accept the dictates of a body which they had played no great role
in assembling. This Dostam did.
But the third, and most critical, problem was the absence of a
state. The fragmentation of the Afghan Army (Davis, 1993a) meant
a government could not even remotely hope to secure an immedi-
ate monopoly over the means of large-scale violence, although in
the long run it was Massoud’s aim as Defence Minister to establish
such a monopoly. The collapse of state instrumentalities meant that
securing a ministerial position was no guarantee of institutional
power. In an atmosphere of rampant distrust, prudence would dic-
tate the adoption of other strategies to secure one’s position. Much
of the violence that smashed parts of Kabul reflected rationally
self-interested decision making by leaders, parties and militias in a
situation in which there was no state to provide an overarching
guarantee of security. It also reflected the interest of some of these
decision makers in preventing any such state from taking shape.
THE BOMBARDMENT OF KABUL
The symbolism of the capital
Where the state has collapsed, control of the symbols of the state
may be all that combatants can realistically aspire to attain. This
helps explain why petty bureaucratic requirements, such as the
demand that foreign visitors obtain exit visas, were rigorously
enforced under the Rabbani government: the right to make such a
demand was a symbolic marker of sovereignty, even though it had
no effect on foreign combatants flowing across Afghanistan’s bor-
ders, and only impacted on legal visitors whose goodwill it sorely
tested. Unfortunately, there were other symbols which it was easier
for Rabbani’s opponents to contest. The most important of these
was Kabul as a capital city. This helps explain the strategies of the
parties in the battle for Kabul. Massoud on occasion trained
withering fire on the southern and western suburbs of Kabul, but
his use of firepower was fundamentally different from that of
The Rise and Fall of the Rabbani Government, 1992–1996 201