In anotherroom, they found another pile of dead men and approximately twenty-five maleprisoners:"They were all completelyinsane-from being tortured.They werecompletely, completely insane.[225]The man said he was unable to stay longer toget a more detailed look:"I ranaway.Because of the smell.It was disgusting."[226]

The effects of the Afshar campaign

It is impossible to know for certain how many civilians werekilled during the Afshar campaign, and how many were abducted and neverreleased.After the Rabbani governmentcame under strong pressure from Shi'a community leaders in the summer of 1993,they assigned a commission to catalog the destruction, for the purposes ofpaying out some form of compensation.The commission was comprised of civilians appointed by Wahdat andHarakat leaders, and they received complaints from families of approximately800 arrests during the operation, mostly males between the ages of ten andthirty-five, with a small number of younger children and older men.According to officials, the final documentsproduced by this commission were destroyed after the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996.[227]

Officials with the commission said that approximately eightyto two hundred persons were later released, and that ransoms were paid toIttihad commanders holding them to secure their release, but that approximately700-750 persons were never returned, and were presumably killed or died incaptivity.[228]The commission said it documented thatapproximately 70 to 80 people were also killed in the streets in Afshar, afigure which is consistent with the testimony in this report.The same official said that the commissionreceived information that many women were abducted during the operation, butsaid that few families would report it:

People were feeling so much shame: no one was reportingthat the females were taken.[It was]because of the dishonor, and shame, families would report that the women werekilled.[T]he men were reportedkidnapped, and the women were reported killed [but] there is no doubt thatwomen were kidnapped.[229]

The commission estimated that approximately 5,000 houseswere looted in the Afshar area during and after the operation, a figure whichis not inconsistent with the accounts and information received by Human RightsWatch.[230]

The larger import of the campaign was felt through Kabul.Many Kabulis viewed Afshar as a milestone inthe post-communist era, a moment when they realized the real ethnic tensionsunderlying the fighting in Kabul and the extent to which different mujahedinfactions-who had mainly fought the Soviet regime for so long-were now preparedto kill fellow Afghans.Much of the restof the civil war, even into the Taliban period, was almost wholly defined interms of ethnic and religious tensions between the different factions, stemmingfrom perceived injustices which occurred in the first year of post-communistrule, the Afghan year 1371, which ended with the Afshar incident.

After Afshar

The Afshar campaign and the surrounding violence were endedby a short-lived peace agreement fashioned in late February 1993.(Hamid Gul, the former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI,flew into Kabulin February and took part in negotiations.)Hekmatyar was granted a position in the Rabbani government as prime minister,but would not enter the city to take up his post.There were a few weeks of relative calm, butthe peace did not last.By late March,Hezb-e Islami forces were again attacking Jamiat and Ittihad positions in thecity.Violence continued in the citythroughout the year.By the end of 1993,Junbish switched sides and join Hekmatyar's forces, launching a new chapter ofviolence in the city.January 1994 wasmarked by huge battles in east Kabul,more shelling, and more civilian deaths.Violence continued through 1994 into 1995, at which point the Talibanbegan its attacks on Kabul,which were also marked by grave violations and abuses.

-

Civilians fleeing Kabul, March 5,1993.Over a half million people were displaced by fighting in Kabulin 1992-1993. 1993 RobertNickelsberg

This report, which focuses on the first year of thepost-Najibullah government, does not cover events after March 1993.But Human Rights Watch has gathered largeamounts of information on further abuses in 1993-1996 involving the factionsmentioned in this report, as well as the Taliban.This information will be supplied to theAfghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the U.N. Office for the HighCommissioner for Human Rights, in Geneva.

Violations of International Humanitarian Law

The Afshar campaign was marked by widespread and seriousviolations of international humanitarian law.War crimes included attacks on the civilian population and civilianobjects, killings, torture and other inhumane treatment, rape, abductions andforced disappearances, forced labor, and pillage and looting.As discussed in Section IV below, there iscompelling evidence that the senior Ittihad and Jamiat commanders involved inthe Afshar campaign are implicated in these violations.[231]It is also possible that some commanders maybe liable for crimes against humanity.Illegal acts that were part of a widespread or systematic attack on acivilian population, such as the killing or abduction of members of certainminorities, may amount to crimes against humanity.

Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf, the overall leader of Ittihad,is implicated in the war crimes documented above either directly or indirectly,as a matter of command responsibility.As a senior leader of Ittihad, Sayyaf controlled all Ittihad commandersthroughout the Afshar attack.Witnesses,including a soldier who fought with Ittihad, say that they saw Sayyafcoordinating military operations during the campaign and meeting withsub-commanders.[232]Sayyaf met with senior Ittihad commanders inPaghman the day before the Afshar campaign to discuss the Afshar attack.[233]Sayyaf was also present atthe meetingconvened by Massoudin the HotelIntercontinentalon the second day of the Afshar operation on February12.[234]His leadership role in Ittahad as well as hisinvolvement in planning the Afshar campaign place him in the position of beingdirectly responsible for abuses or culpable under the doctrine of commandresponsibility.

Other Ittihad commanders are potentially implicated.Several officials, journalists, and militarycommanders described how Ittihad commanders Shir Alam, Zalmay Tofan, Mullah TajMohammad, Abdullah Wardak, "Doctor" Abdullah, and Abdullah Shah had effectivecontrol over troops engaged in abductions and street fighting with Wahdatforces in west Kabul, and said that theycommanded troops at Afshar.[235]Commanders Khanjar and Patang were said tohave been commanding troops at Afshar.[236]One witness who was abducted and put intoforced labor in Paghman under Ittihad troops saw and spoke with Zalmay Tofanwhile in captivity, pleading for medical assistance.[237]Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watchand the Afghan Justice Project claim that they saw Zalmay Tofan, Shir Alam, "Doctor"Abdullah, and Abdullah Shah leading troops on the ground during the Afsharcampaign.[238]One witness cited above, who was abducted byIttihad forces, said he was under the control of an Ittihad commander namedShir Agha Zarshakh, who was leading a group of soldiers.[239]The Afghan Justice Project interviewedwitnesses who identified other commanders who were seen directing troops duringthe Afshar campaign, including "Doctor" Abdullah and Khanjar, as well as otherIttihad commanders, including Jaglan Naeem, Abdul Manan Diwana, AmanullahKochi, Shirin, Mushtaq Lalai, and Mullah Kachkol.[240]According to one witnessinterviewed by the Afghan Justice Project, two senior Ittihad commanders-ShirAlam and Zalmay Tofan-were at the meeting convened by Massoud the day beforethe Afshar attack.[241]

Several Jamiat commanders, including Massoud, Fahim, BabaJalander, Bismullah Khan, Baba Jan, Ahmadi Takhari, Kabir Andarabi, and MullahEzat, were directly involved in the 1993 Afshar campaign, according toofficials who worked within the Rabbani government in 1992-1993.[242]General Fahim, who was chief of the Afghanintelligence service in 1992-1993 but controlled several military posts aswell, was one of the chief commanders under Massoud.Officials in the Rabbani government in1992-1993 told Human Rights Watch that Fahim was directly involved in theAfshar attack, controlled at least one of the military posts on TelevisionMountain throughout the period of this report, and that he was involved in theplanning of the Afshar campaign and took part in negotiations with Harakatcommanders to gain their cooperation before the attack.[243]The same officials said Mullah Ezat and AnwarDangar were also involved in the Afshar campaign.

IV. Culpability

The attacks on civilians, summary executions, torture,abductions and looting documented in this report were not spontaneous events orinevitable consequences of war.Theywere war crimes committed by troops within military structures withcommand-and-control mechanisms.And inmany cases documented here, the actions or omissions of commanders resulted inor facilitated war crimes.There iscompelling evidence that factional leaders either knew or should have known ofongoing serious abuses being committed by their troops, and in many casesfailed to take steps to stop them.

