Documentation for Ittehad Islami
April 25, 1992
The Independent
The third radical faction, Ittehad Islami, enjoys generous funding from the austere Wahhabi sect of Saudi Arabia. It is noted for its fanatical band of Arab volunteers, but remains militarily ineffective.
June 6, 1992
The Independent
Ittehad Islami, a radical Sunni Muslim movement whose leader, .. has received generous funding from the austere Wahhabi sect of Saudi Arabia. The group has a large number of Arab volunteer fighters who are noted for their fanaticism.
The struggle also has ethnic overtones. Most of Afghanistan's Shias are Hazaras, who comprise about 10 to 15 per cent of the population. Ittehad draws its support mainly from the Pathans, the largest ethnic group and traditional oppressors of the Hazaras.
July 22, 1994
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Pakistan rejected his demands for ransom and pressured his Ittehad-e-Islami group and its ally, the Jamiat-e-Islami by threatening with the possible expulsion from Pakistan of families close to Rocketi's group.
The threats were, however, not executed following intervention of Saudi Arabia which is believed to be friendly to Rocketi's group Ittehad Islami, ..allied with embattled Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who also enjoys the goodwill of the Saudi rulers.
Feb. 13, 1995
The Guardian
and Ittehad Islami, a hardline pro-Saudi party that is the staunchest supporter of Mr Rabbani's Jamaat Islami faction.
Aug. 28, 1995
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Several pro-government commanders .. Ittehad Islami group, have been killed in past three days, according to the Taleban.
Dec. 24, 2001
The International Herald Tribune
A hard-line Afghan theologian [leader of Ittehad Islami]the only significant Pashtun leader in the Northern Alliance, wanted the Interior Ministry and is unhappy that he has not received it.
July 30, 2003
The International Herald Tribune
"The United States in particular bears much of the responsibility for the actions of those they have propelled to power, for failing to take steps against other abusive leaders, and for impeding attempts to force them to step aside," it says. "Their continued funding, joint operations, and fraternizing with warlords has sent, at best, mixed messages about their goals and intentions."
The authors of the report warn that the warlords and abusive commanders will become only more entrenched with time and could threaten the success of President Hamid Karzai's government.
Villagers in Paghman, a region west of Kabul, recount how they have to patrol their houses at night in order to deter armed robbers, many of whom they say are local police and soldiers loyal [leader of Ittehad Islami] the mujahedeen leader who is a member of the Northern Alliance. Often the robberies involve rape and abduction of women.
May 1, 2004
Foreign Affairs
In fact, just a few months ago, during the Loya Jirga (grand council) held to draft a new national constitution, xxx [Ittehad Islami leader]met with Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and President George W. Bush's special envoy...widely believed that Khalilzad was courting xxx support for several constitutional provisions...xxxsubsequently agreed to these provisions; just what he asked for in return is unknown. The mere fact that the negotiations took place, however, is unsettling, for it exposes the weakness of Washington's current Afghan strategy. ..Besides xxx, several other key warlords have returned to power in Afghanistan. They include Mxxx the current defense minister; xxx, the Afghan president's special envoy for northern Afghanistan; and xxx the former president and a current power broker. All these men share responsibility for the ferocious killing of the mid-1990s. They still maintain private armies and private jails and are reaping vast amounts of money from Afghanistan's illegal opium trade -..as well as from extortion and other rackets.Yet these men also now sit at the negotiating table with the United States, the UN, and other members of the Afghan government, bartering for power.
May 6, 2004
The International Herald Tribune
In secret, President Hamid Karzai ordered the execution ofxxx a man who could have revealed atrocities committed by one of Karzai's closest advisers. .. With his death, the truth about ..and who in the top leadership might have ordered those crimes -- has been buried.xx.. died April 20, ..xxwas widely known to be a commander under xx the leader of a militia.. When I interviewed Shah .. he did not deny his part in war crimes, but said xxxgave the orders. He did not ask for release or claim that he was innocent -- only that he be transferred to the custody of another ministry where he might have some protection from what he said were plans to silence him... Human rights observers told me that Shah had offered to show them exactly where these mass graves in Paghman are. Afghanistan's leaders, and their American supporters, prefer for now that the victims of Paghman and the rest of the past remain buried, lest it imperil "stability."
Since the defeat of the Taliban, [leader of Ittehad] has had extraordinary power over Karzai. Shortly after the interim government was established in December 2001, xxxleaned on Karzai to appoint as Supreme Court chief justice ..has since appointed like-minded mullahs as judges across Afghanistan, with the power to ban any law they deem contrary to the "beliefs and provisions" of Islam.
July 20, 2004
The International Herald Tribune
The warlords got an unexpected chance to rebuild their power when the Bush administration chose to rely mainly on their private armies to eject the Taliban from Kabul in late 2001. After the war, with the Pentagon already intent on sending troops to Iraq, the United States kept only a limited combat force to battle Taliban fighters and their local allies in southeastern Afghanistan, leaving Karzai largely at the mercy of the warlords.
Together they have far more troops than Karzai's nascent national army, and he has been forced to cut dangerous short-term deals with them.
A prime target should be xxx a militant Islamist, long backed by Saudi Arabia, whose fighters have been responsible for multiple war crimes over the years, including a 1993 massacre of civilians in Kabul. xxx's private army gives him the power to impose his nominees for key positions.
Nov. 13, 2005
Associated Press Worldstream
A number of Karzai's supporters have violent pasts,.. a powerful militia leader [Ittehad Islami] accused of war crimes by New York-based Human Rights Watch, ..
June 16, 2006
The Boston Globe
.., a member of parliament, where he leads a pro-Karzai faction. The draft UN report says that as a mujahideen commander in February 1993, before a massacre of Shi'ite civilians in Kabul, XXX told his officers, "Don't leave anyone alive kill all of them."
Oct. 5, 2017
Uppsala Conflict Data Program
During the time of Soviet control of Afghanistan, seven resistance movements based in Pakistan, and one movement based in Iran, took part in the conflict. The seven Pakistan-based movements, sometimes called the Peshawar Seven due to the location of their offices, consisted of three moderate parties; Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami-yi Afghanistan, Jabha-yi Nijat-i Milli-yi Afghanistan, and Mahaz-i Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan, and four fundamentalist parties; Jamiyyat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan, Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan, Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan - Khalis faction, and Ittihad-i Islami Bara-yi Azadi-yi Afghanistan.
