History of Afghanistan

This article is about the history of the area that has became known as Afghanistan,^[1] a territory whose current boundaries were mostly determined in the 19th Century. The word Afghanistan is used to refer to that territory, even though, and especially because, it has been known by many other names throughout history.

Afghanistan's history, internal political development, foreign relations, and very existence as an independent state have largely been determined by its geographic location at the crossroads of Central, West, and South Asia. Over the centuries, waves of migrating peoples passed through the region--described by historian Arnold Toynbee as a "roundabout of the ancient world"--leaving behind a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic groups. In modern times, as well as in antiquity, vast armies of the world passed through this region of Asia, temporarily establishing local control and often dominating ancient Afghanistan.

Invariably, most of Afghanistan's history was spent as part of the larger events that took place upon the Iranian plateau as a whole. The Aryan peoples who arrived in Afghanistan left their languages, (Pashto, Persian, etc.) and culture as a legacy.

It is perhaps not surprising that it is the Middle Eastern influence (Iranic past and Arab invasions) that has defined modern Afghanistan, while its Greek, Central Asian nomadic, and Zoroastrian/Pagan/Buddhist past have long since vanished. Although it was the scene of great empires and flourishing trade for over two millennia, the area's heterogeneous groups, with Turkic groups predominant in the extreme northwest and showing some connection to the mixed Hazaras of the central regions, were not bound into a single political entity until the reign of Ahmed Shah Durrani, who in 1747 founded the monarchy that ruled the country until 1973. In the nineteenth century, Afghanistan lay between the expanding might of the Russian and British empires. In 1900, Abdur Rahman Khan (the "Iron Amir"), after twenty years of rule, looked at the events of the past century and wondered how his country, which stood "like a goat between these lions (Britain and Tsarist Russia) or a grain of wheat between two strong millstones of the grinding mill, [could] stand in the midway of the stones without being ground to dust?"

Islam played perhaps the key role in the formation of Afghanistan's society. Despite the early thirteenth century Mongol invasion of what is today Afghanistan--which has been described as resembling "more some brute cataclysm of the blind forces of nature than a phenomenon of human history," even a warrior as formidable as Genghis Khan did not uproot Islamic civilization; within two generations, his heirs had become Muslims. Later, native Afghan empire builders such as the Ghorids, would continue to make Afghanistan a major medieval power as well as a center of learning that produced Ferdowsi, and Al-Biruni among countless other academics and literary iconic figures.

Prehistoric Afghanistan

Excavation of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree, the University of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Institute and others suggests that early humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world.^[2]^[3]

It is not clear who the early inhabitants of Afghanistan were, though it is likely they were connected through culture and trade to neighboring civilizations like Jiroft and Tappeh Sialk and the Indus Valley Civilization. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization.

Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex

The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex became prominent in the region between 2200 and 1700 BCE (approximately). The city of Balkh (Bactra) was founded about this time (ca. 2000-1500 BCE). It's possible that the BMAC may have been an Indo-European culture, perhaps the Proto-Indo-Aryans, who began their migration into India towards the end of this period.

The centuries following the end of the BMAC and the Aryan invasions are not well known due to a lack of source information.

Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization possibly became prominent in the southern and eastern parts of the region at the same time.

Ancient Afghanistan, Pre-Islamic period (before 651)

**Alexander the Great** fighting the Persian king Darius (Pompeii mosaic, from a 4th century BCE original Greek painting, now lost).

After several centuries of darkness, history returns to find kingdoms formed in Arachosia, Bactria, Aria, and Gandhara. Parts of the region were controlled by the Medean Empire until it was overthrown in 550 BCE by their Achaemenid vassals. This Achaemenid Persian Empire soon conquered the rest of Afghanistan and ruled for over 200 years. During the 320s BC, Afghanistan and the rest of the Persian Empire was conquered by Alexander the Great and became part of his empire, which empire fragmented after his death in 323 BCE as his generals fought for supremacy. A general named Seleucus carved out the largest Hellenistic kingdom, the Seleucid Empire, which included most of Iran and Afghanistan. In 305 BC the Seleucids gave Arachosia and Gandhara to the Mauryan Empire of India in return for a treaty of alliance and 500 Indian war elephants.

