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Afghanistan Accord, 1988
An outstanding event was the Geneva agreements on Afghanistan, signed on April 14, 1988, signalling the end of the 8-year old Soviet aggression. The Soviet Union agreed to a phased withdrawal of its forces beginning from May 15, 1989. The US and Pakistan were also signatories to the four pacts signed as part of the agreement.

In accordance with the terms of the Geneva accords, the Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan territory and completed the process by February 15, 1989. But with a three-dimensional civil war raging in the country and the US acting in collusion with Pakistan to supply arms to the Mujahideen, armed clashes continued for many months.

Civil war
Afghanistan was rocked by a civil war after the Soviet withdrawal, which resulted in two million casualties and virtually ruined the economy. The period of conflict ended on April 29, 1992, when Prof Mojadidi, a moderate, took over as provisional President. He formed an interim Governing Council, with the clear understanding that he would stay in power for only two months and then make way for Burhanuddin Rabbani. The new regime prepared the way for a general election to determine the country’s future and decide who should rule in Kabul. Rabbani took over the President-ship at the end of April, 1992.

On February 11, 1995, the warring Islamic factions agreed to form a multi-party governing council to replace the government headed by President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Rabbani initially agreed to step down for the council to take charge, but later refused saying that he would step down only if the powerful new militia, the Taliban, was included in the new council.

On October 8, 1995, the Taliban rejected a UN plea for a limited ceasefire and vowed to attack Kabul to oust Rabbani. The Taliban, comprising mostly youth from Madrassas and Islamic Seminaries controlled more than one-third of Afghanistan, including the strategic western city of Herat not far from the Iranian border.

On February 25, 1996, the Afghan Government offered to share power with the opposition—the Hazb-e-Islami faction led by former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Two months after getting the offer, Hekmatyar signed the agreement to restore peace. The six-point agreement called for cessation of hostilities, establishment of an Islamic government, setting up of a national Islamic army and formation of an interim government to conduct elections. The factions resolved that till elections were held, the interim government would be controlled by the Hezb-e-Islami and President Rabbani. While Rabbani would continue to hold the office of the President, Hekmatyar would be Afghanistan’s Prime Minister. It was also resolved that Hekmatyar’s faction would take control of Afghanistan’s Defence and Finance Ministry.

On September 26, 1996, Taliban rebels entered Kabul and after two days of fierce fighting the capital fell into the militia hands. Both Hekmatyar and Rabbani fled the seat of power—enabling the militia to set up a six-member interim Islamic Government. After the capital Kabul was taken over by the Taliban, they publicly executed former President Najibullah.

The Taliban campaign continued and it struggled to retain its hold on northern Afghanistan. It captured Mazar-e-Sharif, the stronghold of Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostam. After a bloody battle, they were driven out of Mazar-e-Sharif. The battles continued in other towns of the country.

In the areas controlled by the Taliban, a strict Islamic code was enforced. Women were not allowed to work and were forced to wear veils. The men were required to keep beards. The society was pushed backwards but there was no respite from the civil wars.

Pakistan was constantly accused of training mercenary groups to destabilise the country. By 1999, it was clear that international terrorist Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan. The UN imposed sanctions on the country for its refusal to hand over bin Laden. The Taliban were accused of violating human rights and indulging in Serbian style ethnic cleansing. As its woes multiplied, there was no foreign help coming either, making it a forgotten country.

On November 14, 1999, sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers went into effect. Sanctions had been imposed for the country’s failure to surrender the terrorist Osama bin Laden, who was charged with plotting the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Africa. The US had already imposed its own sanctions. It froze the assets of Afghanistan’s national airline, Ariana, and banned all investment and trade. Afghanistan was a destabilising country in the region, but the sanctions were expected to hurt the common people.

Situation in Afghanistan went from bad to worse in 2001. The fundamentalist Taliban regime, after being frustrated by isolation by the international community, decided to destroy two pre-Islamic statues of Buddha in the country, dating back to 2nd century.

Taliban supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar had ordered the total destruction of all statues throughout Afghani­stan, in line with a fatwa from local Islamic clerics. The Buddha statues were the most famous of Afghanistan’s statues and are carved into a sandstone mountain in central Bamiyan province.

Almost 2000 years old, the largest of the two, at 50 metres, was the biggest standing Buddha in the world. The statues, the landlocked country’s biggest tourist attraction in the 1970s, had earlier survived numerous historical conquerors.

International outcry over the Taliban militia’s plan failed to sway the Afghan leadership from its mission. The leader of the Taliban militia shrugged off international condemnation of his order to destroy ancient Buddhist statues, saying, “all we are breaking are stones”.

