By Afghanland.com: Negotiations to end the war culminated in the 1988 Geneva Accords, whose centerpiece was an agreement by the Soviet Union to remove all its uniformed troops by February 1989. The last Soviet troops did leave Afghanistan that month. With substantial assistance from the Soviet Union, the communist government of Karmal's successor, Dr. Najibullah, former head of the Afghan intelligence agency KHAD, held on to power through early 1992 while the United Nations frantically tried to assemble a transitional process acceptable to all the parties. It failed. On April 15, 1992, the mujahidin took Kabul. Eleven days later, in an agreement that excluded the Shi'a parties and the Hizb-i Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar-the protégé of Pakistan-the parties in Kabul announced that Sighabutallah Mojadeddi of the Jabha-i Najat-i Milli (National Salvation Front) would become president for two months, followed by Prof. Burhanuddin

In June 1992 Rabbani became president of Afghanistan, while Hekmatyar continued to bombard Kabul with rockets. The U.N. reported that 1,800 civilians died in rocket attacks between May and August, and 500,000 people fled the city. In fighting between the Hizb-i Wahdat and another mujahidin faction, Sayyaf's Ittihad-i Islami, hundreds of civilians were abducted and "disappeared." When most of the parties boycotted the shura that was supposed to elect the next president-after Rabbani manipulated the process to place his supporters on the council-Rabbani was again elected president in December 1992, and fighting in Kabul intensified. In January 1994, Hekmatyar joined forces with Dostum to oust Rabbani and his defense minister, Masood, launching full-scale civil war in Kabul. In 1994 alone, an estimated 25,000 were killed in Kabul; most of them civilians killed in rocket and artillery attacks. One-third of the city was reduced to rubble, and much of the remainder sustained serious damage. In September 1994, fighting between the two major Shi'a parties, the Hizb-i Wahdat and the Harakat-i Islami, left hundreds dead, most of them civilians. Thousands of new refugees fled to Pakistan that year.

According to Afghanland.com sources, By 1994 the rest of the country was carved up among the various factions, with many mujahidin commanders establishing themselves as virtual warlords. The city of Kabul was divided in to neighborhoods controlled by a different faction. Residence could not cross the street to their local market because the opposite side belonged to a different faction and thus you needed documents to cross the street. Women were reduced to slaves and sex toys of the warlords and renegade soldiers. Afghan girls were kidnapped and sold to Arabs and Pakistanis. The economy was shattered; the people were reduced to collect bones in order to trade them for food. Women were not safe in their own homes, thieves ran the streets, the Kabul museum was ransacked and sold to western archeologists and museums, the man with the gun ruled while unarmed civilians were their slaves. The situation around the southern city of Qandahar was particularly precarious: the city was divided among different forces, and civilians had little security from murder, rape, looting, or extortion. Humanitarian agencies frequently found their offices stripped of all equipment, their vehicles hijacked, and their staff threatened. The Burhanuddin Rabbani government lost all authority in Afghanistan.

A dozen ex mujahiddin and refugees in Pakistan took up arms to liberate Qandahar from anarchy. Most of them were in religious school to become Mullah one day. A freshman to the religious school is called a “Chali” with scholarly study and research; they would earn the title “Talib” and by the congregations of religious scholars one becomes a mullah. Most of the liberators of Qandahar were these religious students and became known as the Taliban.