Tehran Eight

Tehran Eight
Founded	1987 (developed since 1979)
Dissolved	1989
Merged into	Hezbe Wahdat
Headquarters	Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Ideology	Shiite Islamism Anti-Communism
Religion	Shia Islam
Politics of Afghanistan Political parties Elections

The Tehran Eight^[1] was a political union of Shi'a Afghan Mujahideen mainly of the Hazara ethnic group, supported by Iran during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The Tehran Eight fought against the PDPA government and the supporting Soviet troops. It formed the second largest Mujahedeen force, after the Peshawar Seven (a Sunni alliance supported by Pakistan).

The eight Shia factions

The following Afghan organizations composed the Tehran Eight, all headquartered in Iran:

• Afghan Hezbollah - led by Karim Agmadi Yak Daste.
• Nasr Party (also known as Islamic Victory Organization of Afghanistan) - led by Muhammad Hussein Sadiqi, Abdul Ali Mazari and Shaykh Shafak.
• Corps of Islamic Revolution Guardians of Afghanistan - led by Sheikh Akbari, Mokhsem Rezai and Sapake Pasdar.
• The Islamic Movement of Afghanistan movement - led by Muhammad Asif Muhsini and Shaykh Sadeq Hashemi. IMOA, a member of the Tehran Eight, joined the Hezb-e Wahdat, which was intended as a united Shiite political front, but soon bolted out of it.^[1]
• Committee of Islamic Agreement, also known as Shura party - led by Sayeed Ali Beheshti and Sayeed Djagran.
• Islamic Revolution Movement - led by Nasrullah Mansur.
• Union of Islamic Fighters - led by Mosbah Sade, a Hazara leader of Bamian.
• Raad ("thunder") party - led by Shaykh Sayeed Abdul Jaffar Nadiri, Muhammad Hazai Sayeed Ismail Balkhee.

References

1. Ruttig, T. Islamists, Leftists – and a Void in the Center. Afghanistan's Political Parties and where they come from (1902-2006). "The first current was mainly represented in the 1980s by the Sunni Mujahedin tanzim based in Pakistan, the ‘Peshawar Seven’, and the Shia Mujahedin groups based in Iran, the ‘Tehran Eight’. The second current mainly consisted of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), with its two major factions Khalq and Parcham, and the ‘Maoist’ groups that emerged from the demokratik-e newin, or ‘new democracy’, commonly referred to as shola’i. For the third current, there are mainly Afghan Millat with at least three different factions on the Pashtun(ist) side and Settam-e Melli on the Tajik side, with some Uzbek and Turkmen elements, and currently Sazman-e Inqilabi-ye Zahmatkashan-e Afghanistan (SAZA), or ‘Revolutionary Organisation of Afghanistan’s Toilers’ and the new Hezb-e Kangara-ye Melli, or ‘National Congress Party’. There is no current Hazara equivalent to them since Hezb-e Wahdat has absorbed the Hazara demand for religious, political and judicial equality."