The operation was launched by Ahmad Shah Massoud and Burhanuddin Rabbani's Islamic State of Afghanistan government and the allied Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's Ittehad-i Islami paramilitary forces against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezbe Islami and Abdul Ali Mazari's Hezbe Wahdat militias in the densely populated, Qizilbash-majority, Afshar district in west Kabul.

The Hazara-Hezbe Wahdat together with the Pashtun-Hezbe Islami of Hekmatyar had been shelling densely populated areas in northern Kabul from their positions in Afshar, killing thousands.

[4] Reports emerged that Sayyaf's Sunni Wahhabist forces backed by Saudi Arabia rampaged through Afshar, murdering and burning homes.

[5][6] Both the Hezb-e Wahdat and the Ittihad-i Islami had been involved in systematic abduction campaigns against civilians of the "opposite side", a pattern Ittihad continued in Afshar.

Reports describe looting, indiscriminate shelling by Sayyaf's men and massacring of thousands of civilians from Hazara ethnic group.

At the same time it was reported that in another incidence government troops carried a wounded Afshar civilian to safety and that some commanders on the ground tried to stop abuses from taking place.

The Afshar operation, which saw hundreds of Sunni Pashtuns and Shia Hazaras systemically targeted and depopulated from villages in the area, was the first such sectarian oriented incident in Afghanistan's modern history.

[6] With the exception of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami which to a very large extent was controlled by the regime in Pakistan, all parties were ostensibly unified under this government in 1993.

Given the political and military context of Kabul at the time, these two objectives (which were largely attained during the operation) provide a compelling explanation of why the Islamic State forces attacked Afshar.

This allowed the artillery to be pre-positioned in advance of the battle, with a ZU-23 gun and 30 men being positioned on Aliabad hill, with the purpose of targeting the Central Silo, Afshar, Kart-iSeh, Kart-iChar and Kart-I Sakhi.

According to this, by 13:00 the main defense line of Hezb-I Wahdat had failed and the forces, including Mazari and his top commanders, began to flee on foot.

Mazari re-established a defense line near the Central Silo and Kart-iSakhi, at the edge of Khushhal Mina, keeping control over most of West Kabul.

A method of torture much used by Hezb-i-Wahdat entailed forcing an arrested person to kneel, handcuffed, in the street, whereupon nails were hammered into his head until he died.

In West Kabul Hezb-i-Wahdat fighters regularly gathered together a number of manacled detainees in a room, where they were subjected to a form of torture known as the "dance of death".

The lifeless body reacted by making jerking movements, was lifted up by the Hezb-i-Wahdat and pushed back and forth, hence the term "dance of death".

[10]John Jennings, a journalist with the AP present in Afshar during the operation around Massoud's troops, went into considerable detail to debunk allegations of a systematic massacre of civilians.

Jennings recounts entering a nearby basement where Wahdat fighters had tied up non-Hazara hostages with wire, shot them and tried to burn the bodies, before fleeing the scene ahead of Massoud's advancing troops.

[11] Jennings also describes Ahmad Shah Massoud's followers rescuing a wounded Hazara civilian caught in the crossfire during the height of the battle.

[11] The Afshar campaign and the surrounding violence were ended by the Islamabad Accord between the Islamic State and Hekmatyar's alliance (including Hezb-i Wahdat) fashioned in late February 1993 and signed on March 7, 1993.

The Islamabad Accord among other things stated: Having agreed to bringing armed hostilities to an end, Recognizing the need for a broad-based Islamic Government in which all parties and groups representing all segments of Muslim Afghan society are represented so that the process of political transition can be advanced in an atmosphere of peace, harmony and stability, [...] All the parties and groups concerned have agreed as follows: To the formation of a Government for a period of 18 months in which President Burhanuddin Rabbani would remain President and Eng.

[12]Pulitzer Prize-winning Roy Gutman of the United States Institute of Peace wrote in How We Missed the Story: Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan: Hekmatyar had become prime minister ...

But after chairing one cabinet meeting, Hekmatyar never returned to the capital, fearing, perhaps, a lynching by Kabulis infuriated over his role in destroying their city.

Hekmatyar spokesman Qutbuddin Helal was still setting up shop in the prime minister's palace when the city came under Hezb[-i Islami] rocket fire late that month.