What is Iran's position regarding Afghanistan?

The questioner : Iran's position at the beginning of the jihad was that Iran attacked the Soviet Union and stood with the mujahideen. Then, after the death of their leader, Khomeini, he wrote in his will, advising his successor to improve relations with the Soviet Union. This was published in the will, and his will is available; it was published under the text of the will of the Amir al-Ummah, or something like that, Khomeini (may Allah sanctify his secret).

Another questioner: Perhaps

The Shaykh : Khamenei had advised them to improve relations with the Soviet Union. Immediately after his death, the first visit made by their president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, was to the Soviet Union. Consequently, their position has now shifted from being anti-communists who had struck the Tudeh Party, the communist party within Iran, and who had stood with the mujahideen, to having improved their relations with the Soviet Union and moving within the orbit of Soviet political maneuvering. At one point, they called for immediate talks between Pakistan, Iran, and the freedom fighters, as they stated, aiming to begin reducing the role of Saudi Arabia specifically, and other Islamic trends, and to monopolize them. They use the pressure that there are approximately one and a half to two million migrants in Iran, and their border is eight hundred kilometers long. They were preventing the caravans. When the mujahideen went to the western provinces, they would come from Pakistan to Iran and enter directly, because this made things much easier for them. So they closed the borders and prevented them from moving the caravans. And the truth is, I do not want to digress too much on this, because my store is full of the tragedies they commit against the mujahideen caravans. This was one of the reasons for the delay of the jihad and the decisive victory in the western region. In short, they played the role of the communist police in the western border region from within Afghanistan. In the interior, their area was a main route for migrants and caravans because it represented a relatively quiet area compared to the rest of the region. So they practiced the profession of highway robbery in the most complete manner. Many of our friends and brothers fell into these tribulations and told us things that would gray the hair of the young, even though the nature of the Shi'ah in that region has a proportion of the nature of the Afghan people, being mountainous and conservative. But they spared neither men, nor women, nor children. They demanded bribes, and when weapons caravans passed, they took what they wanted by force of arms. This naturally depended on the personality of the caravan leader. Some openly declared enmity and confronted them. Most of the time, out of fear, they would open the road; otherwise, they would occupy both sides of the road and prevent anyone from moving until they took what they wanted by force of arms. The important point is that their role was that of highway robbery in the most complete manner. The Shi'ah in many areas, in many places, agreed with the state. They would agree with the state that the state would hand over these areas to the Shi'ah militias, and they would naturally tell the Afghans that they were mujahideen, that they were from the mujahideen factions. These people were performing the task of protecting this area, meaning they represented the deputy of the state in that area, without the state having to bear the burden of sending forces there and thereby losing those forces and having fighting occur, and so on. This happens frequently. Iran, as I mentioned, demanded the call for holding talks, and then they said it was fine for members of the People's Party to participate in the government in Kabul on an individual basis. The mujahideen, of course, say there is no disagreement on this point: no one from the communist government must participate. Either they join their masters in the Soviet Union, or they repent and benefit from the general amnesty and return as ordinary individuals, and there is no third option. Iran, as a means of pressure, said no, it is fine. Thirdly, Iran demanded the holding of general elections under the supervision of the United Nations, which is what the Soviet Union demands and what the mujahideen prevent and reject. They also support the Soviet Union's viewpoint on holding an internal Afghan dialogue, which the mujahideen reject. They say, "We can never sit with these people." It also demands a ceasefire in Afghanistan, and this is the first deception they want to implement. A ceasefire means the fall of the jihad, God forbid. Thirdly, their major measures include advising the Afghan Shi'ah to stop attacking the state. Consequently, we observe that great efforts were made to unify the seven organizations, and they succeeded in this. They are now united under the name of the Islamic Unity Party, comprising seven organizations from the Shi'ah, plus two organizations from the mujahideen factions that defected from the known mujahideen