At the end of June 1992, Burhanuddin Rabbani took over the interim Presidency from Mujaddidi, as provided in the Peshawar Accords[9] – a paralyzed 'interim government' though, right from its proclamation in April 1992.

[13] According to Human Rights Watch, in the period 1992–95, five different mujahideen armies contributed to heavily damaging Kabul,[14][15] though other analysts blame especially the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin group.

[18] This induced some other warring factions to form new alliances, starting with the Burhanuddin Rabbani 'interim government' and Hekmatyar with his Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin in early March.

In 1992 he signed the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement, in the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan,[19] and was so appointed as the Minister of Defense as well as the government's main military commander.

[24] Amnesty International reported that Sayyaf's forces rampaged through the mainly Shi'ite Qizilbash Afshar neighborhood of Kabul, slaughtering and raping inhabitants and burning homes.

Soon, however, conflict broke out between the Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat of Mazari, the Wahabbi Pashtun Ittehad-e Islami of warlord Abdul Rasul Sayyaf supported by Saudi Arabia.

Dostum had allied himself with the opposition commanders Ahmad Shah Massoud and Sayed Jafar Naderi,[36] the head of the Isma'ili community, and together they captured the capital city.

[41] In April 1992, according to self-made Afghan historian Nojumi,[42] the Inter-Services Intelligence helped Hekmatyar by sending hundreds of trucks loaded with weapons and fighters to the southern part of Kabul.

[45] Ahmad Shah Massoud, involved in the political and military turmoil of Afghanistan since 1973 and therefore not an impartial observer, in early September 1996 described the Taliban as the centre of a wider movement in Afghanistan of armed Islamic radicalism: a coalition of wealthy sheikhs (like Osama bin Laden) and preachers from the Persian Gulf advocating the Saudi's puritanical outlook on Islam which Massoud considered abhorrent to Afghans but also bringing and distributing money and supplies; Pakistani and Arab intelligence agencies; impoverished young students from Pakistani religious schools chartered as volunteer fighters notably for this group called Taliban; and exiled Central Asian Islamic radicals trying to establish bases in Afghanistan for their revolutionary movements.

[23] After suffering heavy casualties, Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin forces deserted their positions and fled to the outskirts of Kabul in the direction of Logar province.

[10] In addition to the bombardment campaign, Hekmatyar's forces had overrun Pul-e-Charkhi prison while still in the centre of Kabul, and had set free all the inmates, including many criminals, who were able to take arms and commit gruesome crimes against the population.

On 30 May 1992, during fighting between the forces of Dostum's Junbish-i Milli and Hekmatyar's Hizb-i Islami in the southeast of Kabul, both sides used artillery and rockets, killing and injuring an unknown number of civilians.

From the onset of the battle, Jamiat-e Islami and Shura-e Nazar controlled the strategic high areas, and were thus able to develop a vantage point within the city from which opposition forces could be targeted.

Although Hekmatyar insisted that only Islamic Jihad Council areas were targeted, the rockets mostly fell over the houses of the innocent civilians of Kabul, a fact that has been well-documented.

Shura-e Nazar was able to immediately benefit from heavy weapons left by fleeing or defecting government forces and launched rockets on Hekmatyar's positions near the Jalalabad Custom's Post, and in the districts around Hood Khil, Qala-e Zaman Khan and near Pul-e-Charkhi prison.

According to the writings of Nabi Azimi, who at the time was a high ranking governor, the fighting began on 31 May 1992 when 4 members of Hezb-i Wahdat's leadership were assassinated near the Kabul Silo.

Following this the car of Haji Shir Alam, a top Ittehad-e Islami commander was stopped near Pol-e Sorkh, and although Alem escaped, one of the passengers was killed.

[62] Kandahar was host to three different local Pashtun commanders Amir Lalai, Gul Agha Sherzai and Mullah Naqib Ullah who engaged in an extremely violent struggle for power and who were not affiliated with the interim government in Kabul.

On 19 January, a short-lived cease-fire broke down when Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin forces renewed rocket attacks on Kabul from their base in the south of the city supervised by Commander Toran Kahlil.

[citation needed] Heavy fighting was reported around a Hezb-i Wahdat post held by Commander Sayid Ali Jan near Rabia Balkhi girls' school.

The Iran-controlled Hezb-i Wahdat together with the Pakistani-backed Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin of Hekmatyar were shelling densely populated areas in Kabul from their positions in Afshar.

[citation needed] Under the March accord, brokered by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Rabbani and Hekmatyar agreed to share power until elections could be held in late 1994.

Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, along with their new allies of Hezb-i Wahdat and Junbish-i Milli, launched the Shura Hamaghangi campaign against the forces of Massoud and the interim government.

"[45] Human Rights Watch writes that "rare ceasefires, usually negotiated by representatives of Ahmad Shah Massoud, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi or Burhanuddin Rabbani (the interim government), or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commonly collapsed within days.

"[23] The Taliban movement first emerged on the military scene in August 1994,[citation needed] with the stated goal of liberating Afghanistan from its present corrupt leadership of warlords and establish a pure Islamic society.

Interim President Rabbani refused to step down at the end of his term on 28 December 1994, and on 1 January UN peace envoy Mahmoud Mistiri returned to Kabul.

Other residential areas hit by artillery and rocket attacks were the Bagh Bala district in the northwest of Kabul and Wazir Akbar Khan, where much of the city's small foreign community lived.

[53] By the end of December, more than 150 people had died in Kabul due to the repeated rocketing, shelling, and high-altitude bombing of the city, reportedly by Taliban forces.

[citation needed] All key government installations appeared to be in Taliban's hands within hours, including the presidential palace and the ministries of defense, security and foreign affairs.

Between 9 and 12 November, Dostum's jets bombed the Kabul airport, and between 11 and 16 approximately 50,000 people, mostly Pashtuns, arrived in Herat province, fleeing the fight in Badghis.