The civil war in Tajikistan begins in May 1992 when ethnic groups from the Garm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions, which are underrepresented in the ruling elite, rise up against the national government of President Emomali Rahmonov, in which people from the Leninabad and Kulyab regions dominate.

Politically, the discontented groups are represented by liberal democratic reformists[3] and Islamists, who fight together and later organize under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition.

By June 1997 fifty to one hundred thousand people have been killed.

President Rahmonov, UTO leader Said Abdullah Nuri, and Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General Gerd Merrem sign the "General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan" and the "Moscow Protocol" on 27 June 1997 in Moscow, Russia, ending the war.