This section describes the applicable law that governs thehostilities in 1992-1993 and outlines the command-and-control structure of eachof the parties discussed in this report and the possible individual criminalresponsibility of each party's main commanders.

A.Applicable law

Thisreport describes hostilities that took place among various Afghan political-militaryfactions after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.As such, they are considered underinternational humanitarian law (the laws of war) to be a non-internationalarmed conflict-i.e., not a conflict between two states-also known as aninternal armed conflict or civil war.

Theprimary law applicable to non-international (internal) armed conflicts isarticle 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.[244]Afghanistan ratified the GenevaConventions in 1956.The Second AdditionalProtocol to the Geneva Conventions (Protocol II),[245] applicable tonon-international armed conflicts, has not been ratified by Afghanistan.Still, most if not all of its provisions arerecognized as reflective of customary international law (and were so recognizedin 1992-1993).In addition, certainprovisions of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions applicable to internationalarmed conflict,[246] including many of thoseconcerned with protection of civilian populations, are also consideredreflective of customary international law applicable at the time tonon-international armed conflicts.[247]

Internationalhumanitarian law in civil armed conflicts is legally binding on both governmentforces and armed opposition groups.Forces within the recognized Afghan government that was formed after thecollapse of the Najibullah government included Jamiat, Ittihad, and (at certaintimes) Wahdat and Junbish. Non-stateforces fighting against the government included Hezb-e Islami and, by 1993,Wahdat.

Inaddition to violations of international humanitarian law amounting to warcrimes, "crimes against humanity" may also have been committed.Crimes against humanity refer to actsthat, by their scale or nature, outrage the conscience of humankind.Crimes against humanity were first codifiedin the charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945.Since then, the concept has been incorporatedinto a number of international treaties, including the Rome Statute of theInternational Criminal Court (ICC).Although a single legal definition of crimes against humanity did notexist in 1992-1993, there was and has been broad agreement that crimes againsthumanity are unlawful acts, such as murder, torture, dissapparances and rape, committedas part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population by astate or non-state actor.[248]

Internationalhuman rights standards are also applicable in times of conflict.During armed conflicts, internationalhumanitarian law, as thelex specialisor specialized law, takes precedencebut does not replace human rights law.Persons under the control of government or armed opposition forces in aninternal armed conflict must in all cases be treated in accordance withinternational humanitarian law, which incorporates important human rightsstandards.And where that law is absent,vague, or inapplicable, human rights law still applies.Human rights law can be found, for instance,in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights[249] and the Convention againstTorture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,[250] both of which had beenratified by Afghanistan.

Specific protections

A fundamental rule of international humanitarian law is thatcivilians enjoy general protection against danger arising from militaryoperations.The rule of "civilianimmunity" is binding on all parties to a conflict, regardless of whether theconflict is international or non-international in character.[251]

The principle of civilian immunity has been codified innumerous treaties. One of the clearest expressions of the principle is set outin article 51(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, whichstates:

The civilian population as such, as well as individualcivilians, shall not be the object of attack.Acts or threats of violence, the primary purpose of which is to spreadterror among the civilian population, are prohibited.[252]

Civilians are protected at alltimes from attack unless they take a direct part in the hostilities.[253]Although a precise definition of taking "directpart in hostilities" does not exist, it has generally come to mean acts thatare intended to cause actual harm to the enemy, such as using or loadingweapons.Providing food or otherassistance to armed groups, or expressing sympathy for one side, does notdeprive civilians of their civilian immunity.[254]

Civilian objects, such as residences, schools and mosques,are also protected from attack, except for such time that they are militaryobjectives.A civilian object becomes amilitary target during the period it is used for military purposes.[255]

Parties to a conflict must make affirmative efforts todistinguish between civilian objects and military targets, as stated in article48 of Protocol I:

In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilianpopulation and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all timesdistinguish between the civilian population and combatants, and betweencivilian objects and military objectives, and accordingly shall direct theiroperations only against military objectives.[256]

Parties to a conflict are specifically obligated to directattacks only at military targets.Attacks that are "indiscriminate" are prohibited.Indiscriminate attacks are "those which arenot directed against a military objective," "those which employ a method ormeans of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective," or"those which employ a method or means of combat, the effects of which cannot belimited," and consequently, are "of a nature to strike military objectives andcivilians or civilian objects without distinction."[257]

Article 51(5) of Protocol I details some of thecharacteristics of indiscriminate attacks:

Among others, the following types of attacks are to beconsidered as indiscriminate:

(a) an attack by bombardment byany methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number ofclearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town,village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilianobjects; and

(b) an attack which may beexpected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damageto civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive inrelation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.[258]

In addition, common article 3 to the four GenevaConventions, applicable in non-international armed conflicts, specificallyoutlaws killings and mistreatment of civilians and captured combatants.Prohibited in particular are "violence to lifeand person . . . murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;taking of hostages; [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particularhumiliating and degrading treatment."[259]

In addition to the protections found in common article 3, customaryinternational humanitarian law applicable in internal armed conflicts providescivilians and captured combatants a number of fundamental guarantees. Thoseparticularly relevant to the situation in Afghanistanin 1992-1993 include prohibitions against enforced disappearance, rape andother forms of sexual violence, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and forcedlabor.[260]

Enforced disappearance, though not defined underinternational humanitarian law, encompasses the prohibitions against arbitrarydetention, inhumane treatment, and murder.[261]It also encompasses the right of thosedeprived of their liberty during a conflict by a government or an armed groupto have their personal details be registered.From this emerges a duty to investigate cases of alleged enforceddisappearance.[262]

Rape and other forms of sexual violence have long beenprohibited under international humanitarian law.[263]While not explicitly mentioned in commonarticle 3 to the Geneva Conventions, rape is considered part of the article'sprohibition against "violence to life and person," including cruel treatmentand torture and "outrages upon personal dignity."[264]The Fourth Geneva Convention on theprotection of civilians and Protocol II explicitly prohibit rape.[265]The statutes for the ad hoc and permanentinternational criminal courts have reaffirmed the prohibition against rape andother sexual violence as a war crime and as a crime against humanity.[266]

The arbitrary deprivation of liberty is prohibited duringinternal armed conflicts.Arbitrarydetention is considered imcompatible with the requirement of humane treatmentunder common article 3 to the Geneva Conventions.[267]

Forced labor that is uncompensated or abusive is prohibited.[268]

Pillage and looting can also amount to war crimes. During an internal armed conflict, destroyingor seizing the private property of civilians is prohibited unless there is amilitarily necessary reason for doing so.Pillage, the forcible taking or destruction of property for privatepurposes, is strictly forbidden.Lootingcan be defined as the taking of property without the direct use of force.Both pillage and looting violate the generalprohibition against theft.[269]

Civilians are also protected by basic human rights law.In cases where civilians are in the control ofparties acting in the capacity of a sovereign power, those parties areobligated to uphold human rights norms, including the right to life; theprohibition against torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment;prohibitions against slavery and forced labor; rights to liberty and securityof person; and rights of detainees to due process, among others.[270]Parties must respect these human rights normswithout making distinctions based on ethnic or religious status.[271]

Individual CriminalResponsibility

All individuals, including factional leaders, militarycommanders, soldiers and civilians, are subject to prosecution for war crimes, crimesagainst humanity, and applicable domestic crimes.

