SUMMARY
Mahaz-i Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan is an Afghan rebel group and a political party. The group is sometimes referred to as NIFA (National Islamic Front of Afghanistan). Mahaz-i Milli was one of the seven main insurgency groups based in Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s, commonly referred to as the Mujahideen. The groups made several attempts to unite in an alliance during this time period, both in order to increase their combat strength but also because external donors, primarily the US, preferred to support one cohesive organisation rather than numerous dispersed groups. During the second half of the 1980s and in the early 1990s, Mahaz-i Milli was part of a loose alliance, the Islamic Unity of the Afghan Mujahideen, together with Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan, Jabha-yi Nijat-i Milli-yi Afghanistan, Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami-yi Afghanistan, Jamiyyat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan, Ittihad-i Islami Bara-yi Azadi-yi Afghanistan, and Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan - Khalis faction. When the Mujahideen took control of Kabul in 1992, Mahaz-i Milli was part of the new government which ruled Afghanistan for four years until the Taleban ousted it in 1996.
The Islamist movements in Afghanistan originate from a cell of intellectuals at Kabul University. In the 1950s, the theology faculty opened, and graduates could travel to other Muslim universities. Inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a group called the Muslim Youth was formed in the mid-1960s. As a reaction to a communist-backed coup in 1973, the resistance group Jam’iyyat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan was created by members of the Muslim Youth network. In the following years several new resistance groups were formed.
Sayyid Ahmad Gailani, who later became the leader of Mahaz-i Milli, was a prominent religious leader and businessman with very close ties to the Afghan king Zahir Shah who was ousted in the coup in 1973. As many of the other leaders of the resistance he moved to Peshawar in Pakistan after the 1978 coup and the following Soviet invasion. In late 1978 he formed the party Mahaz-i Milli-yi Afghanistan. In its manifesto, the organization stated that the Soviet-imposed regime was a group of traitors and that the party supported nationalism and democracy. In contrast to the more fundamentalist Mujahideen groups, such as Hizb-i Islami and Jam’iyyat-i Islami, Mahaz-i Milli was more moderate and secular, and wanted to reinstate King Zahir Shah.
Mahaz-i Milli’s members are primarily from the Pashtun ethnic group, and the party is especially strong in the provinces of Paktia, Paktika and Nangarhar in the eastern parts of Afghanistan. One of the most important commanders of the organization was Abdul Rahim Wardak, an American-trained officer from the Wardak province west of Kabul. When the Mujahideen groups ousted the communist President Mohammad Najibullah in 1992, Mahaz-i Milli became part of the new government under President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Since the US-backed Northern Alliance ousted the Taleban regime in 2001, Mahaz-i Milli has remained a political party, supporting President Hamid Karzai. In the 2010 elections to the lower house of the National Assembly, the Wolesi Jirga, Mahaz-i Milli received six seats.
Mahaz-i Milli has received large-scale military and financial support from various countries during the conflict in Afghanistan. During the 1980s and early 1990s, countries such as United States, France and United Kingdom supported the Islamist insurgents in an attempt to counter-balance the Soviet influence in Afghanistan. Several Arab countries, for example Saudi Arabia and Egypt, also supplied funds and arms. Almost all of the military aid was handled by the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence). The two countries that provided most support to the Mujahideen were United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1979, US President Jimmy Carter authorized a program of covert military assistance to the Mujahideen groups. Until 1992, when military aid ceased, the US gave $2-3 billion to the Islamist insurgents, a sum which was matched by Saudi Arabia. Of this aid, Mahaz-i Milli received approximately 10%.
Mahaz-i Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan has been involved in the intrastate and non-state categories of UCDP organised violence.
