‘between the dragon and his wrath’, 1994–2017alliance with the movement and defeat Hikmatyar. The Taliban’s military
successes, however, fuelled Mullah ‘Omar’s conviction that he had a divine
calling to rescue Afghanistan from the forces of misrule and usher in a
‘true’ Islamic government, a conviction reinforced by a vision he claimed
to have had of the Prophet Muhammad, who had endorsed his jihad.
So Mullah ‘Omar dismissed Rabbani’s offer and instead demanded his
government resign and Mas‘ud surrender. Instead, in March 1995 Mas‘ud
consolidated his control over the Afghan capital and attacked the Hizb-i
Wahdat suburbs of Chindawal and Deh Mazang.
In an attempt to stave off defeat, ‘Abd al-‘Ali Mazari, head of Hizb-i
Wahdat, cut a deal with the Taliban. In return for their military support
against Mas‘ud, Mazari offered to surrender a number of positions in
southern Kabul to the Taliban, but his scheme backfired after rival factions
within Hizb-i Wahdat rejected the deal. When the Taliban tried to occupy
The Mahipur Gorge
on the modern Kabul–
Jalalabad highway. The
Taliban used this road
on their advance on
Kabul.