Individual criminal responsibility for war crimes committedduring internal armed conflicts has been explicitly provided in a number ofinternational treaties since the early 1990s.These include thestatutes for the international criminal tribunals for theformer Yugoslavia and Rwanda,as well as the international criminal court, and multilateral treaties such asAmended Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

During the armed conflict in Afghanistan, various entitiescalled on all parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarianlaw.The ICRC, in a press releaseon May 5, 1992, appealed "to all parties to respect international humanitarianlaw and to ensure respect for its rules by everyone involved in thefighting."This appeal was repeated in Augustof that year.[272](Later, in March 1994,the U.N.Security Council issued a statement on the situation in Afghanistan in which it"stresse[d] the importance that it attaches to full compliance withinternational humanitarian law in all its aspects and recalls that those whoviolate international humanitarian law bear individual responsibility."[273])

Persons who commit war crimes may be held criminallyliable.They may also be held criminallyresponsible for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting the commissionof a war crime. They can also be prosecuted for planning or instigating thecommission of a war crime.[274]In addition, leaders, commanders andtroops who deliberately order or commit widespread or systematic murder,enslavement, mutilation, or rape of civilians can also be held individuallyliable for crimes against humanity.Crimes against humanity give rise to universal jurisdiction, do not havea statue of limitations, and do not admit the defense of following superiororders.

Commanders and other leaders may be criminally responsible forwar crimes or crimes against humanity committed by troops under their command.The responsibility of superior officers forcrimes commited by their subordinates is known as command responsibility.Although the concept originated in military law, it now also includesthe responsibility of civil authorities for abuses committed by persons undertheir authority.The doctrine of commandresponsibility was part of customary international law in 1992-1993 and hasbeen upheld in decisions by the international criminal tribunals for the formerYugoslavia and for Rwanda,and is today codified in the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court.[275]

There are two forms of command responsibility.The first is direct responsibility for orders that are unlawful, such aswhen a military commander authorizes or orders rapes, massacres, or intentionalattacks on civilians.In this case, thecommander's forces are an instrument of the commander's will, and he isdirectly culpable as he would be if he carried out the abuses with his ownhands. Having ordered such a crime, acommander can be found liable so long as the crime was attempted, even if itwas not actually committed.[276]

All combatants have a duty to disobey manifestly unlawfulorders.Obeying superior orders does notrelieve a subordinate of criminal responsibility so long as he knew or shouldhave known that the orders were unlawful.[277]

The second form of command responsibility is imputedresponsibility, when a superior failed to prevent or punish crimes committed bya subordinate acting on his own initiative.This second kind of responsibility depends on whether the superior knewor had reason to know of the subordinates' crimes, and was in a position tostop and punish them.A commander has"reason to know" when offenses were so numerous or notorious that a reasonableperson would conclude that the commander must have known of theircommission.If a commander had suchnotice, he can be held criminally responsible for his subordinates if he failedto take appropriate measures to control the subordinates, to prevent theiratrocities, and to punish offenders.

Forthe doctrine of command responsibility to be applicable, two conditions must bemet. Ade factosuperior-subordinate relationship must exist, and thesuperior must exercise effective control over the subordinate.Effective control includes the ability togive orders or instructions, to ensure their implementation, and to punish ordiscipline subordinates if the orders are disobeyed.[278]

B. Culpability of specific individuals

The militias and political-military parties implicated inthe abuses outlined in this report include the Jamiat, Ittihad, Hezb-e Islami,Wahdat, Harakat, and Junbish factions.[279]This section discusses the specificculpability of these factions' commanders in the abuses documented in thisreport.This section also discusses (inthe Jamiat and Shura-e Nazar entry below) the governmental structure underSibghatullah Mujaddidi and Burhanuddin Rabbani, the successive presidents of Afghanistanin 1992-1993.

What follows below is not meant to provide a comprehensivelegal analysis of the ultimate criminal responsibility of the individuals named.Considerably more investigative work needs tobe done to establish the criminal culpability of the various commanders andleaders implicated in the war crimes documented in this report.By laying the basic groundwork, however, wehope to encourage full criminal investigations and show that suchinvestigations are both necessary and possible.

Wahdat

During the period discussed in this report, Wahdat forceswere under the overall command of Abdul Ali Mazari (killed in 1995).[280]Abdul Karim Khalili (as of mid-2005 one of the twovice-presidents under President Hamid Karzai) served as Mazari's deputy (helater took over Wahdat after Mazari's death).Second-tier Wahdat commanders in Kabul included Abdul WahidTurkmani, Mohsin Sultani, Tahir Tofan, Sedaqat Jahori, and CommanderBahrami.Wahdat's two main commanders in west Kabul were Shafi Dawana("Shafi the Mad") and Nasir Dawana ("Nasir the Mad").

As was shown in section III (A) above, Wahdat forcesrepeatedly launched military attacks in West Kabulin 1992-1993, primarily against Ittihad forces.During these battles, there is compelling evidence that Wahdat forcesfailed to make efforts to distinguish between civilian objects and militarytargets, and that forces often fired small and heavy weapons indiscriminatelyinto the dense civilian setting of west Kabul.In several cases documented here, Wahdatforces appear to have intentionally targeted civilians or civilian areas withgunfire, rockets. and mortar fire.

In addition, section III (A) and parts of section III (C) ofthis report show that Wahdat factions engaged in a pattern and practice ofabductions and arbitary detentions, usually directed at civilians andapparently based on ethnic animus.Manyof those detained by Wahdat-mostly Pashtuns-were severely mistreated or forcedto work, and in several cases shown here, Wahdat executed civilian prisoners.

As noted above, willful killing of civilians is a warcrime.Commanders involved in specificcommissions of these crimes, and factional leaders who ordered abuses, areresponsible under international criminal law and can be prosecuted.Higher-level Wahdat commanders not directlyinvolved in abuses, who nonetheless had effective control over troopsimplicated in abuses and knew or should have known about the abuses and failedto take action to stop them, may also be liable as a matter of commandresponsibility.

Commanders in Wahdat may also be liable for crimes againsthumanity as the killings and abductions documented in this report appear tohave been part of widespread and systematic attacks directed at a distinctcivilian population.Wahdat commandersmay be liable specifically because of their ethnic persecution-the fact thattheir forces appear to have targeted non-Hazara civilians for killing andabduction based on their ethnicity.There is compelling evidence that prisoners taken by Wahdat-mostlyPashtuns-were chosen from other civilians on the basis of their ethnicidentity.As shown in section III (A)above, troops engaging in abuses often appear to have surmised the ethnicity ofvictims on the basis of their appearance, language, or accent, and decided toabuse them based on their ethnicity.Statements and actions of Wahdat officials confirmed that civilians werebeing arrested due to their ethnicity, suggesting a policy or a plan.As cited in Section III (A) above, Mazari andKarim Khalili each acknowledged taking Pashtun civilians as prisoners, ininterviews with Reuters and Associated Press.[281]

Wahdat forces, along with the other factions discussed inthis report, are also implicated in numerous acts of murder, pillage, andlooting in violation of international humanitarian law.The failures by commanders to stop or preventthe abuses could make them complicit in the violations as a matter of commandresponsibility.

Further investigation is needed into the command-and-controlstructures of Wahdat forces and the specific culpability of each of its maincommanders who are still alive.Mazari,Shafi Dawana and Nasir Dawana are all deceased, but Wahid Turkmani, MohsinSultani, Tahir Tofan, Sedaqat Jahori, and CommanderBahrami are believed to bestill alive, and should be investigated for their role in the Wahdat abusesdocumented here.

Ittihad

Ittihad forces in 1992-1993 were under the overall commandof Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf.Second-tier Ittihad commanders included Shir Alam (parliamentarycandidate and as of mid-2005 a senior commander in the defense ministry),Zalmay Tofan (until mid-2005 a senior commander in the defense ministry),Mullah Taj Mohammad (as of mid-2005, parliamentary candidate, head of politicalgroup called the Kabul Citizen's Counsel; governor of Kabul in 2003-2004),Abdullah Wardak (former minister of martyrs and disabled in President Karzai'sinterim 2002-2004 cabinet), "Doctor" Abdullah (as of mid-2005 a commander inthe ministry of defense; no relation to Dr. Abdullah, the current foreign ministerof Afghanistan), and Abdullah Shah (executed by the Afghan government in April2004).[282]Other commanders reported to hold seniorpositions were Khanjar (deceased), Patang,JaglanNaeem (as of mid-2005 reported to be serving as an official in the ministry ofinterior),Abdul Manan Diwana (as of mid-2005 reported to be governor ofa district in Sar-e Pol province), Noor Aqi (reported to be serving as anofficial in the ministry of defense), Amanullah Kochi,Shirin, Mushtaq Lalai, and Mullah Kachkol (as of mid-2005 reported to be parliamentarycandidate and commander in the ministry of defense).[283]

As shown in Section III (A) above, Ittihad forces repeatedlylaunched military attacks against Wahdat in 1992-1993.During these attacks they failed to makeefforts to distinguish between civilian objects and military targets.Ittihad forces regularly fired small andheavy weapons indiscriminately within the dense civilian setting of west Kabul.In several cases, Ittihad forces appear tohave intentionally targeted civilians or civilian areas with gunfire or rocketsand mortar fire.

