UCDP

General information

Part of Conflict: Afghanistan: Government

Date of first stated goals of incompatibility: 1981-04-22
Comment on date of first stated goal of incompatibility: On 27 January 1980 the six resistance movements based in Peshawar formed Ittihad-i Islami Bara-yi Azadi-yi Afghanistan (Islamic Alliance for the Liberation of Afghanistan). The objectives of the new alliance were to gain international support for the Afghan government-in-exile, which was set up in Peshawar, and to unite the efforts of the opposition forces. The leader of Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, boycotted the alliance after a few weeks, and the organisation was never very cohesive. In April, the alliance finally managed to agree on a leader, Abdul Rasul Sayaf, but the problems with unifying the different parties persisted and the alliance fell apart. In April 1981, Sayaf was left with a new party with the same name. Sayaf was an important member of the Islamist resistance of the early 1970s. He had been imprisoned since the uprisings in 1975, but had been released just before the alliance was formed. Sayaf’s new party was fundamentalist and Wahhabist (a strictly conservative sect) with close connections to Saudi Arabia.

Date of first use of armed force: 1981-07-14
Comment on date of first use of armed force: The records relating to the early phase of the insurgency is unclear. In mid-July heavy fighting erupted in Paghman, an Ittihad-i Islami Bara-yi Azadi-yi Afghanistan stronghold. The three-day battle resulted in several hundreds of deaths. However, Ittihad-i Islami was probably engaged in combat before July and the first use of armed force may have occurred earlier during the year. Due to lack of information, 14 July 1981 is set as the date of first use of armed force.
First Battle Related Death: 1981-07-15
Comment on First Battle Related Death: The records relating to the early phase of the insurgency is unclear. In mid-July heavy fighting erupted in Paghman, an Ittihad-i Islami Bara-yi Azadi-yi Afghanistan stronghold. The three-day battle resulted in several hundreds of deaths. However, Ittihad-i Islami was probably engaged in combat before July and the first battle-related death may have occurred earlier during the year. Due to lack of information, 16 July 1981 is set as the date of first battle-related death.

Date when dyad reached 25 battle releated deaths: 1981-07-16
Comment on date when dyad reached 25 battle related deaths: The records relating to the early phase of the insurgency is unclear. In mid-July heavy fighting erupted in Paghman, an Ittihad-i Islami Bara-yi Azadi-yi Afghanistan stronghold. The three-day battle resulted in several hundreds of deaths. However, Ittihad-i Islami may have been engaged in combat before July and the threshold of 25 deaths may have been reached earlier during the year. Hence, the fighting caused 25 deaths on 16 July 1981 at the latest.

Conflict issues

Annual information

This section contains annual information systematically collected by the UCDP.