afghanistanknown as the Islamabad Accord. This agreement legitimized Rabbani’s
position as President of Afghanistan while Hikmatyar continued as prime
minister with increased powers, for he alone now had the right to appoint
cabinet ministers. All factions agreed to a ceasefire and a joint Defence
Committee was established with the impossible mandate of merging the
rival militias into a national army or disarming them, as well as to ensure
that ‘all the roads in Afghanistan are kept open for normal use’. The Saudis
even flew the contracting parties to Mecca where they swore on the Ka’aba
to uphold the Accord. In the wake of this agreement, Mas‘ud voluntarily
resigned as Minister of Defence and withdrew to Jabal Saraj, where he
began to plan for a showdown with Hikmatyar.
The Accord led to a few months of relative calm for the capital’s shell-
shocked citizens, but the lawlessness on the highways was unchanged.
Hikmatyar continued to refuse to come to Kabul, yet appointed govern-
ment ministers and held cabinet meetings in Chahar Asiyab. Finally, in
November Mas‘ud mounted an unsuccessful assault on Hikmatyar’s pos -
itions in an attempt to break his stranglehold on the Kabul–Jalalabad road.
Taking advantage of this setback, Dostam attacked Jami‘at and expelled
its followers from Mazar-i Sharif and Qunduz, although he lost control
of the key port and railhead at Hairatan. Dostam then forged an unlikely
alliance with Hikmatyar and in January 1994 they attacked Mas‘ud and
A primary school in Nasir Bagh refugee camp. Education became another battle ground
during the era of the Soviet-backed governments in Kabul. Some mujahidin-run schools
in the refugee camps and inside Afghanistan were set up primarily to instil jihadist ideology
in the next generation rather than to educate them.