organizations and who take weapons from Iran. Two very small organizations joined, making nine organizations that formed the Unity Party. In this way, the Unity Party was created as a competing force against the government of the mujahideen that they had established. And it actually bore fruit, because about two months before that, they moved all their offices from Iran to Peshawar. Their presence was in Iran; Iran asked them, to increase pressure, to move their offices to Peshawar, and they actually moved all of them to Peshawar, meaning to Pakistan. This matter increased further, for Iran sent the Revolutionary Guard to areas we call the Hazarajat areas, meaning the Shi'ah areas in the center, which are famous by this name. They sent the Revolutionary Guard there, and I saw with my own eyes, within Pakistan, from the Shi'ah militias, people who had participated in the Iraqi-Iranian war. And the truth, my dear brothers, is that they are not ordinary people. Their method of training, their clothing, until you would be surprised. When you sit with a number of these people and talk with them from different organizations, they train them on how to sit and speak. Directly when he wants to speak, he sits in a certain posture, and when he begins to speak, in the tone of voice, until you find that when the relationship or the enthusiastic phrases begin, he intensifies the tone of voice. The gentle phrases he gives another tone of voice. So even in oratory, they train them on it. The important point is that the militias were trained within Iran and participated in the Iraqi-Iranian war, and I saw some of them with my own eyes inside, and our people saw them inside. In addition to the Revolutionary Guard that came to their areas and trained them and organized these areas, consequently, whoever enters those areas, as the mujahideen leaders report to us when they come, says that they are very strange areas. First, the militias are organized and have a method. And when cars and caravans enter them, they have checkpoints along the entire line of the caravan's movement. The pressure I mentioned on the mujahideen caravans, either in the west or in this central area, is the non-recognition of the government of the mujahideen. Although at the beginning they had stood with the mujahideen in the media, when the government was formed, they did not recognize this government. The work of the Shi'ah there: a strange thing happened at a conference for the Shi'ah in Iran. They wanted to be another front for the conference to which the leaders of the mujahideen were invited. It was not the last conference last year; it was invited from Saudi Arabia, so they sent a special plane to Peshawar that transported about eighty people. Those who went were some leaders in the organizations who have Sufi leadership; they are heirs to the Sufi paths in Afghanistan, so from here they took their leadership. They went, two in addition to ordinary individuals sent from the committees of the other organizations to know what is going on in these conferences. The strange thing about this conference is that it was invited from the Shi'ah of Lebanon, as if there is a matter they want to instill in the mind that the Shi'ah of Lebanon, the Shi'ah of Iran, and the Shi'ah of Afghanistan have one concern, one hope, and one future. The Shi'ah within Afghanistan are in close connection with the Shi'ah within Pakistan. For example, at the same time as the great political pressure on the government of the mujahideen and the political tricks and the formation of the Unity Party, the Shi'ah within Pakistan, whose proportion is approximately twenty-five percent in Pakistan, while the proportion of the Shi'ah in Afghanistan is about eight to ten percent of the population, meaning about one and a half to two million people, at the same time they rose and held demonstrations demanding that they have self-rule and that they have their own courts, and so on. Naturally, the state dealt with them harshly and ended the matter completely. What I want to say is that, as it has become clear, there is evidence that has reached us and some of our brothers that since the final era of Khomeini, a plan was laid out for Iran to control and establish a great state of the Shi'ah extending from southern Turkey to Lebanon to Iraq to Iran to Afghanistan to Pakistan, if they could do so. They are now making very intensive efforts in Southeast Asia. In the countries of Southeast Asia, the Shi'ah preachers are making great efforts. And if you ask them about Africa, our brothers there will inform you that there, in Africa, the efforts being made by the Iranian embassies in the countries of Africa, and especially in the regions of Habashah, Eritrea, and Sudan, before the last coup. What I want to say is that this plan has now been put into implementation, and we have seen in Pakistan that images of this implementation have begun with the physical elimination of the great preachers who had declared war on the Shi'ah openly. There are preachers and known scholars in Pakistan with a large popular base who openly declare on the