The collapse of Mohammad Najibullah's regime in April 1992 led to a peace treaty between the Afghan political parties and the establishment of the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

A group of Parchami generals and officials, led by acting President Abdul Rahim Hatif, declared themselves an interim government for the purpose of handing over power to Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud.

With soldiers armed and financed by Pakistan, Hekmatyar had asked other groups such as Harakat-Inqilab-i-Islami and the Khalis faction to join him while entering Kabul, but they declined his offer and instead backed the Peshawar Accord.

Jamiat-i Islami had seized massive amount of weapons while overrunning the mostly Pashtun Communist garrisons in Bagram, Charikar, Takhar, Kunduz, Fayzabad and other northern cities.

In the western sector of the city, the Hezb forces crossed the Kabul River and arrived at the northern bank after taking control of the Karte Seh area.

When Hekmatyar's forces had overrun Pul-e-Charkhi prison, while still in the centre of Kabul, they had set free all the inmates, including many criminals who were able to take arms and commit gruesome actions against the population.

[10] Meanwhile, in Western Kabul, an area that would later see some of the fiercest fighting and greatest massacres of the war, Sayyaf's mostly Pashtun forces began to enter the city from Paghman and Maidan Shar.

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

Shura-e Nazar forces were said to have been around the customs post on Jalalabad Road under the command of Gul Haidar and Baba Jalandar, who also were active in the areas such as the military university.

From the onset of the battle, Jamiat 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 innocent civilians of Kabul, a fact which has been well-documented.

Shura-i 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 Customs Post, and in the districts around Hood Khil, Qala-e Zaman Khan and near Pul-i Charkhi prison.

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

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

In response to this, Shura-e Nazar forces hit Kart-I Naw, Shah Shaheed and Chiilsatoon with aerial and ground bombardment.

As Jamiat-i controlled the strategic high areas, they were better able to target specific military objectives rather than resorting to indiscriminate shelling as other factions such as Hezb-i Islami had done.

Charasyab, which housed Hizb-i Islami's artillery, Shiwaki, where the intelligence department was deployed and the Rishkor Division were also targeted, in addition to the Dasht-I Saqawa airport in Logar Province.

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

Heavy fighting was reported around a Wahdat post held by Commander Sayid Ali Jan near Rabia Balkhi girls' school.

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

The Taliban movement first emerged on the military scene in August 1994, with the stated goal of liberating Afghanistan from its present corrupt leadership of warlords and establishing a pure Islamic society.

Pakistani traders who had long sought a secure route to send their goods to Central Asia quickly became some of the Taliban's strongest financial backers.

The Pakistanis also wished for a stable government to take hold in Afghanistan, regardless of ideology, in hopes that the 3 million Afghans who for 15 years had taken refuge in Pakistan would return to their homeland since the refugee population became increasingly viewed as a burden.

[27] In March 1995, Massoud's forces were able to drive out the Taliban from the area around Kabul, and retake Charasiab, leading to a relative period of calm for a few months.

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 live.

[28] By the end of November and 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.

[29] In its first action, the Islamic militant group publicly hanged former president Mohammad Najibullah[29] and his brother General Shahpur Ahmadzai, perceiving them to be puppets loyal to nations other than Afghanistan.

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

The United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, a coalition of various armed factions known in the Pakistani and Western media as the "Northern Alliance", was constituted in opposition to the Taliban under the leadership of Massoud.