afghanistanaircraft of the un and International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc).
In Nangahar Arab militants loyal to ’Osama bin Laden executed two un
expatriates and their Afghan colleagues in cold blood.
Within a matter of weeks of the mujahidin takeover, there was rampant
hyperinflation and the afghani was almost worthless as the govern-
ment printed more and more paper money. Soon Pakistani rupees and
u.s. dollars became the currencies of preference. General Dostam later
printed his own money, which the government in Kabul refused to honour.
Hikmatyar added to the suffering of Kabulis by switching off the power
from the Sarobi dam, lobbing rockets into the city and blockading the
Kabul–Jalalabad highway, the principal supply route for the capital.
Some commanders did attempt to establish law and order and improve
conditions for ordinary people. In Herat security was good under Isma‘il
Khan, who used the customs revenues from the Islam Qal‘a border post
to seal the main road between Herat and the Iranian frontier. He also
linked Herat into Iran’s electricity grid. Though Isma‘il Khan was an
Islamizer, girls’ primary and secondary schools remained open in Badghis
and women continued to teach. In the north, Dostam used the substan-
tial revenues from customs duties on the Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan
frontier, as well as the income from the Shibarghan and Sar-i Pul gas and
oilfields and the fertilizer and power plant at Dehdadi, to redevelop the
Heroin resin on sale in Tribal Territory, outside Peshawar. By the mid-1980s heroin
was easily obtainable and many refugees, mujahidin and Pakistanis became addicted
to heroin, opium and hashish.