In the post-2001 war in Afghanistan, HIG "reemerged as an aggressive militant group, claiming responsibility for many bloody attacks against Coalition forces and the administration of President Hamid Karzai".
[9][10] President Ashraf Ghani, having fled the country to either Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, emerged in the UAE and said that he supported such negotiations and was in talks to return to Afghanistan.
Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin has also established contacts with the British intelligence services MI6, which provide it with military training, equipment and “propaganda” support, and its leader, Hekmatyar, met with Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street in 1986.
[14] Since 1981 or 1985, Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin formed a part of the Peshawar Seven alliance of Sunni Mujaheddin forces fighting the Soviet invasion.
"[6] Frustrated by that continued destructive warlord feuding in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) abandoned HIG for the Taliban in 1994.
[6] Hekmatyar opposed the 2001 American intervention in Afghanistan, and since then has aligned his group (Hezb-e-Islami) with remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda against the current Afghan government.
[20] Radio Free Europe reports that "in 2006, Hekmatyar appeared in a video aired on the Arabic language Al-Jazeera television station and declared he wanted his forces to fight alongside Al-Qaeda.
Ten members of the group's "senior leadership" met in May 2004 with President Hamid Karzai and "publicly announced their rejection of Hezb-e-Islami's alliance with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
"[6] According to journalist Michael Crowley, as of 2010, HIG's political arm holds 19 of 246 seats in the Afghan parliament and "claims not to take cues from Hekmatyar, though few believe it.
"[8] In 2008[update], the International Security Assistance Force estimated that the military component of Hezbi Islam was about 1,000 strong, including part-time fighters.
Scores of Hizb-e-Islami militants, including 11 commanders and 68 fighters, defected on Sunday [7 March 2010] and joined the Afghan government as a clash between the group and the Taliban left 79 people dead, police said.
Zarghun, the group's spokesman in Pakistan, said that the delegation had a 15-point plan that called for the retreat of foreign forces in July 2010[27] – a full year ahead of President Barack Obama's intended withdrawal.
The plan also called for the replacement of the current Afghan parliament in December 2010 by an interim government, or shura, which then would hold local and national elections within a year.
[31] In late January 2012, America's special envoy to the region Marc Grossman talked peace and reconciliation with Hamid Karzai in Kabul, though the Afghan president made it clear that Afghans should be in the driver's seat;[32] hours before the meeting, Karzai said he personally held peace talks recently with the insurgent faction Hizb-i-Islami, appearing to assert his own role in a U.S.-led bid for negotiations to end the country's decade-long war.
On 16 May 2013, Hezbi Islami claimed responsibility for another attack in Kabul in the form of an explosive-loaded Toyota Corolla that was rammed into a pair of American military vehicles in which 16 people were killed.
[35] In July 2015, Afghan media outlets reported that Hekmatyar had called on followers of Hezb-e Islami to support the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the fight against the Taliban.
Originally the Bush Presidency asserted it was not obliged to let any captives apprehended in Afghanistan know why they were being held, or to provide a venue where they could challenge the allegations against them.