Shura-e Nazar: Difference between revisions

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The '''Shura-e Nazar''' ({{lang-fa|شوراء نظار}}) (known as the '''Supervisory Council of the North''') was created by [[Ahmad Shah Massoud]] in 1984 at the northern provinces of [[Takhar]], [[Badakhshan]], [[Balkh]] and [[Kunduz]], during the [[Soviet-Afghan War]]. It comprised and united about 130 resistance commanders from 12 northern, eastern and central regions of Afghanistan. Though operating autonomously, Shura-e Nazar was technically an offshoot{{Clarify|reason=What on earth is a “supervisory council” anyway (in this context)? What does it mean: “technically an offshoot…(of Jamiat)”? They were “autonomous”, but what did they really DO/’operate’?|date=January 2018}} of Rabbani's [[Jamiat-e Islami]] and hence operated within the framework of the [[Peshawar Seven]] against the Soviet-supported [[Democratic Republic of Afghanistan]].

 

 

==Creation of the Shura-e Nazar==

In the mid-1980s, in an attempt to prevent rivalry and bring unity to the mujahideen of the northern regions, [[Ahmad Shah Massoud]] made a long journey around those regions and subsequently invited representatives from twelve provinces to create an alliance. He succeeded in doing so by creating the Shura-e Nazar (Supervisory Council), which included members of different political parties, ethnic groups and militias from over 130 different commanders. Massoud intended to create a force which could be transformed into a unified Islamic Afghan army to stabilize and rebuild the country after a Soviet withdrawal.

 

 

At one point the Soviet Red Army planned such a mass offensive against Massoud's territories that on Massoud's request up to 130,000 people, the whole civilian population of [[Panjshir Province|Panjshir]], had to be evacuated within two weeks. But the Soviet offensive like the eight other mass offensives conducted by the Red Army against the Panjshir were eventually defeated.

The coordination of northern resistance forces under the umbrella of Shura-e Nazar brought decisively better coordination and more effectiveness to their actions. This, besides the supply of Stinger missiles to the anti-Soviet resistance, was one of the main reason for the Soviet's defeat. When the Soviet Union had to retreat from Afghanistan in 1989, this led to the disintegration of the Soviet system and was followed by the liberation of the Central Asian and Eastern European countries from Moscow’s control. Ahmad Shah Massoud as leader of Shura-e Nazar was subsequently called "the Afghan who won the Cold War" by the Wall Street Journal.<ref name="Charlie Rose">{{cite web|year=2001 |url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2911290068493351924# |title=Charlie Rose March 26, 2001 |publisher=[[CBS]] |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110417165736/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2911290068493351924 |archivedate=April 17, 2011 }}</ref>