Kabul University, was a modernist Islamic party, and notably more
open than Hekmatyar’s party in which the dictates of the leader
were relentlessly enforced.
Amongst the Shia of Afghanistan, parties tended to be domin-
ated by clerics, given the greater salience of religious hierarchy
amongst Shiites, and included the Shura-i Ettefaq of Ayatullah
Beheshti, the Sazman-e Nasrof Abdul Ali Mazari, Muhammad
Akbari’s Sepah-i Pasdaran, and the Harakat-e Islami of Asif
Mohseni. The Shura took shape as a governing body of notables in
the period after the communist coup, as the inaccessible Hazarajat
region was neglected by forces focusing on the exercise of control
over urban areas. It fell victim not so much to internal Afghan
developments as to the vicissitudes of politics in neighbouring
Iran, always something of an inspiration for some Shia in the
Hazarajat. The acute tensions between different Shiite groups in
Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution which overthrew the
Shah were to some degree reflected in groups which took shape in
the Hazarajat, and the result was severe civil strife from 1982. In
1990, the bulk of the parties, under Iranian pressure, combined to
form the Hezb-e Wahdator ‘Party of Unity’. However, Mohseni’s
party, which had drawn on Qizilbash as well as Hazara Shia, and
had been engaged militarily against the Soviets on a number of
occasions, retained its own identity. I will discuss the complica-
tions of resistance in the Hazarajat in more detail later.
Regional commanders
Within this context, there emerged a number of important regional
commanders whose power was more institutionalised, although
often the commanders were also charismatic individuals. Those
who developed such regional power bases tended to be the most
enduring and salient figures in the internally based resistance. For
some this reflected the pulling power of military prowess; for
others it reflected agendas in which regional organisation was
designed to put in place a proto-state as precursor to a wider state-
building agenda. Amongst ethnic Pushtuns, the most accomplished
64 The Afghanistan Wars