Post Communist Era
Dostum's men would become an important force in the fall of Kabul in 1992. In April 1992 the opposition forces began their march to Kabul against the government of Najibullah. Dostum had allied himself with the opposition commanders Ahmad Shah Massoud, Sayed Jafar Naderi, the head of the Isma'ili community and together they captured the capital city. He and Masoud fought in a coalition against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Masoud and Dostum's forces joined together to defend Kabul against Hekmatyar, with some 4000-5000 of his troops, units of his Shiberghan-based 53rd Division and Balkh-based Guards Division garrisoning Bala Hissar fort, Maranjan Hill, and Khwaja Rawash International Airport. In 1994, Dostum allied himself with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Read more about this topic: Abdul Rashid Dostum
Famous quotes containing the words post, communist and/or era:
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“It is not an era of repose. We have used up all our inherited freedom. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)