Early Years and Rise To Power
Khan was born in or about 1946 in the Shindand District of Herat Province in Afghanistan. His family are Tajiks from the Chahar-Mahal neighbourhood of Shindand.
In early 1979 Ismail Khan was a Captain in the Afghan National Army based in the western city of Herat. In early March of that year, there was a protest in front of the Communist governor's palace against the arrests and assassinations being carried out in the countryside. The governor's troops opened fire on the demonstrators, who proceeded to storm the palace and hunt down Soviet advisers. The Herat garrison mutinied and joined the revolt, with Ismail Khan and other officers distributing all available weapons to the insurgents. Hundreds of civil workers and people not dressed in traditional Muslim clothes were murdered. A garrison of Soviet advisors was overtaken and all of its inhabitants: Soviet advisors along with their wives and childred were massacred. The mob put decapitated heads of the victims on sticks and paraded them through the city of Herat. The government led by Nur Mohammed Taraki responded, pulverizing the city using Soviet supplied bombers and killing an estimated 24,000 citizens in less than a week. This event marked the opening salvo of the rebellion which led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Ismail Khan escaped to the countryside where he began to assemble a local mujahideen rebel army.
During the ensuing war, he became the leader of the western command of Burhanuddin Rabbani's Jamiat-e-Islami, political party associated with neighboring Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami. With Ahmad Shah Massoud, he was one of the most respected mujahideen leaders. In 1992, two years after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the mujahideen captured Herat and Ismail Khan became Governor.
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