Editing Kabul (section)

====Occupations, wars and Taliban rule (1996–2001)====
{{Further|Soviet–Afghan War|Afghan Civil War (1989–92)}}
[[File:Old View of Kabul with Pul-e Khishti Mosque and Kabul Fortress in Background.jpg|thumb|250px|left|Centre of Kabul in 1979; the Pul-e Khishti bridge crosses the [[Kabul River]] to the old city in the south bank]]
On 28 April 1978, President Daoud and most of his family were assassinated in Kabul's [[Arg (Kabul)|Presidential Palace]] in what is called the [[Saur Revolution]]. Pro-Soviet PDPA under [[Nur Muhammad Taraki]] seized power and slowly began to institute reforms.<ref name="Haynes, 372">Haynes, 372.</ref> Private businesses were nationalised in the Soviet manner.<ref name="Haynes, 373">Haynes, 373.</ref> Education was modified into the Soviet model, with lessons focusing on teaching [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Marxism–Leninism]] and learning of other countries belonging to the Soviet bloc.<ref name="Haynes, 373" />

Amid growing internal chaos and heightened cold war tensions, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, [[Adolph Dubs]], was kidnapped on his way to work at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on 14 February 1979 and killed during a rescue attempt at the Serena Hotel. There were conflicting reports of who abducted Dubs and what demands were made for his release. Several senior Soviet officials were in the lobby of the hotel during a standoff with the kidnappers, who were holding Dubs in room 117.<ref>J. Robert Moskin, American Statecraft: The Story of the U.S. Foreign Service (Thomas Dunne Books, 2013), p. 594.</ref><ref>John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), p. 468.</ref> Afghan police, acting on the advice of Soviet advisors and over the objections of U.S. officials, launched a rescue attempt, during which Dubs was shot in the head from a distance of six inches and killed.<ref>Dick Camp, Boots on the Ground: The Fight to Liberate Afghanistan from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban (Zenith, 2012), pp. 8–9.</ref> Many questions about the killing remain unanswered.

On 24 December 1979, the [[Soviet Union]] invaded Afghanistan and Kabul was heavily occupied by [[Soviet Armed Forces]]. In Pakistan, [[Director-General]] of the ISI [[Akhtar Abdur Rahman]] advocated for the idea of covert operation in Afghanistan by arming Islamic extremists who formed the mujahideen.<ref name="Jang Publishers, 1991" /> General Rahman was heard loudly saying: "''Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!''",<ref name="Kakar">{{cite book|title=Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979–1982|last1=Kakar|first1=Hassan M.|year=1997|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-20893-3|page=291|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QyTmFj5tUGsC&pg=PA291|access-date=8 January 2013|archive-date=3 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210503084850/https://books.google.com/books?id=QyTmFj5tUGsC&pg=PA291|url-status=live}}</ref> and mastered the idea of [[Pakistan and state terrorism|proxy war]] in Afghanistan.<ref name="Jang Publishers, 1991">{{cite book|last=Yousaf|first=Mohammad|title=Silent Soldier: The Man Behind the Afghan Jehad General Akhtar Abdur Rahman|year=1991|publisher=Jang Publishers, 1991|location=Karachi, Sindh|page=106|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cAoNAAAAIAAJ&q=Silent+soldier:|access-date=15 December 2015|archive-date=3 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210503084914/https://books.google.com/books?id=cAoNAAAAIAAJ&q=Silent+soldier%3A|url-status=live}}</ref> Pakistani President [[Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq|Zia-ul-Haq]] authorised this operation under General Rahman, which was later merged with [[Operation Cyclone]], a programme funded by the [[United States]] and carried out by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]].