In addition, as shown in section III (A), Ittihad factionsengaged in a regular pattern and practice of abduction based on ethnic grounds,usually directed at Hazara civilians.Many of those detained by Ittihad were severely mistreated or forced towork.There is clear and compellingevidence in section III (C) that during the February 1993 Afshar campaign,Ittihad forces specifically engaged in widespread killing and abduction ofHazara civilians.As shown in sectionIII (C), Ittihad forces during the Afshar operation specifically targetedHazara civilians for killing or abduction, based on their ethnicity.

The acts detailed above amount to war crimes.Commanders involved in specific commissionsof these crimes, and factional leaders who ordered abuses, are liable and canbe prosecuted.Higher-level Ittihadcommanders not directly involved in abuses, who nonetheless had effectivecontrol over troops implicated in abuses and knew or should have known aboutthe abuses and failed to take action to stop them, may also be liable oncommand responsibility grounds.

Commanders in Ittihad may also be liable for crimes againsthumanity, as the killings and abductions documented in this report appear tohave been part of widespread or systematic attacks directed at a distinctcivilian population.Ittihad commandersmay be liable specifically because of their ethnic persecution-the fact thattheir forces appear to have targeted Hazara civilians for killing and abductionbased on their ethnicity.There iscompelling evidence, especially with respect to the Afshar operation, that mostprisoners taken by Ittihad-Hazaras-were chosen from other civilians on thebasis of their ethnic identity, as troops engaging in abuses appear to havesurmised the ethnicity of victims on the basis of their appearance, language,or accent, as repeatedly demonstrated in sections III (A) and III (C)above.Investigations are needed todetermine whether these ethnically motivated abuses were part of an Ittihadplan or policy or were merely the spontaneous acts of their troops on theground.

As noted throughout section III, Ittihad forces, along withthe other factions discussed in this report, are also implicated in numerousacts of murder, pillage, and looting in violation of international humanitarianlaw.The failures by commanders to stopor prevent the abuses could make them legally responsible as a matter ofcommand responsibility.

All of the Ittihad commanders named above are alive as of mid-2005,except for Patang, who was reportedly killed in 2004, and commander AbdullahShah, who, as noted above, was executed by the Afghan government in April 2004.[284]

Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf, the overall leader of Ittihad,is directly implicated in the abductions and the indiscriminate and intentionaltargeting of civilians documented in this report.As a senior leader of Ittihad, Sayyaf hadeffective control over all Ittihad commanders throughout the period coveredhere.Sayyaf thus exercised ultimatecontrol of Ittihad forces who committed these abuses.As noted in section III (A) above, officialsin the Rabbani government in 1992-1993, which was allied with Sayyaf,acknowledged to Human Rights Watch that Sayyaf was the senior militarycommander of Ittihad forces, that he was in regular contact with hiscommanders, and that he had the power to release prisoners held by hissubordinates, and in fact ordered such releases on several occasions,demonstrating his command over those commanders.[285]Health workers in west Kabul told Human Rights Watch in 2003 ofadditional cases in which negotiators with the International Committee of theRed Cross spoke with Sayyaf to obtain the release of prisoners, furtherdemonstrating his control over subordinate commanders.[286]Human Rights Watch also spoke with anindividual who negotiated with Sayyaf to obtain a relative's release.[287]As noted in section III (A), in June 1992,when interviewed by a journalist in Kabulabout abductions, Sayyaf did not deny that Ittihad forces were abducting Hazaracivilians, but instead accused Wahdat of being an agent of the Iraniangovernment.[288]

With respect to the Afshar atrocities, section III (C) alsonoted that persons, including a soldier who fought with Ittihad, told HumanRights Watch that they saw Sayyaf coordinating military operations during theAfshar campaign and meeting with his sub-commanders.[289]As noted in section III (C) above, Sayyafreportedly met with senior Ittihad commanders in Paghman the day before theAfshar campaign to discuss the Afshar attack.[290]Sayyaf was also present ata meetingconvened by Massoudin the HotelIntercontinentalon the second day of the Afshar operation on February12.[291]These facts amount tocompellingevidence that Sayyaf knew or should have known about Ittihad abuses during thecampaign.

Other Ittihad commanders may be implicated in Ittihadabuses.As noted in Sections III (A) and(C) above, several officials, journalists, and military commanders described toHuman Rights Watch how Ittihad commanders Shir Alam, Zalmay Tofan, Mullah TajMohammad, Abdullah Wardak, "Doctor" Abdullah, and Abdullah Shah had effectivecontrol over troops responsible for abductions and mistreatment of detaineesduring street fighting with Wahdat forces in west Kabul, and that theycommanded troops at Afshar.[292]Commanders Khanjar and Patang were said tohave been commanding troops at Afshar.[293]One witness who was abducted and put intoforced labor in Paghman under Ittihad troops saw and spoke with Zalmay Tofanwhile in captivity, pleading for medical assistance.[294]Persons interviewed by Human Rights Watch andthe Afghan Justice Project claim that they saw Zalmay Tofan, Shir Alam, Dr.Abdullah (Ittihad), and Abdullah Shah leading troops on the ground during theAfshar campaign.[295]The Afghan Justice Project interviewed personswho identified other commanders whowere seen directing troopsduring the Afshar campaign, includingDr.Abdullah andKhanjar, as well as other Ittihadcommanders, including Jaglan Naeem,Abdul Manan Diwana, AmanullahKochi,Shirin, Mushtaq Lalai, andMullah Kachkol.[296]According to one witnessinterviewed by the Afghan Justice Project, two senior Ittihad commanders-ShirAlam and Zalmay Tofan-were at the meeting convened by Massoud the day beforethe Afshar attack.[297]

The exact role these Ittihad commanders played in the eventsdescribed in this report requires further investigation.However, there is evidence that the commandstructure of Ittihad beneath Sayyaf is implicated in the abuses documentedhere.Both Sayyaf and his Ittihadcommanders need to be thoroughly investigated regarding their role in theevents described in this report.

Hezb-e Islami

Hezb-e Islami in 1992-1993 was headed by GulbuddinHekmatyar, whose current location is unknown.Forces consisted of the Kabul-basedFirqa Sama;the Lashkar-eIsar (Army of Sacrifice), a conventional military force of over 6,000 troopsHekmatyer had organized in the late 1980s with the help of Pakistan and the United States; and other militias thatjoined these forces as the Najibullah regime collapsed in 1992.[298]

According to the Afghan Justice Project, which hasresearched the command structure of Hezb-e Islami, there was a Hezb-e IslamiShura Nizami (military council) under Hekmatyar, which consisted of ten totwelve members.[299]The Kabul-based commanders on the councilwere the Generals Faiz Mohammad (deceased) and Kashmir Khan (location unknown).[300]The Hezb-e Islami chief of staff wasinitially held by Commander Sabawon (as of mid-2005 an advisor to PresidentKarzai), but shifted to Kashmir Khan sometime in 1992.[301]The chief artillery officer who supervisedshelling and rocketing operation during late 1992 into 1993 was Toran Khalil.[302]

As shown in this report, Hezb-e Islami forces committedgrave violations of international humanitarian law by intentionally targetingcivilians and civilian areas for attack, or indiscriminately attacking areas inKabul withoutdistinguishing between civilian areas and military targets.Accounts and information presented insections III (A) and III (B) show regular and repeated artillery strikes oncivilian areas.Accounts and informationin those sections also show that Hezb-e Islami regularly and repeatedly firedrockets into Kabul.As shown in those sections, Hezb-e Islamiforces repeatedly used artillery and rockets in a manner suggesting that theywere either intentionally targeting civilian sites, failing to aim at militaryobjectives (with respect to artillery guns), or treating the whole city as oneunified military target-any and all of which can amount to war crimes.

