Original subtitles

(light music)

The day that the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan

that was a very, very special day

for every Afghan, including me.

Because we waited so long

for the enemy to leave us alone.

Here while going, one which struck me was

that they were happy.

It means, the soldiers also didn't want

to stay in Afghanistan and leave the country

and stop killing or being killed.

But soon

we were just again locked, blocked,

besieged by a war.

A very nasty war.

(light music)

For 10 years

the Afghans lived under occupation.

More than 600,000 soldiers were deployed

by the Soviet Union to control the country.

(speaking in foreign language)

The Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in 1979

to support the communist government against

an Islamic guerrilla.

(speaking in foreign language)

Kabul remained relatively safe.

But in the provinces the war was brutal.

Thousands were arrested and tortured by the communists.

Villages were destroyed.

One million people died, many more left the country.

With the Soviet withdrawal, the people

of Afghanistan hoped for peace at last.

When the last Soviet soldiers was withdrawing

and when they crossed the border,

we feel so free.

It's like breathe back and this is the country back.

At this time I was university student.

I was the age of 19.

There was a kind of impression we had

that okay, this is the chapter closed

and the new chapter will start, but the good one.

The one that the people of Afghanistan

will be the one and they will again enjoy their life

before Soviet.

The Soviet Army was gone.

But in Kabul there was still a communist government.

The President, Dr. Najibullah,

saw this moment as a unique opportunity

for the nation to reach peace.

He set out to promote reconciliation between

the Afghans who had fought on both sides.

Those who supported the government,

and the Islamic guerrilla, the Mujahideen.

(speaking in foreign language)

After my father became the president,

the idea was to have reconciliation.

And the term was very new for me.

He never came home with his political ideology

and sort of indoctrinated us.

I would ask him, for example,

what is this supposed to mean?

What reconciliation is all about?

That was his vision.

We could go ahead and have a peaceful country.

We could find a way out of this clash

of jihad and communism.

There's a difference between the traditional

and progressive views.

How to bring women on board.

How to integrate the commanders and their soldiers.

So come and sit with me and we will work it together.

My father had said that history will prove one day

that I stood for a right cause.

What the people of Afghanistan need is

more sympathy and economic assistance.

Not more bombs and guns.

(light music)

The Mujahideen had defeated

the fearsome Soviet Army.

Now they wanted to install an Islamic republic.

They wanted power.

In 1992, Mujahideen commanders like Massoud prepared

their men for the last step.

The takeover of Kabul.

We were all waiting for reaching Kabul one day.

In our dreams, in our talks, in our memories,

in our desires.

All fighters, what is your goal?

Kabul.

What do you want from God?

Kabul.

What do you dream of?

Kabul.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,

Moscow cut all support to the Afghan government.

The new Russian leadership was not afraid

of a Mujahideen takeover in Kabul.

President Najib wanted to talk to us.

We did not talk, we said no, you go.

We will be in Kabul.

Otherwise we push you out.

It was April, '92.

We were very close, about maybe five kilometers from Kabul.

Commander Massoud decided, this is the best time to go.

Massoud, the so called Lion of Panjshir,

had become an icon of the Afghan guerrilla.

Despite the Western press praising him

as the Afghan Che Guevara, he was only one

of many Mujahideen commanders.

And all of them wanted to be the first to take Kabul.

Kabul.

(speaking in French)

Kind of chaos, you know.

Huge thing watching, oh my goodness.

Is this a resurrection day?

Clothes dirty.

Beards are up to belly button.

And all dust on your face.

But a smile on your lips.

(dramatic music)

At the end of April, 1992

Kabul was in the hands of the Mujahideen.

The era of communist Afghanistan was over.

The people knew that they are the Mujahideens.

You cannot imagine, 80% of the society

that are the citizens of Kabul came to welcome these people.

It was wedding in the level of a city.

Everywhere happiness.

(automatic gunfire)

(cheering)

I remember when first time I saw

a Mujahideen, it was a nightmare.

A man with very long hair.

On the end of his hair he had these bullets.

And very dirty clothes.

Dirty hands with long nails.

And instead of one Kalashnikov, he had four on his,

two on one side and two on the other side.

I never seen someone like that.

It was like a nightmare.

What kind of human is this?

(speaking in foreign language)

When my father decided that we had to leave,

I didn't even know that I was leaving.

Because when we left for holidays

was when I met my father last.

I said bye, and I got in the car.

And he looked at me and he goes, you didn't give me a hug.