[[File:Evstafiev-40th army HQ-Amin-palace-Kabul.jpg|thumb|[[Tajbeg Palace|Taj Beg Palace]] in 1987, the Soviet Army headquarters during the Soviet–Afghan War]]
The Soviets turned the city of Kabul into their command centre during the [[Soviet–Afghan War]], and while fighting was mostly taking place in the countryside, Kabul was widely disturbed. Political crime and guerrilla attacks on military and government targets were common, and the sound of gunfire became commonplace at night in the outskirts. Large numbers of [[People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan|PDPA]] party members and Soviet troops were kidnapped or assassinated, sometimes in broad daylight, with acts of terrorism committed by civilians, anti-regime militias and also [[Khalq]]ists. By July 1980, as many as twelve party members were being assassinated on a daily basis, and the Soviet Army stopped patrolling the city in January 1981. A major uprising against the Soviet presence broke out in Kabul in February 1980 in what is called the [[3 Hut uprising]]. It led to a night [[curfew]] in the city that would remain in place for seven years.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7b69p12h;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print|title=Afghanistan|website=publishing.cdlib.org|access-date=4 August 2021|archive-date=13 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813153023/https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7b69p12h;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print|url-status=live}}</ref> The Soviet Embassy also, was attacked four times with arms fire in the first five years of the war. A Western correspondent revisiting Kabul in December 1983 after a year, said that the city was "converted into a fortress bristling with weapons".<ref>''Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation'', by J. Bruce Amstutz – Page 139</ref> Contrastingly, that same year American diplomat Charles Dunbar commented that the Soviet troops' presence was "surprisingly modest",<ref name="ReferenceA">''Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation'', by J. Bruce Amstutz – Page 139 & 140</ref> and an author in a 1983 ''[[Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]]'' article thought that the Soviet soldiers had a "friendly" atmosphere.<ref>Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – December 1983 issue</ref>

The city's population increased from around 500,000 in 1978 to 1.5&nbsp;million in 1988.<ref>''Afghanistan: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan'', by Amin Saikal, William Maley – Page 48</ref> The large influx were mostly internal refugees who fled other parts of the country for safety in Kabul. During this time, women made up 40% of the workforce.<ref name="revues">{{cite journal|url=https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/212|title=Kabul at War (1992–1996): State, Ethnicity and Social Classes|year=2007|publisher=samaj.revues.org|doi=10.4000/samaj.212|access-date=25 October 2014|last1=Dorronsoro|first1=Gilles|journal=South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal|doi-access=free|archive-date=26 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141026102747/http://samaj.revues.org/212|url-status=live}}</ref> Soviet men and women were very common in the city's shopping roads, with the large availability of Western products.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> Most Soviet civilians (numbering between 8,000 and 10,000) lived in the northeastern Soviet-style [[Mikrorayon]] (''[[microraion]]'') housing complex that was surrounded by [[barbed-wire]] and armed tanks. They sometimes received abuse from anti-Soviet civilians on the streets.<ref>''Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation'', by J. Bruce Amstutz – Page 140</ref> The mujahideen rebels managed to strike at the city a few times—on 9 October 1987, a car bomb planted by a mujahideen group killed 27 people, and on 27 April 1988, in celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the Saur Revolution, a truck bomb killed six people.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Landay|first1=Jonathan S.|title=A truck bomb exploded in crowded downtown Kabul today,...|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/04/27/A-truck-bomb-exploded-in-crowded-downtown-Kabul-today/7671578116800/|website=UPI|language=en|access-date=11 January 2018|archive-date=12 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180112043011/https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/04/27/A-truck-bomb-exploded-in-crowded-downtown-Kabul-today/7671578116800/|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Kabul during civil war of fundamentalists 1993-2.jpg|thumb|Kabul's [[Jada-e Maiwand]] in 1993, showing the destruction caused by the civil [[Afghan Civil War (1992–96)|war]].]]
{{Main|Afghan Civil War (1992–96)}}
After the fall of [[Mohammad Najibullah]]'s<ref name="Bowersox">{{cite book|title=The Gem Hunter: The Adventures of an American in Afghanistan|last1=Bowersox|first1=Gary W.|year=2004|publisher=GeoVision, Inc.|location=United States|isbn=978-0-9747323-1-2|page=100|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WVAN9pjnRzMC&pg=PA100|access-date=22 August 2010|archive-date=8 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210808094045/https://books.google.com/books?id=WVAN9pjnRzMC&pg=PA100|url-status=live}}</ref> government in April 1992, different mujahideen factions entered the city and formed a government under the [[Peshawar Accords]], but [[Gulbuddin Hekmatyar]]'s party refused to sign the accords and started shelling the city for power, which soon escalated into a full-scale conflict. This marked the start of a dark period of the city: at least 30,000 civilians were killed in a period known locally as the "Kabul Wars."<ref>{{cite news|title=Guerrillas Take Afghan Capital as Troops Flee|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/28/world/guerrillas-take-afghan-capital-as-troops-flee.html|website=The New York Times|date=28 September 1996|access-date=28 December 2017|archive-date=10 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201010085715/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/28/world/guerrillas-take-afghan-capital-as-troops-flee.html|url-status=live}}</ref> About 80 percent of the city was devastated and destroyed by 1996.<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence|last1=Kolhatkar|first1=S.|last2=Ingalls|first2=J.|last3=Barsamian|first3=D.|date=2011|publisher=Seven Stories Press|isbn=978-1-60980-093-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=px7rU0i-71UC|access-date=25 October 2014|archive-date=7 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201207173205/https://books.google.com/books?id=px7rU0i-71UC|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Bowersox (p.192)</ref> The old city and western areas were among the worst-hit. A ''[[New York Times]]'' analyst said in 1996 that the city was more devastated than [[Sarajevo]], which was similarly damaged during the [[Bosnian War]] at the time.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Burns|first1=John F.|title=Afghan Capital Grim as War Follows War|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/05/world/afghan-capital-grim-as-war-follows-war.html|website=The New York Times|date=5 February 1996|access-date=28 December 2017|archive-date=2 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201102075843/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/05/world/afghan-capital-grim-as-war-follows-war.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