Hezb-e Islami's methods of attack and use of weapons systemsdemonstrate the abuses described above.With respect to artillery attacks, there was specific evidence insection III (A) above that Hezb-e Islami had the capacity to aim artillery atmilitary targets, but purposefully or recklessly fired artillery at civilian objectsinstead, in violation of international humanitarian law.In numerous cases documented in this report,Hezb-e Islami forces fired artillery at civilian areas without clear militaryobjectives, suggesting that they were either purposely targeting such areas, orrecklessly aiming at Kabulas a whole.

As noted in Section III (A) above, Hekmatyar's forces alsooften used BM-40, BM-22, BM-12 rocket launchers and Sakr Soviet-made rockets intheir attacks on Kabul.Such rocket systems are not designed foraccuracy in close combat: they cannot be adequately aimed within urban settingsor made to distinguish between military targets and civilian objects.The very use of such rocket systems within Kabul may have been inviolation of international humanitarian law prohibitions on the use ofinherently indiscriminate weapons.

As noted above, there is testimony in sections III (A) andIII (B) that suggests that Hezb-e Islami and Hekmatyar were deliberatelytargeting the city of Kabulas a whole entity, to terrorize and kill civilians.

In addition, Hezb-e Islami, along with the other factionsdiscussed in this report, are implicated in murders, pillage, and looting inviolation of international humanitarian law. Hekmatyar and his commanders' failureto stop or prevent the abuses could make them responsible as a matter ofcommand responsibility.

The head of Hezb-e Islami, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is centrallyimplicated in all of the crimes noted above.Hekmatyar was unambiguously the sole military and political leader ofHezb-e Islami, theFirqa Sama, andthe Lashkar-e Isar (Army ofSacrifice), and was in command of Hezb-e Islami forces during its attacks on Kabul.Hekmatyar was the leader of Hezb-e Islamithrough the 1980s, and met regularly with Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials, and even withAmerican politicians who visited Pakistan in the 1980s.[303]Several mediators negotiated with Hekmatyaron peace initiatives in 1992 and 1993, as the head of Hezb-e Islami, andjournalists repeatedly met with Hekmatyer in his capacity as the leader ofHezb-e Islami forces in the same period.[304]The then head of Pakistani Intelligence,Hamid Gul, negotiated with Hekmatyar in February 1993,[305]and again in March 1993.[306]Prince Turki al-Faisal, chief of SaudiIntelligence, and Asad Durrani, Director-General of Pakistan's Inter-ServicesIntelligence, negotiated between Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Massoud via radio inApril 1992.[307]

Further investigation is needed into the sub-commanders ofHezb-e Islami who participated in the attacks on Kabul, to determine culpability for warcrimes.As noted in section III (A)above, according to the Afghan Justice Project[308]the following commanders had operational control over the military postsreported to be firing artillery and rockets at Kabul during the period discussed in thisreport:

• Commander Toran Khalil, chief artillery officer in Hezb-e Islami who supervised shelling and rocketing operations during late 1992 into 1993, commander of a base at an oil depot at the south of Charasiab, south of Kabul.
• Toran Amanullah, commander of theFirqa Sama, stationed at the Rishkor military base, south of Kabul (as of mid-2005 in custody of the U.S. military).
• Commander Zardad, commander of a military post at the Lycee Shorwaki (in mid-2005 on trial in the United Kingdom under universial jurisdication laws, for torture committed in Afghanistan in the 1990s).
• Engineer Zulmai, of the Lashkar Issar, commander of a post at the Kotal Hindki pass to the south of Chilsatoon, south of Kabul, near the Rishkor base (as of mid-2005 a government official in Nangahar province).
• Nur Rahman Panshiri, commander of a post in the village of Shahak, to the southeast of Kabul, directly controlled by the Sama division.
• General Wali Shah, an officer in the Najibullah government who joined Hezb-e Islami in 1992, commander of a base at Sang-e Nevishta, Logar, south of Kabul.

All of these commanders should be investigated for theirrole in the abuses described above.Further investigation is also needed into the roles played by GeneralsFaiz Mohammad, Kashmir Khan, and Commander Sabawon, all Kabul-based Hezb-eIslami commanders.

Jamiat, Shura-e Nazar, and the Afghan Government of1992-1993

Jamiat and Shura-e Nazar forces, at the time discussed inthis report, were under the overall command of Ahmed Shah Massoud (killed onSeptember 9, 2001).Second tier militarycommanders included Mohammad Qasim Fahim (Afghanistan's defense minister2001-2004; as of mid-2005 holding a symbolic position as "Marshall for Life");Baba Jalander (director of the Afghan Red Crescent Society from late2001-2004); Bismullah Khan (as of mid-2005 the chief of staff of the AfghanArmy); Gul Haider (as of mid-2005 a general serving in the defense ministry);and Younis Qanooni (former minister of education and national security advisorin President Karzai's 2002-2004 cabinet; as of mid-2005 the chief of Nehzat-eMelli, a political party, also known as Afghanistan Naveen).

Middle level Jamiat commanders in Kabul included Baba Jan(as of mid-2005 the chief of police in Herat), General Abdul Momin (deceased),and Basir Salangi (chief of police in Kabul in 2003; as of mid-2005 chief ofpolice in Wardak province), as well as other commanders Kabir Andarabi (until mid-2005a senior ministry of defense commander, stationed in Bagrami; as of mid-2005 apolice official in the ministry of interior), Haji Almas (parliamentarycandidate and businessman; as of mid-2005 a senior commander in the ministry ofdefense, stationed in Parwan), Baz Mohammad Ahmadi (as of mid-2005 an officialin the ministry of defense), Mullah Ezat (parliamentary candidate; as of 2005 asenior ministry of defense commander), Panah (reportedly deceased), and AnwarDangar (joined the Taliban in 1996 and was killed in Peshawar in 2004).

Jamiat forces are culpable for many of the abuses documentedin this report.There is compellingevidence that Jamiat forces in 1992 and 1993 intentionally targeted civiliansand civilian areas in western Kabulfor attack, or indiscriminately attacked such areas without distinguishingbetween civilian areas and military targets.

In some cases, Jamiat forces used imprecise weapons systems,including Sakr rockets and UB-16 and UB-32 S-5 airborne rocket launchersclumsily refitted onto tank turrets, the use of which was inherentlyindiscriminate in the dense urban setting.The use of the jury-rigged S-5 system in particular, within Kabul city, demonstratesan utter disregard of the duty to use methods and means of attack thatdistinguish between civilian objects and military targets.

There is also evidence that some Jamiat forces engaged inkilling and abduction of Hazara civilians in 1992.There is also evidence that Jamiat forcestargeted civilian areas for attack at the beginning of the February 1993 Afsharcampaign.In addition, Jamiat commandersmay in some cases be liable for the abuses committed during the Afshar campaignby allied Ittihad troops, if it is shown in any cases that they had de factocommand over such troops. All of these alleged abuses amount to war crimes.

In addition, Jamiat, along with the other factions discussedin this report, are implicated in numerous robberies, general criminality, andkillings of civilians in non-combat situations.Many of these abuses also amount to serious violations of internationalhumanitarian law and human rights law, and the failures by commanders to stopor prevent the abuses could make them complicit in the violations.

