Afshar operation

Afshar Operation
Location	Kabul, Afshar District
Date	10–11 February 1993
Target	Hezb-i Wahdat headquarters, the Kabul Social Science Institute, and Hezb-i Wahdat leader Abdul Ali Mazari who in alliance with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was shelling densely populated civilian neighborhoods in northern Kabul from Afshar
Deaths	ca. 70 dead during the street fighting, 700-750 disappeared (abducted by Sayyaf's Ittihad)
Perpetrators	Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's Ittihad-i Islami and ISA (Islamic State of Afghanistan) forces
Motive	stop the bombardment campaign of Hezb-i Wahdat based in Afshar, capture the political and military headquarters of Hezb-i Wahdat and capture Abdul Ali Mazari, the leader of Hezb-i Wahdat

The Afshar Operation was a military operation by Ahmad Shah Massoud and Burhanuddin Rabbani's Islamic State of Afghanistan government forces and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's Ittehad-i Islami forces against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami and Abdul Ali Mazari's Hezb-e Wahdat militias in the densely populated Afshar district in west Kabul. The Iran-backed Hezb-e Wahdat together with the Pakistani-backed Hezb-i Islami of Hekmatyar had been shelling densely populated areas in northern Kabul from their positions in Afshar, killing thousands. To counter the shelling, Islamic State forces attacked Afshar in order to capture the positions of Wahdat, capture Wahdat's leader Abdul Ali Mazari and to consolidate parts of the city controlled by the government. At the time the Ittihad-i Islami para-military party of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf was allied to the Rabbani government.

The operation became an urban war zone and escalated into the Afshar massacre when Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's Sunni Wahhabi Ittihad committed "repeated human butchery" turning against the Shi'ite Muslims. Reports emerged that Sayyaf's Wahhabist forces backed by Saudi Arabia rampaged through Afshar, murdering, raping and burning homes. Both the Hezb-e Wahdat and the Ittihad-i Islami had been involved in systematic abduction campaigns against civilians of the "opposite side", a pattern Ittihad continued in Afshar. Besides Ittihad commanders, two of the nine Islamic State commanders on the ground, Anwar Dangar (who later defected to the Taliban) and Mullah Izzat, were also named as leading troops that carried out abuses. Reports describe looting, arrests of about 700 Iranian agents (Pasdaran) supporting Wahdat and indiscriminate shelling by Abdul Sayyaf´s men. In one instance fleeing civilians in the streets were hit by fire from Jamiat-i Islami (Islamic State forces) soldiers. At the same time it was reported that in another incidence Jamiat troops carried a wounded Afshar civilian to safety and that some commanders on the ground tried to stop abuses from taking place.

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Wikipedia