And then he said, just make sure

that you learn English very well

because you need to come back and help me with it.

So I said, okay.

And that was it.

So then I didn't meet him.

There have been conflicting reports

from Afghanistan today about

the whereabouts of President Najibullah.

Last night several hundred troops

who recently defected from the government,

took control of Kabul Airport

and were reported to have prevented

Dr. Najibullah from leaving the capital.

It's now thought he's taken refuge

at the United Nations office in Kabul

and has resigned from all his posts in government.

He was stopped at the checkpoint.

And one of the soldiers that were there

tell him, look, you know.

I think there is a plan to get rid of you.

So then my father goes to the UN.

And that was it.

The uncertainty of not knowing what's gonna happen tomorrow

started from there on.

Later that day a BBC reporter

bumped into what remained of the Afghan government.

The foreign minister and government spokesman,

Mr. Wakil made his last official media statement.

After today, this government is finished.

It's finished, yes.

And what will you be doing now?

Oh, we're going to prepare the ceremony.

The delivering of the power, yes?

The airplanes, tanks, ministries, the palace,

radio-TV of the Afghan government.

Oh, what kind of victory!

This is all ours now!

We are the new rulers now.

This is ours.

This is the office of Najibullah.

The President of Kabul, where is he?

He is in the UN.

Refugee.

But the celebration was short lived.

Once in Kabul, Mujahideen commanders

began wrestling for power.

Even as Massoud's troops entered the capital,

the southern part of the city

was occupied by another faction.

It's leader had founded

the first Islamic party in Afghanistan.

And he wanted to be the next president.

Hekmatyar.

(speaking in foreign language)

The Hezb-e-Islami leader, Hekmatyar,

had rejected various plans for transitional governments

and carried out his threat to invade Kabul.

(speaking in foreign language)

This may be the critical moment of events so far.

As we understand it these men here,

men of Hekmatyar, have taken over the presidential palace.

(speaking in foreign language)

Different Mujahideen commanders

agreed to form a temporary government.

Massoud was appointed Minister of Defense.

But Hekmatyar rejected the agreement.

Press conference in the foreign ministry.

Commander said, the war is not yet over.

We are under the rockets of the rivals.

(artillery firing)

(speaking in foreign language)

(artillery firing)

They attack, extra rockets during civil war.

Start from Hekmatyar.

And then Massoud.

They both were fighting.

(artillery firing)

Hekmatyar belongs to the largest Afghan

ethnic group, the Pashtun.

Which ruled over Afghanistan for centuries.

Massoud belong to the Tajik minority.

In this multi-ethnic country,

rivalries among different groups

added fuel to the fire.

Kabul became a battleground.

Its inhabitants were left at the mercy of the fighters.

(speaking in foreign language)

(automatic weapons firing)

(speaking in foreign language)

He asked me, commander, where are our friends?

Those who helped us during the war against Soviets.

NATO forces, NATO leaders, America,

Germany, France, Italy, Spain.

Where are they?

I don't know.

(speaking in foreign language)

Afghanistan was always considered

about as far away from everything as you could get.

And so if they've already started fighting in Afghanistan,

part of the belief in the State Department

was you can't fight your way in to help 'em.

So, we walked away.

And I came back to Washington

to brief the President.

At this time it was H.W. Bush.

We were in the Oval Office and Gates said,

you know remember Milton was in Afghanistan.

And President Bush said, Afghanistan.

Is that thing still going on?

And I thought, yeah, it's still going on.

(automatic gunfire)

The vacuum left in Afghanistan

by the cold war super powers,

was filled by neighboring countries.

For instance, Hekmatyar was helped

by Pakistan while Massoud received aid

from India, among others.

Nobody wanted Kabul to fall into enemy hands.

(artillery firing)

Why they are fired, why?

Why, I mean why?

Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, I don't know why.

Their Mujahideen commander.

We are soldiers.

(rockets firing)

(metal tracks squeaking)

(speaking in foreign language)

The city was besieged.

(speaking in foreign language)

Very quickly the population began to starve.

(speaking in foreign language)

Most of the time I really wish to delay it

from my memory.

Part of my life which is really and extremely unpleasant.

I was pregnant on my first kids.

Whenever there was the sounds of rockets or bullets

I tried to put my hands like that.

It's like, I'm here, I will save you.

Don't worry, don't worry.

Everything will be all right.

(bomb whistling)

The plane was not like one or two.

There was like sound and then boom.