pulpits the disbelief of the Shi'ah and their danger to the Muslim community, and that it is necessary to wage war against them, and so on. The police are pressuring them. These people have adopted a plan, and indeed two of these great scholars from the people of the Sunnah were killed for the weakness of the Shi'ah. The people of the Sunnah responded to them; they would kill one for every ten of the Shi'ah they killed, but the ten did not match the effort that this individual was making. Also from this effort, and perhaps you will be surprised, and I tell you with evidence, the killing of the martyr (may Allah have mercy on him), and we do not purify anyone before Allah.The Shaykh : Abdullah 'Azam, and he must be mentioned with good in any session, may Allah have mercy on him. There is evidence of significant Iranian involvement in the killing ofThe Shaykh : may Allah have mercy on him. In addition, we say a word of truth: the ruling Masonic party and its agent in the former CIA, Benazir Bhutto, is the PPP party. Benazir Bhutto is originally from Iran, from the Shia of Iran. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, is from Iran; his origin is not from Pakistan. This party is one of the most dangerous parties in that region, and it has strong relations with the KGB, with American intelligence, with Indian intelligence, and with Israeli intelligence, the Mossad. These two parties were involved, with evidence, in the assassination of the martyrThe Shaykh : may Allah have mercy on him. What I want to say is that this is a dangerous situation. The Shia are now gradually increasing in number inside Afghanistan. In addition to the danger, there are other minorities which, as is their custom, are minorities or from the Batini sects, and they always concentrate in remote mountainous areas far from the center of the state. There are the Ismailis; these are concentrated in the northeastern borders of Pakistan, adjacent to the borders of Afghanistan. The current coordinator of the UN Relief Agency program is named Sardar Din Aga Khan, who is an Ismaili, the cousin of Karim Aga Khan, the leader of the sect. He supports them strongly and consolidates their position in that region. Inside Afghanistan, there is no Qadianism, nor do these sects exist in full. China has an influence, and it had a party called the Party of the Eternal Flame (Shu'la Jawid), which was a Chinese Maoist party. Following the Soviet invasion, China issued a deceptive order to dissolve the organization as a deceptive operation. The Mujahideen's ruling is immediate execution for any person proven to be from Shu'la Jawid, and they know them. Their elders were all killed; the Mujahideen killed them at the beginning of the jihad. However, they still exist secretly among the Mujahideen. They are a small group, a small faction, which is now in the process of ending, and we do not know if perhaps something will be done to them. The important thing is that the overall internal situation is such that the real danger threatening the future of Afghanistan is not communism, because the Afghan people, whatever the solution, cannot accept it except by killing the killer of their father and the killer of their brother, that communist. So whatever solution comes, this communist government must be... and therefore they know that their fate is elimination, necessarily, under any rule, because this is the nature of the people; they cannot accept this. But the real danger is indeed from the Hazara Jad, which will come, God forbid. There is a state that represents a depth for them and supports them, and there is an international system that supports them. I forgot, of course, in the great state, the Arab Gulf. The Arab Gulf is among the ambitions of the great state of Iran in that area. This is the real danger that threatens the future of the people of the Sunnah inside Afghanistan. This is the point we want to focus on and be well aware of, so that we understand, our brothers, our honorable professors, our distinguished shaykhs, that the issue there is not a formal matter or a simple affair that we try to deal with superficially. We must truly be certain, for the issue there is Islam or no Islam in that region, before it becomes a sectarian issue or a disagreement that we can resolve and treat and find a cure for at the appropriate time in the appropriate atmosphere. The issue there is a very serious issue, and Allah knows best, according to what I have seen and heard and witnessed, and Allah knows best. This is generally what I want to clarify. We leave the speech after that to our honorable shaykh, and if there is any question after that, we hope, as I mentioned, that it not be a personal question, because we want to focus on the core of the subject. Second, that we truly focus on the main issues. So we ask our brothers to also avoid argument and quarreling, which has no place, God willing, among us, and that our speech be what pleases Allah, Mighty and Majestic. I say this and I seek forgiveness from Allah for myself and for you, and peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.