[1] Ismatullah, an Achakzai Pashtun, was born in 1943 in southern Kandahar, rose to the rank of major in the Afghan army, after having undergone training in the Soviet Union.

[2] In 1983, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, which channeled international support for the insurgency, discovered that Ismatullah had compromised almost all of its agents in Quetta in a drug and weapon smuggling network.

This led to a major reorganisation of the distribution of supplies to the mujahideen: in order to receive weapons all commanders were required to become affiliated with one of the resistance parties based in Peshawar.

After he had turned to threatening Pakistani diplomatic personnel, the ISI's commander, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, summoned him to Islamabad where he agreed to join Sayyed Ahmed Gailani's party, in exchange for a delivery of weapons.

He was widely believed to have personally murdered hundreds of civilians, including popular singer Ubaidullah Jan while his forces were frequently accused of torture and rape.

[2] After the Soviets had withdrawn from southern Afghanistan in 1988, his militia suffered a bloody reverse, and he lost control of Spin Boldak to an ISI-sponsored mujahideen offensive.