Non-state allies: Non-state opponents: The Northern Alliance (Dari: ائتلاف شمال E'tilāf Šumāl or اتحاد شمال Ettehād Šumāl), officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Dari: جبهه متحد ملی برای نجات افغانستان Jabha-ye Muttahid-e Millī barāye Najāt-e Afğānistān), was a military alliance of groups that operated between early 1992 and 2001[4] following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

[1] Defectors such as Rashid Dostum and Abdul Momim allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud and Ali Mazari forming the Northern Alliance.

A part of the United Front military factions, such as Junbish-i Milli or Hezb-e Wahdat, however, did not fall under the direct control of Massoud but remained under their respective regional or ethnic leaders.

[6] Momim refused to step down, he and ethnic Uzbek, General Rashid Dostum defected and allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud and Ali Mazari forming the Northern Alliance.

[6][1] After removing Najibullah from power the alliance would dismantle as another civil war would break out between the various groups and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezbi Islami which many Pashtun Khalqists allied with.

[1] The civil war would see foreign interference from Saudi Arabia and Iran, as competitors for regional hegemony, supported Afghan militias hostile towards each other.

[15][14] A publication by the George Washington University describes: [O]utside forces saw instability in Afghanistan as an opportunity to press their own security and political agendas.

Due to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form.

Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different armed factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos as described in reports by Human Rights Watch and the Afghanistan Justice Project.

[19] Human Rights Watch writes: 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.

[19] In late 1994, most of the militia factions which had been fighting in the battle for control of Kabul were defeated militarily by forces of the Islamic State's Minister of Defense Ahmad Shah Massoud.

[21] Amnesty International, referring to the Taliban offensive, wrote in a 1995 report: This is the first time in several months that Kabul civilians have become the targets of rocket attacks and shelling aimed at residential areas in the city.

From the Taliban conquest of Kabul in September 1996 until November 2001 the United Front controlled roughly 30% of Afghanistan's population in provinces such as Badakhshan, Kapisa, Takhar and parts of Parwan, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Samangan, Kunduz, Ghōr and Bamyan.

[34] The assistance provided by India was extensive, including uniforms, ordnance, mortars, small armaments, refurbished Kalashnikovs, combat and winter clothes, as well as funds.

[24][25][39] Of the estimated 28,000 Afghan refugees returned from Pakistan fighting in Afghanistan, 8,000 were militants recruited in madrassas filling regular Taliban ranks.

Iran established an "airbridge" between Mashhad and the Afghan airbases of Bagram and Kulyab to ferry large quantities of arms to the Northern Alliance.

[44] The same year Russia said that Pakistan was responsible for the military expansion of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan by sending large numbers of Pakistani troops, some of whom had subsequently been taken prisoner by the anti-Taliban United Front.

The UN secretary-general implicitly criticized Pakistan for its military support and the Security Council stated it was "deeply distress[ed] over reports of involvement in the fighting, on the Taliban side, of thousands of non-Afghan nationals".

[36] The report by the United Nations quotes eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters "carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people".

Ahmad Shah Massoud remained the only major anti-Taliban leader inside the country who was able to defend vast parts of his territory against the Pakistani Army, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, not once leaving Afghanistan except for diplomatic purposes.

[24] In early 2001 Ahmad Shah Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan.

[68] On September 9, 2001, two Arab suicide attackers, allegedly belonging to Al Qaeda, posing as journalists, detonated a bomb hidden in a video camera while interviewing Ahmed Shah Massoud in the Takhar province of Afghanistan.

In November and December 2001 the United Front gained control of much of the country and played a crucial role in establishing the post-Taliban interim government of Hamid Karzai in late 2001.

While Pakistan has always favored Afghanistan's major ethnic group, the Pashtun, India saw an opportunity for increasing its regional power by jumping on board with the support of the Northern Alliance in the early days of the war.

The opposition, by then splintered into several parties, warned that Karzai's appeasement policy could come at the cost of Afghanistan's political and economic development, including the progress made in areas such as education and women's rights.

Some members of the alliance are now part of the United National Front (Afghanistan) which is led by Rabbani and includes some former leaders of the UIF such as Yunus Qanuni, Mohammed Fahim, and Abdul Rashid Dostum.

[80][81] The flag of the ‘Northern Alliance’ or the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan was hoisted for the first time since 2001 in the Panjshir Valley, signalling their return.

[24] While it was Massoud's stated conviction that men and women are equal and should enjoy the same rights, he also had to deal with Afghan traditions which he said would need a generation or more to overcome.

According to Human Rights Watch many of the violations of international humanitarian law committed by the United Front forces date from 1996–1998[84] when Dostum controlled most of the north.

According to Human Rights Watch in 1997, some 3,000 captured Taliban soldiers were summarily executed in and around Mazar-i Sharif by Dostum's Junbish-i Milli forces under the command of Abdul Malik Pahlawan.