Shura - e Nazar The Shura - e Nazar ( Supervisory Council ) was created by Ahmad Shah Massoud in 1984 during the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan . It comprised and united about 130 resistance commanders from 12 northern , eastern and central regions 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 . Beside being a military alliance , the Shura - e Nazar also was a political alliance which consequently organized political , health and educational structures . In the regions under his control , Massoud created an autonomous democratically structured administration . This was different from how the other commanders used to control their territory . It enabled Massoud to concentrate on the unification of all resistance forces , while the administrative system allowed the inhabitants of the different regions complete self - determination . With time Massoud sought to expand the Shura - e Nazar into the whole of Afghanistan . He convened a High Council of the Commanders of Islamic resistance forces of Afghanistan to decide on future proceedings in Afghanistan in 1990 . Roy Gutman of the United States Institute of Peace writes : “ Massoud was well on the way to an achievement of greater significance than just a larger military formation . His strategic vision might have led to the creation of a secure state built around a military structure whose major figures had earned their legitimacy in the struggle against the Soviets . Unfortunately , he was the victim of his own success . By the time the commanders agreed to establish the core of a future national army , the last Soviet officer ” had already left the country . The process of expanding the Shura - i Nazar into all of Afghanistan was interrupted and eventually failed due to the turmoil that followed in the years after the Soviet withdrawal . Soviet war in Afghanistan ( 1979 - 1989 ) . 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 , 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 . War in Afghanistan ( 1989 - present ) . In 1992 , after the defection of the communist general Abdul Rashid Dostum , the Shura - e Nazar achieved the surrender of the Afghan communist Najibullah government in Kabul . The peace and power - sharing agreement Peshawar Accords , agreed upon by the Afghan political parties , subsequently established the Islamic State of Afghanistan which was build around the liberal Afghan constitution of 1964 . An interim government was created in which Massoud was appointed Defense Minister . According to the Peshawar Accords , a transitional period was to be followed by general elections . The Hezb - i Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar , who had been offered the position of prime minister but who instead strived for undisputed dictatorial power , started a massive bombardment against the Islamic State and the capital Kabul . The Shura - e Nazar fought for the implementation of the Peshawar Accords and the Islamic State of Afghanistan against the Hezb - i Islami of Hekmatyar . < ref name = " policypage / NMNG " > < / ref > According to Human Rights Watch : Gulbuddin Hekmatyar received operational , financial and military support from Pakistan . Afghanistan expert Amin Saikal concludes in " Modern Afghanistan : A History of Struggle and Survival " : In late 1994 , Hekmatyar ' s Hezb - i Islami and its allies were defeated militarily by forces of the Islamic State ' s Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud . Bombardment of the capital came to a halt and the Islamic State initiated measures to restore law and order to the capital . Massoud furthermore tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections . He succeeded in uniting 25 provinces out of 34 in three nationwide assemblies . By that time , however , the Taliban , originating from madrassas for Afghan refugees in Pakistan , had already emerged as a military force in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and had subsequently conquered southern Afghanistan . Unarmed , Massoud went to talk to Taliban leaders in Maidan Shar to convince them to join the initiated political process , so that democratic elections could be held to decide on a future government for Afghanistan . The Taliban declined to join such a political process . When Massoud returned unharmed to Kabul , the Taliban leader who had received him as his guest paid was killed by other senior Taliban for failing to execute Massoud while the possibility had presented itself . In a bid to establish their rule over Afghanistan , the Taliban started shelling the capital in early 1995 . ( see video ) Amnesty International , referring to the Taliban offensive , wrote in a 1995 report : The Taliban , however , suffered a devastating defeat against the Shura - e Nazar government forces of the Islamic State . The Taliban ' s early victories in 1994 were followed by a series of defeats that resulted in heavy losses which led analysts to believe that the Taliban movement as such might have run its course . Pakistan , however , started to provide stronger military support to the Taliban . Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan ' s regional interests . On September 26 , 1996 , as the Taliban with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia prepared for another major offensive , Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul to continue anti - Taliban resistance in the Hindu Kush mountains instead of engaging in street battles in Kabul . The Taliban entered Kabul on September 27 , 1996 , and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan . Many commanders of Shura - i Nazar fought in the troops of Massoud as part of the United Front ( Northern Alliance ) against the Taliban of Mullah Omar , the Arab 055 Brigade of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al - Zawahiri and regular Pakistani army troops fighting alongside the Taliban . According to Pakistani Afghanistan expert Ahmed Rashid , " between 1994 and 1999 , an estimated 80 , 000 to 100 , 000 Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan " on the side of the Taliban against the United Front . After the Taliban were removed from power by United Front ground forces and NATO special forces in late 2001 , the Shura - e Nazar which more or less had already been replaced by the United Front , dissolved as an organization . Many of its members , however , remain connected and organized in the National Coalition of Afghanistan and the National Front of Afghanistan .