Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin

Hezb-e Islami (حزب اسلامی گلبدین) (Party of Islam)
Participant in the War in Afghanistan
Active	1977 - 2016 (as a militia) 1977 - present (as a political party)
Ideology	Sunni Islamism
Groups	Pashtuns
Leaders	Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Area of operations	Afghanistan Azerbaijan In Nagorno-Karabakh
Strength	1,500 - 2,000+
Originated as	Hezbi Islami
Battles and wars	Civil war in Afghanistan (1992–96) Civil war in Afghanistan (1996–2001) War in Afghanistan (2001–14) War in Afghanistan (2015–present)

The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG; Persian: حزب اسلامی گلبدین‎‎) is an Afghan political party.

The original Hezb-e-Islami was founded in 1977 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has later turned the head of HIG. The other faction of Hezb-e Islami was headed by Mulavi Younas Khalis, who made a split with Hekmatyar and established his own Hezb-e Islami in 1979. It has become known as the Khalis faction, and its power base was in Nangarhar. Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin formed a part of the Peshawar Seven alliance of Sunni Mujaheddin forces throughout the Soviet invasion.

Well-financed by anti-Soviet forces through the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the HIG was "sidelined from Afghan politics" by the rise of the Taliban in the mid-1990s. It remained so until later in the 2000s (decade), when it "reemerged as an aggressive militant group, claiming responsibility for many bloody attacks against Coalition forces and the administration of President Hamid Karzai" in the post-2001 war in Afghanistan. Its fighting strength is "sometimes estimated to number in the thousands".

During the Soviet War in Afghanistan, Hekmatyar and his party operated near the Pakistani border against Soviet Communists. Areas such as Kunar, Laghman, Jalalabad, and Paktia were Hezb-e Islami's strongholds. The party is highly centralized under Hekmatyar's command and until 1994 had close relations with Pakistan.

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