8
The Interregnum of
Najibullah, 1989–1992
Few observers expected Najibullah’s regime to last for very long
after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yet over three years
were to pass before it finally disintegrated, years of what Goodson
called ‘high intensity civil war’ (Goodson, 1998: 480). These years
were marked by a growing indifference to Afghanistan in the wider
world, driven in part by the emergence of dramatic events else-
where. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism and
the end of the Cold War were momentous developments which
overshadowed Afghanistan and the Afghans’ contributions to polit-
ical change in the Soviet bloc. The Bush Administration and its
key policy makers were preoccupied with the careful management
of transition in the Soviet Union (Beschloss and Talbott, 1993;
Bush and Scowcroft, 1998), and then from August 1990 with the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and its regional and international conse-
quences. The situation in Afghanistan after the Soviet troop with-
drawal appeared a minor concern when compared with these great
events, and that unfortunately was how it was treated. Yet it was a
period of great significance in the long run, for Afghanistan
became the venue for a bitter transnational war which permitted
groups such as Osama Bin Laden’s to find a haven, and was
brought to an end only in September 2001 when Pakistan, under
intense US pressure, was forced to sever ties with its Taliban
clients.
The aim of this chapter is to identify the factors which account-
ed for Najibullah’s unexpected survival until April 1992, and the