Sound and then boom.

So, for a pregnant woman,

these kind of distractions

and this kind of fear immediately will give a big risk.

I tried to survive myself and my child until hospital.

If I call it hospital.

But... and I delivered them and they were healthy.

They were breathing and they were crying.

Very tiny and little.

And the nurse was put some marks on my hand

and after a couple of minutes, she came

and she put another thing.

And I was just asking, where's my kids?

My husband just come and cry and say...

they gone.

(murmuring)

I will never forgive them.

Never.

And I think the history will judge them.

But I, as an individual, I will never.

Because they destroy our dream.

Not only country, the hope we had.

The love we had with them.

The feeling, the understanding.

A hero, you know?

A proper hero that you are waiting to,

oh I have to see.

I have to, I have to meet them.

They should come.

And they will give us a release from the pain we had.

But suddenly, it was a bad trauma.

(speaking in foreign language)

Thousands died in the civil war.

Kabul was devastated.

Massoud and Hekmatyar were accused of war crimes.

But to this day no warlord has claimed

responsibility or stood trial for crimes against civilians.

This lack of justice is one of the reasons

why the wounds of Afghanistan

have remained open for so long.

What we could indeed do, Commander Massoud

and me, and us during the war to stop it.

I can't say that we were 100% right, you know?

No one is absolutely right.

We are human beings, we are selfish sometimes.

We are just thinking different, we become angry.

And when you are angry you lose your wisdom.

(ethereal music)

(speaking in foreign language)

All factions received aid from abroad.

But Pakistan was particularly eager

to influence Afghan politics.

With an enduring conflict against India

and hosting millions of Afghans on its soil,

Pakistan needed an ally government in Kabul.

In 1994 the war was stalled when a new movement appeared.

The students of Islam, the Taliban.

It all started when clerics from Kandahar met

and decided to restore order.

The Taliban grew fast and Pakistan decided to support them.

(speaking in foreign language)

According to legends,

their first action was to capture a rapist and hang him.

The Taliban chose as leader a man of faith

who had fought against the Soviets.

Mullah Omar.

Because this was regarded

as a key moment for the Afghan nation,

Mullah Omar displayed the holy cloak

of the Prophet Muhammad to the crowd.

It'd kept in Kandahar and is shown

only at times of crisis.

The last time was 60 years ago.

People in the crowd threw up their turbans

to touch the cloak and be blessed by it.

It was like being at some great religious ceremony

in the middle ages.

They are saying and preaching,

they will come and they will bring justice.

So, basically that was a beautiful slogan.

That was a beautiful words.

And this is how the people was like thirsty.

We've been badly thirsting having justice.

Promising order and peace

the Taliban won the support of a war weary population.

But the decisive key to their rise came from Pakistan.

Thousands of boys who had grown up

in refugee camps were trained, armed,

and sent to Afghanistan to join the fight.

My first meeting with first Talib

was in Pakistan.

And they said they're determined

to fight to the end, to reach to Kabul

and liberate people of Afghanistan

from the hands of the people like us.

Thinking that the Taliban will one day

will capture Kabul.

That, to be honest, I could not believe it.

I asked, who gives you money, weapon, training?

He said, God.

With the help of Pakistan

and the sympathy of the people,

the Taliban became unstoppable

and set out to take Kabul.

(speaking in foreign language)

The warlords were left

with only two options.

Surrender or leave.

(speaking in foreign language)

I received a call.

Commander Massoud is on the phone.

Taliban entered and they are now in Kabul.

Really?

Yes.

You left Kabul, got defeated, whatever you call it.

Massoud went back to the mountains.

Where he once fought the Soviets.

Other commanders had to escape abroad.

(speaking in foreign language)

In Kabul remained the last communist president,

Dr. Najibullah.

For the past four years the Mujahideen

had held him hostage in a UN compound.

We invited an Irish gentleman

who was in charge of his security in the UN for dinner.

Because he had letters from my father.

He had a very positive sort of

overview of the situation.

Saying, there will be a change.

That there will be an end to the Mujahideen era.

And I remember asking this gentlemen

does that mean that he will be out?

He said, yes, we hope that your father

will be out very soon.

(light music)

People were suffering from civil war.

Badly.

When Taliban came,

amazing that they was being welcomed by Afghans.

(light music)

(speaking in foreign language)

(soldiers cheering)

In only two years time

the Taliban managed to take Kabul.

Now they were the rulers of Afghanistan.