In May 2001, the Taliban issued a decree ordering all non-Muslims to wear a yellow badge so that they can be identified. The decree was met with a widespread international con­dem­nation and protests.

Collapse of Taliban
After the September 11 terrorist attacks on USA, Afghanistan became the centre of attraction of the entire world. The Taliban regime was punished by USA for harbouring Osama-bin-Laden and his terrorists with constant bombing that ulti­mately led to the Op­position Northern Alliance ousting the Taliban regime.

On December 7, 2001, the Taliban finally collapsed after two months of constant bombing by the US forces. Under a UN-sponsored agreement, signed on December 5, 2001, an interim govern­ment was installed to oversea the transition of Afghanistan from a war-torn country to a peaceful, democratic country. The agreement, signed in Bonn, Germany, paved the way for a 29-member cabinet, headed by Hamid Karzai, a 44-year-old tribal leader from the Pashtun tribe, taking charge of the affairs in Afghanistan.

The interim government was constituted for six months, before an emergency Loya Jirga—grand traditional assembly of elders—appointed an 18-month transitional government.

The Loya Jirga, which met in Kabul from June 10 to 16, 2002, reappointed Hamid Karzai as head of the government. This election was dubbed as the first free presidential election in Afghan history. 

The Afghan government unveiled the country’s post-Taliban draft Constitution on November 3, 2003, laying the political foundation for Afghanistan’s return to normalcy after decades of war—and aiming to unite the diverse Afghan people under democratic principles with an Islamic core.

The draft Constitution, was debated in December 2003 at a constitutional grand council, or Loya Jirga of 500 delegates from around the country. Delegates  approved the new Constitution for Afghanistan on January 4, 2004, concluding three weeks of often-tense debate. Their decision heralded a new era of democracy after a quarter-century of war.

Historic Presidential Elections in 2004
On October 25, 2004, President Hamid Karzai clinched victory in Afghanistan’s historic Presidential poll, as his main rival conceded defeat even before election workers began counting the final votes. Karzai won over 55 per cent of the vote, which virtually guaranteed him the simple majority he needed to avoid a run off against the second place candidate, Yunus Qanuni.

It was feared that Afghanistan’s first election would be bloody. Instead, the only thing that was spilt was ink. Afghans thronged polling booths, eager to choose their ruler for the first time in their history. Only the decision of 14 candidates to boycott the results cast a shadow on the event.

Despite appeals on the internet calling on Islamic militants to disrupt the Afghan elections, the Taliban were the dog that did not bark. The Taliban struck in Uruzgan province, attacking a police convoy escorting full ballot boxes and killing three. But the convoy and its precious cargo fought its way out.

The presence of 10,000 security personnel from several countries in Afghanistan helped. Enormous US pressure on Islamabad to keep a lid on the Taliban also played a crucial role. Besides, officials from 39 countries under the supervision of the UN, supervised the polls.

By first impression of officials, both Western and Afghan, the vote was an overwhelming success. For Afghanistan, success is more than the key to its very survival. Western donors and countries like India, which have either pumped in millions of dollars or provided support in the form of creating roads, hospitals and radio and TV stations, are ready to pour in more money to avert a failed State located at a geographical crossroad, bordering Kashmir, Central Asia and Pakistan.

On September 18, 2005, Afghans chose a Legislature for the first time in decades, embracing their newly recovered democratic rights and braving threats of Taliban attacks to cast votes in schools, tents and mosques. The vote was seen as the last formal step towards democracy, on a path set out after a US-led force drove the Taliban from power in 2001.

Karzai as President
When Karzai emerged as the leader of Afghanistan in the wake of the US-led invasion and ouster of the Taliban rulers in 2001, he was seen as having the credentials to unite the ethnically fragmented country and to work with Western forces to improve security.

He was known to Western officials because he had helped to organize opposition to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and to the Taliban regime in the 1990s from neighbouring Pakistan.

In what appeared to be a deal to gain support for his election, Karzai allowed the return of notorious warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum to Afghanistan from his exile in Turkey. Dostum is accused of allowing his men to kill up to 2,000 prisoners captured during the US invasion in 2001 and then hiding evidence of the crime.

Karzai also selected Mohammad Fahim, a former militia chief with a reputation for human rights abuses and corruption, to be his running mate in the presidential race, to the chagrin of many Afghans and Western officials who had urged him to choose someone less controversial.

The questionable associations include a member of Karzai’s own family. His younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, an influential councilman in their home province of Kandahar, is widely believed to be a key figure in the illegal drug trafficking in the region though both Karzais vehemently deny the accusations.