Most significant, Mr Massoud accomplished this without a severe ideology and its accompanying human rights violations.

Kaplan added that Massoud got very little help from the United States. The decisive turning point had come at the beginning of 1992, when President Najibullah tried to replace one of his top commanders, General Momen, who – although Najibullah did not know it – had been in close touch with Massoud for several years. Momen, who was a Tajik, like Massoud, had refused the order, starting a revolt which soon included the most powerful warlord on the government side: General Dostum. At Momen’s instigation, the rebel generals had put themselves under Massoud’s command. He controlled the border port of Hairatan and, soon afterwards, in March, Dostum’s troops had captured Mazar-i-Sharif, the most important city in the north. The writing was on the wall: a few weeks later, Massoud was at the gates of Kabul with Momen at his side.

Watching from London, ITN had scrambled to send three reporting teams to Kabul to cover what seemed to be the imminent fall of the capital. I arrived on the scene just in time and managed to join Massoud at a base at Jebal Seraj outside the city. That day, Massoud had issued an ultimatum to Hekmatyar, calling him up from a captured Russian BTR in Charikar, a small town north of Kabul.

‘We had a long talk on the radio,’ Massoud told me, ‘and I told him,

“Stop your men attacking Kabul, or I will enter Kabul myself.”’ Massoud explained to me, ‘If Gulbuddin [Hekmatyar] does not cooperate with the new [mujahideen] government, if he continues to attack the city, and if he does not withdraw his troops, I will enter Kabul myself tomorrow morning.’

‘Do you have the troops to do it?’ I asked.

To be continued…