15 Facts About Afghan mujahideen

Afghan mujahideen were various armed Islamist rebel groups that fought against the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent First Afghan Civil War.

The term mujahideen is used in a religious context by Muslims to refer to those engaged in a struggle of any nature for the sake of Islam, commonly referred to as jihad.

Militants of the Afghan mujahideen were recruited and organized immediately after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, initially from the regular Afghan population and defectors from the Afghan military, with the aim of waging an armed struggle against both the communist government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, which had taken power in the 1978 Saur Revolution, and the Soviet Union, which had invaded the country in support of the former.

The Afghan mujahideen saw thousands of volunteers from various Muslim countries come to Afghanistan to aid the resistance.

The loosely-aligned Afghan mujahideen took the capital city of Kabul in 1992 following the collapse of the Moscow-backed government.

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Afghan mujahideen created an organization named Afghan National Liberation Front and on May 25,1979, appealed for support in New York City.

Broad Afghan mujahideen had existed as a de facto political bloc since May 1979, when the Pakistani government decided to limit the flow of financial aid to the said seven organizations, thus cutting off monetary supply to nationalist and left-wing resistance groups.

Soviet operation of December 1979 turned the civil war into a war of liberation, and the jihad was more forceful than previous Afghan mujahideen empires had fought against the British and the Sikhs.

They, including tribal and community elders, former members of parliament and mujahideen commanders, met in several loya jirgas to solidify the resistance, liberate Afghanistan from the Soviet Union, topple the Kabul regime, and create a single political bloc.

The other notable Afghan mujahideen commanders were Ahmad Shah Massoud, Abdul Haq, Ismail Khan, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Amin Wardak and Mohammad Zabihullah.

In 1985, under pressure from the king of Saudi Arabia – which was a major donor to the mujahideen – a more broad coalition was created, named Islamic Unity of Afghan Mujahideen, comprising the four main Islamist and three moderate groups.

Afghan mujahideen eventually decided to go at the Kabul regime in a very different way: a coalition with Khalq communists of General Shahnawaz Tanai, which caused many resignations in his party in protest.

Britain's support to the Afghan mujahideen resistance turned out to be Whitehall's most extensive covert operation since the Second World War.

The Afghan Army beat back the Mujahideen's attempts to take the city of Jalalabad in March 1989, and the civil war settled into a stalemate for three years.

Women played a part in the Afghan mujahideen, often traveling with them to cook food or wash their clothes, but taking part in weapons smuggling.