Ahmad Shah Massoud is implicated in many of the abusesdocumented in this report, both those committed by Jamiat forces, and thosecommitted by other militia forces under his command.He was assassinated on September 9,2001.It is nonetheless important thathis role and that of his commanders be fully investigated.

Further investigation is needed into the responsibility ofMassoud's sub-commanders.Most ofMassoud's commanders and advisors in 1992-1993 are still alive as of mid-2005,including Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Baba Jalander, Bismullah Khan, Gul Haider,Younis Qanooni, Dr. Abdullah, Baba Jan, Basir Salangi, Haji Almas, and MullahEzat (or Ezatullah).All of them hold orhave held military or police posts in the post-Taliban Afghan government.(The official positions of Kabir Andarabi,Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, Ahmadi Takhari, and Panah are unknown.)

As stated in section III (A) and III (C), Fahim, BabaJalander, Bismullah Khan, Baba Jan, Ahmadi Takhari, Kabir Andarabi, and MullahEzat were directly implicated in abuses described in this report, including the1993 Afshar campaign.General Fahim waschief of the Afghan intelligence service and controlled several military postsin Kabul, andwas one of the chief commanders under Massoud.As noted in section III (C), Fahim controlled at least one of themilitary posts on TelevisionMountain throughout theperiod covered in this report, was involved in the planning of the Afsharcampaign and took part in negotiations with Harakat commanders to gain theircooperation before the attack, and was directly involved in the Afsharattack.Yunis Qanooni was stationed atthe ministry of defense compound in Kabul,often served as a spokesman for Jamiat, and was involved in Jamiatdecision-making processes.As noted insection III (C), Mullah Ezat and Anwar Dangar were also deeply involved in theAfshar attack.

According to the Afghan Justice Project, which researchedthe command structure of Jamiat during the Afshar assault, Fahim wasresponsible for "special operations in support of the offensive andparticipating in planning of the operation."Anwar Dangar and Mullah Ezat were named by numerous witnesses as"leading troops in Afshar that carried out abuses on the first two days of theoperation."Baba Jalander also wasreported to have "participated in the assault," along with Mohammad IshaqPanshiri, Haji Bahlol Panshiri, Khanjar Akhund, Mushdoq Lalai, and Baz MohammadAhmadi Badakhshani.[309]

Several individuals who were Afghan government officialsduring the period covered in this report are also potentially implicated in theabuses.The sovereignty of Afghanistanduring 1992-1993 was vested formally in "The Islamic State ofAfghanistan."This government was headedfrom April to June 1992 by Sibghatullah Mujaddidi, and then held by BurhanuddinRabbani, the political leader of Jamiat.Both men were involved in military decision-making processes during theperiod of this report, and should be further investigated to determine theirpotential culpability for abuses.Asnoted in section III (C) above, Rabbani was present at some decision-makingmeetings before the Afshar attack.Hisrole relating to the commission of abuses during that attack should beinvestigated.

Junbish

Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former General in Soviet-backedAfghan army in the 1980's, was and is the overall leader of the Junbish party.(As of mid-2005 Dostum was serving as asenior general in the ministry of defense and was exercising significant politicaland military influence over several provinces in the north of Afghanistan.He also ran for president in the 2004election.)Secondary Junbish commandersin 1992-1993 included Abdul Cherik (deceased), Majid Rouzi (a senior militaryofficial in the Junbish faction), Mohsin Homayun Fouzi (reportedly a seniorofficial in the ministry of defense), Jura Beig (reportedly deceased), Rasul Pahlavan,Zeini Pahlavan, and Rahim Pahlavan.

Junbish, along with the other factions discussed in thisreport, are implicated in numerous murders, pillage, and looting.Many of these abuses amount to seriousviolations of international humanitarian law, and the failure by Junbishcommanders to stop or prevent the abuses could make them responsible as amatter of command responsibility.(Junbish was also involved in numerous serious abuses in Kabul in1994-1995, but this period is not the subject of this report.)

All of Junbish's main commanders should be investigated todetermine their involvement in 1992-1993 abuses.

Harakat

The Harakat party, at the time of these abuses, wasofficially under the overall control of Mohammad Asef Mohseni, but its main militarycommanders were Hossein Anwari and Mohammad Ali Javeed (both members ofPresident Karzai's interim cabinet, 2002-2004; Anwari was appointed governor ofKabul in 2005; Javeed is now the political leader of Harakat).

Harakat leaders, though not a primary force in the abusesdocumented in this report, are implicated in several cases where violations ofinternational humanitarian law occurred.Investigation is needed into the role and specific legal responsibilityof Harakat's commanders.

Afterword: The Complicity of Other Countries

The atrocities documented in this report did not occur in avacuum.As noted in the introductionabove, outside countries played a vital role in militarizing Afghanistan over the 1980s and fuelingthe political instability that plagued the country during 1992-1993, as well asin subsequent years.

Afghanistanwas not hugely unstable, fractured, or militarized in 1978, when the SovietUnion orchestrated the communist coup in Kabul.But the decision of the Soviet Union in 1979to invade and suppress the mujahedin uprising, and the Soviet Union'ssubsequent support for a series of brutal regimes through the 1980s, coupledwith decisions by the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran,and Pakistan to support the mujahedin, ultimately made Afghanistan one of themost unstable, fractured, and militarized places in the world.

As noted earlier in this report, the Soviet Union spent approximately U.S. $36 to $48 billion to supportsuccessive Afghan regimes in the 1980s, while the other countries noted abovesent roughly U.S. $6 to $12 billion in aid to mujahedin groups.[310]Even after the Soviet Union departed in 1989,the Soviet government continued to support the Najibullah government, and the United States and Pakistan continued to support mujahedingroups.[311]Hezb-e Islami forces continued to receivelargescale military assistance from the United States and Pakistan through the early 1990s.[312]Wahdat and Harakat continued to receivefunding from Iranthough the 1990s.[313]

All of this military aid, training, and financial support-bythe Soviet Union, United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan,and Iran-provided these countries varying degrees of leverage over the armedgroups they supported.All of theseseven countries (including Russiain the case of the Soviet Union) share responsibility for the internationalcrimes that occurred in Afghanistanduring the period discussed in this report.

The weapons used in the atrocities documented in this reportwere sent to Afghanistanby these seven countries.These weaponssent were manufactured by the Soviet Union, the United States, China,and Pakistan.Much of the training on their use wasconducted by trainers from Pakistan,Iran, the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom.Moreover, the very fact that military forcewas being used in Afghanistanin 1992-1993 was in large part due to the fact that none of the seven countriesabove made any high-profile efforts to resolve the Afghan political situationafter the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The governments of these seven countries today have anobligation to help Afghanistanrebuild and help it face its past.Animportant way to do so would be to forcefully and publicly press for justicefor past crimes and support Afghan justice-building efforts.

Recommendations

Afghans want justice for the crimes of the past.The Afghan Independent Human RightsCommission (AIHRC) completed an extensive survey in 2004, based on in-depthinterviews and focus groups, addressing issues of justice and accountabilityfor past abuses.The survey makes itclear that the vast majority of Afghans want the past to be confronted, do notsee such efforts as destabilizing, and want justice sooner rather than later.

According to the AIHRC survey results, 94 percent of Afghansconsider justice for past crimes to be either "very important" (75.9 percent)or "important" (18.5 percent).Whenasked what the effects would be for Afghanistanin bringing war criminals to justice, 76 percent said it would "increasestability and bring security," and only 7.6 percent said it would "decreasestability and threaten security."Almosthalf of those questioned said war criminals should be brought to justice "now,"and another 25 percent said perpetrators should be tried "within two years."

