gathering on the border between Badakhshan and Kunar from 9–13
October. While the bulk of the participants were Pushtuns, the
Shura served to affirm the rising status of Massoud, who in October
1990 paid a visit to Pakistan as its spokesman, his first trip outside
Afghanistan since the beginning of the war. During the visit, he met
with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Army Chief Mirza Aslam
Beg, ISI Director-General Durrani, and also with Hekmatyar. The
strategy adopted by the Shura was incremental: to divide
Afghanistan into nine administrative regions and to target outposts
of the regime. With the failure of the Pakistan-based ‘Interim
Government’, the USA was prepared to support the new approach
of aiding commanders directly, despite ISI’s objections (Yousaf and
Adkin, 1992: 208–9). One consequence was a resumption of aid to
Massoud: as Olivier Roy has recorded, from November 1988 until
October 1990, Massoud ‘did not receive a single bullet from the
US-sponsored programme’ (Roy, 1991: 37).
As well as consolidation amongst Sunni commanders, there was
also a degree of consolidation, albeit not exactly consensual, amongst
Afghanistan’s Shiite parties. It reflected in part the frustration of the
Shia at their inability to secure appropriate representation at the
1989 shura in Rawalpindi (Harpviken, 1996: 101). As mentioned
earlier, on 16 June 1990 the establishment of the Hezb-e Wahdat
(‘Party of Unity’) was announced in Tehran. It did not reflect total
unity among Shia. A significant chunk of the Harakat-e Islamiof
Asif Mohseni opted not to join. Mohseni, a Pushto-speaker from
Kandahar, had maintained a certain ambivalence about his own
identity, and may have felt that he could best maintain this position
through retaining his independence. The Hezb-e Wahdatwas based
in Bamiyan, and while ultimately it was to develop fissures, it
marked a considerable step forward in the articulation of the inter-
ests of Afghan Shia.
US disengagement
George Bush had been inaugurated as US President almost on the
eve of the completion of the Soviet troop withdrawal. Yet despite
178 The Afghanistan Wars