The city suffered heavily under a [[bombardment]] campaign between rival militias which intensified during the summer of 1992. Its geographic location in a narrow valley made it an easy target from rockets fired by militias who based themselves in the surrounding mountains.<ref>Nazif M Shahrani, "War, Factionalism and the State in Afghanistan" in American Anthropologist 104:3 (Arlington, Virginia: American Anthropological Association, 2008), 719.</ref> Within two years' time, the majority of infrastructure was destroyed, a massive exodus of the population left to the countryside or abroad, and electricity and water was completely out. In late 1994, bombardment of the capital came to a temporary halt.<ref name="Afghanistan Justice Project">{{cite web|year=2005|url=http://www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/warcrimesandcrimesagainsthumanity19782001.pdf|title=Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity: 1978–2001|publisher=Afghanistan Justice Project|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004221455/http://www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/warcrimesandcrimesagainsthumanity19782001.pdf|archive-date=4 October 2013}}</ref><ref name="amnesty.org">Amnesty International. 16 November 1995 Accessed at: {{cite web|url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa11/015/1995/en/|title=Afghanistan: Further information on fear for safety and new concern: Deliberate and arbitrary killings: Civilians in Kabul|date=16 November 1995|access-date=18 October 2014|archive-date=3 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403163212/https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ASA11/015/1995/en/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="International Committee of the Red Cross">{{cite web|year=1995|url=http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jly2.htm|title=Afghanistan: escalation of indiscriminate shelling in Kabul|publisher=International Committee of the Red Cross|access-date=13 February 2011|archive-date=10 May 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510012006/http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jly2.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> These forces took steps to restore law and order. Courts started to work again, convicting individuals inside government troops who had committed crimes.<ref>{{youTube|id=Jnia-TUuCDs|title=BBC Newsnight 1995}}</ref> On 27 September 1996, the hardline [[Taliban]] militia seized Kabul and established the [[Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001)|Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan]]. They imposed a strict form of [[Sharia]] (Islamic law), restricting women from work and education,<ref name="Physicians for Human Rights">{{cite web|year=1998|url=http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/talibans-war-on-women.pdf|title=The Taliban's War on Women. A Health and Human Rights Crisis in Afghanistan|publisher=[[Physicians for Human Rights]]|access-date=15 November 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070702234326/http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/talibans-war-on-women.pdf|archive-date=2 July 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> conducting amputations against common thieves, and hit-squads from the infamous "Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" watching public beatings of people.<ref name="Physicians for Human Rights" />