Human Rights Watch, along with numerous other internationaland Afghan non-governmental organizations, has repeatedly called on Afghanofficials and international actors involved in Afghanistanto help create mechanisms to hold persons responsible for major human rightsabuses, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed during Afghanistan's wars.We fully agree with the AIHRC on the need forthis issue to receive more attention.Wesupport their view that the president and government of Afghanistan should better prioritize justice forvictims of past abuses and fully endorse efforts to hold perpetratorsaccountable.

Human Rights Watch therefore urges the government to accelerateefforts to create justice-seeking mechanisms to bring past abusers to justiceand sideline them from political power and government positions.We urge the government to embrace justice andaccountability as vital for the rule of law and the protection of human rightsnow and in the future.

We also urge the government, with the active support ofdonors, to accelerate reforms to the judicial system of Afghanistan, which are essential to successfuljustice-seeking efforts.The appointmentof properly trained and independently-minded judges and prosecutors, who owe noallegiance to factional leaders or regional strongmen, is crucial.The president should take a leadership rolein creating the conditions necessary for genuine judicial independence, chieflyby ensuring that government officials do not interfere in individual casesbefore the courts.The government andits donors must also prioritize efforts to create a well-educated legalprofession.

Some will argue that pursuing justice for past crimes willcreate political instability, as many human rights abusers and potentialdefendants remain in power at both the national and regional levels.

We believe this threat is consistently overstated.There is always a risk in seeking justiceagainst powerful individuals for the human rights abuses they commit.With the support of the internationalcommunity and civil society, justice-seeking processes have been undertaken insimilarly fragile post-conflict settings.And as noted above, the AIHRC survey has indicated that three in fourAfghans believe that achieving justice for past crimes would increasestability, not decrease it.

Renewed respect for human rights and the rule of law canhelp to create sustainable stability in Afghanistan.A serious and successful accountabilityprocess is a key means towards this goal.

By contrast, one of the biggest threats to Afghanistan's political stability and futurecomes from individuals who have committed serious human rights abuses in thepast.These are the people who are todaymost likely to resort to force and other extra-legal measures to circumvent andsubvert Afghanistan'spolitical process and legal system.Toachieve long-term stability, the government will ultimately have to address thecontinuing threat from these individuals.

As an immediate first step, we recommend that the governmentimplement a set of vetting processes for government officials, as specified inmore detail below.

As detailed below, we also recommend that the government andkey international actors work to create a Special Court to try past offenders.We recommend that the court be comprised ofboth Afghan and international judges, with an international majority, and thatthe prosecutor's office be led by an international prosecutor.If it proves impossible to establish the Special Court in Afghanistan, because of political opposition,lack of judicial independence or political impartiality, or problems related tosecurity of witnesses or court personnel, we recommend that the court bephysically located outside of the country.

We are aware of the domestic sensitivities to this secondproposal and the legal and practical complexities of implementing it.Still, we believe there are several argumentsfor this approach that weigh in its favor.A Special Court,ideally located in Afghanistanbut elsewhere if necessary, would have the best chance of meeting recognizedfair trial standards.Such a court wouldalso be better placed than a domestic court in the current environment tohandle the complexities, both technical and political, of major trials.

But a Special Court, which will only take up a limited number ofcases, will not be enough to address the enormity of Afghanistan'spast abuses.For this reason, we furtherrecommend that the president appoint a standing panel of high-level andindependent Afghan and international experts to propose and help implementadditional programs to address issues that are not dealt with by the SpecialCourt, such as:

Past crimes that the Special Court does not have the capacityto address or which fall outside of its jurisdiction;

The establishment of an archive for thehistorical documentation of past abuses;

Recommendations on appropriate restitution orcompensation mechanisms; and

Educational initiatives, such as the drafting offair historical accounts in school textbooks.

Specific recommendations are as follows:

To the AfghanGovernment:

Civil Service andPolitical Appointments

The president, provincial governors, and otherpublic officials should not appoint to public office individuals who have hadcredible allegations made against them about the commission of seriousviolations of human rights and international humanitarian law or crimes againsthumanity.Appointed officials already inoffice who have had credible allegations made against them should be dismissed.

Civil service applicants should be screened toreject applicants who have had credible allegations made against them about thecommission of serious violations of human rights and international humanitarianlaw or crimes against humanity.

Current civil servants who have had credibleallegations made against them should be removed in accordance with civil service regulations.The civil service regulationsshould be amended as necessary to permit the removal of persons in suchcircumstances in keeping with due process guarantees, including the right tocontest the claims through an impartial and independent process.

The government should reform and strengthen the CivilService Commission (CSC), as recommended by the AIHRC.Persons appointed to the CSC should beindependent experts without direct links to military or politicalfactions.

The CSC should be empowered to hold both publichearings and receive confidential information on allegations concerning pastcriminal acts by those appointed to public office.CSC boards should maintain special mechanismsto allow women and girls to safely and confidentially provide information.

Judgments on eligibility for office should notbe based solely on past or present affiliations. Mere membership in a politicalparty, military group, mujahedin militia, or government office, should not beconsidered a crime or abuse.Personssubject to removal from positions should have the opportunity to know theevidence against them, obtain a fair hearing before an impartial board, andhave the right to appeal the determination of that tribunal to the regularlyconstituted courts.

The AIHRC, along with established Afghan andinternational human rights groups, should be empowered to present evidence andbring complaints on behalf of victims and survivors of past abuses before theCSC.

The CSC should have regional boards empowered tohold hearings in regional centers.

Candidates and ElectedOfficials

In future election periods, Afghanistan'sElectoral Commission should be empowered to hold public hearings at whichallegations can be brought against candidates about their past serious humanrights abuses, violations of international humanitarian law, and crimes againsthumanity, as well as violations of the electoral law and candidates legalqualifications.(Under 2005 electionarrangements, the Electoral Commission worked in cooperation with a U.N. componentto hear complaints about candidates, but only about allegations of violationsof the electoral law and candidates' legal qualifications.)

The AIHRC should be empowered to presentevidence and bring complaints before the Electoral Commission on behalf ofvictims and survivors of past abuses.Persons alleged to have committed abuses should be given an opportunityto rebut charges and submit evidence.

The Electoral Commission should issue a publicreport on the evidence presented. The Electoral Commission should forward allreports to the Attorney General's office for possible criminal investigation.

The Electoral Commission should create regionalboards empowered to hold hearings in regional centers.

In accordance with the Afghan constitution,future Electoral Commissions should enforce provisions that bar any candidatesor elected officials who havebeenconvicted of crimes against humanity or other criminal acts, or sentenced by acourt to the deprivation of their civil rights.

Thefuture parliament should work to formulate legislation defining the work of theElectoral Commission and the terms of its mandate.

Criminal Prosecutions

To address crimes committed under internationaland domestic law during the armed conflicts in Afghanistansince 1978, the government should establish a Special Court, empowered to investigateand prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious humanrights crimes.

The Special Court should be empowered to prosecute individualson the basis of Afghan law in effect at the time of the offense as well asapplicable international law, including international humanitarian law,international law regarding crimes against humanity, and other relevantinternational criminal law.

The Special Court must be independent and impartial and meetinternational fair trial standards.Itshould include an effective protection program for victims and witnesses andtheir families.Due to domesticsensitivities and the deep social stigma associated with sexual violence in Afghanistan, the Special Court should create confidential,anonymous, and secure mechanisms for women and girls to present evidence onsexual abuses.

Because the Afghan criminal justice system iscurrently incapable ofinvestigating andprosecuting complex international crimes, and because of practical difficultiesin guaranteeing that such a court would be impartial if domesticallyadministered, the Special Courtshould be a mixed court comprised of both Afghan and international judges andprosecutors.To guard against politicalmanipulation by powerful individuals who may be targets of criminalinvestigations, the court should have a majority of international judges and aprosecutor's office led by an international prosecutor.The government should work with the futureparliament to address legal and constitutional issues arising from itscreation.If necessary, the governmentshould seek to amend the Afghan Constitution to address these issues.