The Afghan capital, Kabul,

is controlled by Taliban.

Overnight they dragged the former president,

Sayed Mohammad Najibullah,

from a United Nations compound.

He was beaten, shot, and his body hung from a lamp post.

Their action was really against the message.

They said they will bring justice

but the former president was killed

without justice, without court.

In a short time period,

the Taliban changed the face of Kabul completely.

TV, music, and other forms of entertainment were banned.

Even kite flying,

a popular game in this country, was forbidden.

They imposed their own

ferocious brand of fundamentalism.

Hanging television sets in the streets

as a warning to sinners.

Cutting the heads off graven images.

(speaking in foreign language)

Most of the new laws targeted women.

For them, Afghanistan turned into a prison.

(speaking in foreign language)

Those who broke the laws

were severely punished.

(shouting in foreign language)

When Taliban beat me on the street,

it was... it was very difficult.

I had a proper burka.

I hide my beautiful hands with nails, nail polish.

That they shouldn't see it.

They beat me and they say, why are you on the street

without male member of my family?

Without my Mahram.

I'm not saying I was very problematic.

But I loved to answer them.

I say, I tried to find someone

from second hand market, but I couldn't.

And that was, they start beating me extra.

In the middle of the street in front

of probably 400 eyes.

Or 500, for no reason.

And immediately after that punishment,

it was like a wake up call.

Wake up. Wake up.

I woke up.

I start my underground school teacher.

I bring the girls and told them, look girls,

this is not who you are.

When I was your age, I was a good basketballer.

I was a good volleyballer.

And I was listening to the music.

And I had a good skill of writing.

And they were just looking to me like

a very strange way, how possible?

Really?

It's possible?

Did you wear skirts?

Yes!

You never cover your head?

Yes, it was normal.

(light music)

(speaking in foreign language)

(crowd murmuring)

(speaking in foreign language)

(ominous music)

They are killing some people.

Why?

Three people.

Are you gonna watch it?

What?

Are you going in to see it?

No.

Why not?

I come here to do football.

(speaking in foreign language)

(ominous music)

(speaking in foreign language)

In 1996 Osama Bin Laden

had to look for a new shelter.

Sudan, where he lived, could no longer host him

as the Americans accused him of terrorism.

So Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan

where he had fought in the 1980s.

He found a new host in the Taliban.

(speaking in foreign language)

Bin Laden and the Taliban

found a common enemy.

Commander Massoud, who resisted

in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul.

(light music)

(speaking in foreign language)

After the massacres of the civil war,

Massoud saw the fight against the Taliban and Bin Laden

as his redemption.

Sensing that Bin Laden was a global danger,

he went for the first time to Europe.

Hoping to win the support of Western leaders.

When he was in France, he was giving a message

to America that Osama Bin Laden

and Al-Qaeda will be a real threat to all of you.

(speaking in foreign language)

My message

to President Bush is the following.

If he isn't interested in peace in Afghanistan,

if he doesn't help the Afghan people

to arrive at their objective of peace,

then the Americans and the rest of the world

will have to face the problems.

(speaking in foreign language)

The world did not listen to Massoud's warning.

He came back to Afghanistan empty handed.

By September, 2001, Bin Laden was ready to attack America.

Early that same month, two men were sent to Panjshir

to pose as journalists and ask

to interview Commander Massoud.

Two boys came.

Two terrorists, I can say, from Al-Qaeda.

They were not journalists.

They were pretending to be journalists.

They came with their camera

but the people were saying they very much

taking care of their camera.

Not giving it to anyone.

They were called for the interview.

Me and Commander Massoud went to that room.

I was just beside him.

Around 15 questions.

I think nine or 10, eight or nine

were about Osama Bin Laden.

Why in France you talk against Osama Bin Laden?

Why you don't believe in him?

The minute, commander was here,

the minute I wanted to whisper,

what is the situation, in Persian.

Bomb.

He died.

He was killed in my lap.

(ethereal music)

(speaking in foreign language)

I opened my eyes.

My wife was there.

Where are we?

You are in Germany.

I said, come closer.

Your husband is dying.

If I have ever shouted at you loudly, I'm sorry.

Then I called my son, come, come.

I, at that moment, repeated the poetry of my father to him.

I said, son, be objective.

If you wear the uniform

of my country against terrorists, go.

Because mercy to the wolf is cruelty to the lamb.

But I survived.

And after two days, New York.

(explosion)

(ominous music)