Hezbi Islami

Hezbi Islami (also Hezb-e Islami, Hezb-i-Islami, Hezbi-Islami, Hezb-e-Islami), meaning Islamic Party is an Islamist organization that was commonly known for fighting the Communist Government of Afghanistan and their close ally the Soviet Union. Founded and led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it was established in Afghanistan in 1975. It grew out of the Muslim Youth organization, an Islamist organization founded in Kabul by students and teachers at Kabul University in 1969 to combat communism in Afghanistan. Its membership was drawn from ethnic Pashtuns, and its ideology from the Muslim Brotherhood and Abul Ala Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami. Another source describes it as having splintered away from Burhanuddin Rabbani's original Islamist party, Jamiat-e Islami, in 1976, after Hekmatyar found that group too moderate and willing to compromise with others.

Hezbi Islami seeks to emulate the Ikhwan militia of Saudi Arabia and to replace the various tribal factions of Afghanistan with one unified Islamic state. This puts them at odds with the more tribe-oriented Taliban.