The AIHRC should be empowered to bringcomplaints to the prosecutor of the Special Court on behalf of victims and survivors.

The creation of a Special Court should be coordinated withbroader efforts to improve and expand the criminal justice system in Afghanistan and to ensure compliance withinternational due process standards.

The government should grant no amnesties orother immunities to persons implicated in war crimes, crimes against humanity,or other serious violations of international human rights law.There must be no exceptions for governmentofficials.

To address any future crimes of this magnitudeand to bring Afghanistaninto conformity with its treaty obligations, the government should implementthe Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, ratified by Afghanistan in 2003.After the parliamentary elections scheduledfor late 2005, the president should immediately propose legislation to the newparliament that would criminalize, under Afghan law, war crimes, crimes againsthumanity, genocide, and other serious violations of human rights.The president should work with the new parliamentto enact additional legislation as required by the Rome Statute.

Other Mechanisms

The president should appoint a standing panel ofhigh-level and independent Afghan and international experts to propose and helpimplement additional programs and policies to address those aspects of Afghanistan's history of abuse that are notdealt with by the Special Court.This should include an archive for thehistorical documentation of past abuses, recommendations on appropriaterestitution or compensation mechanisms, and undertaking educationalinitiatives, such as the drafting of fair historical accounts in schooltextbooks.

To InternationalActors and Donors:

International actors and donors should offerpolitical, technical, and financial support to efforts to establish the accountabilitymechanisms discussed in the above recommendations.

International actors should take into accountpublic opinion in Afghanistanin formulating policies about past crimes and accountability mechanisms.

Other countries should fully cooperate withinvestigations into past abuses, including by allowing access to documents andother materials held outside Afghanistan.

Appendix

Jamiat-e Islami-yiAfghanistan (Jamiat)[314]

Jamiat was one of the original Islamist parties in Afghanistan, established in the 1970s bystudents at KabulUniversity, where itsleader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was a lecturer in the Islamic Law Faculty.Although Rabbani was the official head ofJamiat through the 1980s and early 1990s, the most powerful figure within theparty was Ahmad Shah Massoud, who led the military wing of Jamiat-e Islamithrough the 1980s.(Massoud wasassassinated on September 9, 2001.)Rabbani is Tajik, as was Massoud, and Jamiat-e Islami was and remains apredominately Tajik party.Rabbani has abase of support in the northeast province of Badakhshan.Massoud's ethnic power base was historicallyin Parwan and Takhar provinces, where he established a regional military andadministrative structure in the late 1980s, the Supervisory Council of theNorth (Shura-e Nazar).Rabbani becamethe President of Afghanistan in 1992, and the government under his control waspredominately comprised of Jamiat members.Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Abdullah, and Yunis Qanooni-all members ofPresident Hamid Karzai's interim cabinet from 2002-2004-were members of Jamiatand Shura-e Nazar.

Ittihad-i Islami Bara-yi Azadi Afghanistan(Ittihad)[315]

Ittihad is headed by Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf.During the war against the Soviet occupation,Sayyaf obtained considerable assistance from Saudi Arabia, and Arab volunteers supported by private andgovernmental sources from Saudi Arabia fought with Sayyaf's forces.Ittihad in 1992-1993 had its central powerbased in Paghman district, west of Kabul,and was allied with the Rabbani government and Massoud's Jamiat forces.Today, Sayyaf has no official government postbut exercises a large amount of political power of President Karzai'spolitical, judicial, and military appointments.Many Ittihad members have served from 2002 to mid-2005 as officials inthe ministry of defense, ministry of interior, and in the Supreme Court andlower courts.

Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami-yiAfghanistan(Wahdat)[316]

The principal Shi'a party in Afghanistanwith support mainly among the Hazara ethnic community, Hezb-e Wahdat wasoriginally formed by Abdul Ali Mazari to unite eight Shi'a parties in Afghanistanin the run-up to the collapse of the communist government.Mazari was Wahdat's leader in 1992-1993, butits senior commanders also included Muhammad Karim Khalili and Haji MuhammadMuhaqqiq, who commanded troops in Kabul and inthe north of Afghanistanat the time.Hezb-e Wahdat receivedsignificant military support from Iran in the early 1990s.Mazari was killed in 1995, as the Talibanwere fighting to seize Kabul.Both Khalili and Muhaqqiq were members ofPresident Karzai's cabinet in 2002-2004 and Khalili was elected as avice-president in the October 2004 election.

Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yiAfghanistan(Junbish)[317]

Junbish brought together northern ethnic Uzbek and Turkmenmilitias of the communist regime who mutinied against President Najibullah inearly 1992.It also included formerleaders and administrators of the old regime from various other ethnic groups,mainly Persian-speaking, and some Uzbek mujahedin commanders, as well as someerstwhile Jamiat and Wahdat commanders who later left Junbish and rejoinedtheir former factions.This group tookcontrol of the important northern city of Mazar-i Sharif in alliance withJamiat in early 1992 and controlled much of the northern provinces of Samangan, Balkh,Jowzjan, Faryab, and Baghlan provinces.The leader of Junbish throughout the 1990s and up to the present isAbdur Rashid Dostum, who ran for president in the 2004 election.

Harakat-e Islami-yiAfghanistan(Harakat)[318]

Harakat-e Islami was a Shi'a political party and mujahedinforce founded in the early 1980s.TheHarakat-e Islami party was headed for most of the 1980s by a Shi'a cleric namedMohammad Asef Mohseni (who participated in the June 2002 loya jirga). Over thelast decade, Harakat-e Islami has splintered into three parts. One faction isled by the original leader, Mohammad Asef Mohseni, a second splinter is led bya military commander Hossein Anwari (agricultural minister in Afghanistan's transitional government and inmid-2005 the governor of Kabul), and a third isled by Sayeed Mohammad Ali Javeed (until 2004 the minister of transportation).In 1992-1993, Harakat received substantialsupport from Iran.But although predominately Shi'a, Harakatnever joined the Wahdat party.

Acknowledgements

This report was written by John Sifton, a researcher in theAsia Division of Human Rights Watch.Itis based on research conducted by Human Rights Watch researchers in 2003through 2005 in Afghanistanand from New York.Brad Adams, Executive Director of the AsiaDivision, Saman Zia-Zarifi, Deputy Director of the Asia Division, and JoeSaunders, Deputy Program Director, edited the report.James Ross, Senior Legal Advisor, provided legalreview.Nisha Varia, Zama Coursen-Neff,and Marc Garlasco also reviewed the report and provided comments.Jo-Anne Prud'homme, Ami Evangelista, LizWeiss, Angelina Fisher, and Jane Stratton provided research assistance.

Production assistance was provided by Veronica Matushaj,Andrea Holley, Fitzroy Hepkins, and Jagdish Parikh.John Emerson designed the map.Human Rights Watch would like to thank SpaceImaging for their generous contribution of satellite imagery of Kabul.MatthewMcKenzie designed the satellite photograph images.

Human Rights Watch specially thanks the Afghan women and menwhom we interviewed for this report and who assisted us in our investigation.For security reasons, many of them cannot be named here.

We would also like to thank the countless staff andofficials of non-governmental organizations and U.N. agencies in Afghanistan who have assisted us with our work,as well as the numerous other sources who provided helpful comments, advice,and information.We want to speciallythank international and Afghan television, radio, and print journalists whohave provided information for this report.

We would also like to thank Ahmed Rashid for his support andencouragement, as well as Barnett R. Rubin and Patricia Gossman for their ongoingassistance.

Our work on Afghanistanhas required significant financial resources. We thank the Ford Foundation, theJohn D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Stichting Doen, and Rockefeller Brothers Fundfor their generous contributions to our emergency work in Afghanistan in 2003.

We also wish to acknowledge the generous support of theAnnenberg Foundation, which has enabled Human Rights Watch to sustain ourmonitoring of Afghanistan.

• Asia
• Afghanistan