Bactria and Aria remained in Seleucid hands until 250 BC, when the Bactrian Satrap Diodotus rebelled and established the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. A campaign by Seleucid King Antiochus III led to the restoration of many of the eastern provinces in the late 200s BC.

Mauryan rule to Indo-Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms

'The Dipavamisa and the Mahavamsa speak of two Maurya princes Ashoka and Susima , also called Sumana as being entrusted durying the reign of their father Bindusara with the administration of Avantirattha and Utaparttha respectively.^[4]

Utharpatha included Kashmir , Punjab and Afghanistan having its capital at Taxila in Rawalpindi district.^[4]

The Mauryan Dynasty was overthrown in 185 BCE by a general named Pusyamitra Sunga, who founded the Sunga Dynasty. This led to war with the Greco-Bactrian allies of the Mauryans, led by King Demetrius I, who quickly overran Afghanistan and the Indus region, then marched towards the Sunga capital. Suddenly a civil war broke out amongst the Greeks when a general named Eucratides overthrew Demetrius' brother Antimachus I, forcing Demetrius to abandon his Indian campaign and defend his throne, but he was defeated and restricted to his newly-conquered territories in India, which became known as the Indo-Greek Kingdom.

Greco-Bactria continued until ca. 130 BC, when Eucratides' son, King Heliocles I, was defeated and driven out of Bactria by the Yuezhi tribes. It is thought that his dynasty continued to rule in Kabul and Alexandria of the Caucasus until 70 BCE when King Hermaeus was defeated by the Yuezhi.

One of Demetrius' successors, Menander I, brought the Indo-Greek Kingdom to its height between 165-130 BC, expanding the kingdom in India to even larger proportions than Demetrius. After Menander's death, the Indo-Greeks steadily declined and the last Indo-Greek king was defeated in ca. 10 AD.

Indo-Scythians and The Kushan Empire

Driven from the Tarim Basin by the Xiongnu in the early 100s BC, the Yuezhi pushed a Scythian tribe called the Indo-Scythians or Sakas, south into the Greco-Bactrian lands. In 140 BC they defeated the last Greco-Bactrian King, Heliocles I. Soon afterwards, the Indo-Scythians captured Arachosia from the Indo-Greeks (Arachosia was then renamed Sistan). Unable to invade India from the north, the Indo-Scythians took a more southerly route, through Gedrosia to Sindh, then moving north along the Indus river.

The Indo-Scythians were defeated by the Parthian Empire and driven from Sistan into India by 20 AD, where they founded the Western Satraps Kingdom that survived until about 405 AD. In the meantime, Parthia's hold on the region was tenuous, and soon broke away to become the short-lived Kingdom of the Indo-Parthians.

File:GBA8.jpg

Buddhas of Bamyan were the largest Buddha statues in the world, dating back to the first century CE.

In Bactria, the Yuezhi were united in the mid 1st century CE to become the Kushan Empire.

During the Kushan rule, Afghanistan became the center of culture and learning. The Sassanians and other Persian powers ruled most of Afghanistan before the coming of Muslim armies. The Shahis ruled eastern Afghanistan from the mid-7th century until Ghaznavid Turk invasions in the late 10th century CE. Northern parts of Greco-Bactria were conquered by the Tocharian or Yuezhi tribes in the 140s BC, while the Indo-Scythians or Sakas conquered Arachosia (which became known as Sakastan and later Sistan. The Indo-Scythians fled to India after they were defeated by the Parthians and Indo-Parthians in the early 1st century AD.

Invasions by the Kushans, Sassanid Persians, Hephthalites or White Huns, and Göktürks followed in succeeding centuries.

Islamic conquest (642-1200)

By 642 CE, Arabs had conquered Persia and invaded Afghanistan from the west, introducing Islam. Afghanistan at the time had local rulers called the Kushano-Hephthalites or Shahi, which were under the influence of the empire of Tang China, which had extended its influence all the way to Kabul. The Khorasani Persian-Arabs controlled the western and northern areas until they were conquered by the Ghaznavid Empire in 998.

The Arab forces did not conquer all of Afghanistan. The southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan remained independent, first as part of the Kushano-Hephthalite Kingdoms (from 565 to 870 AD), then as part of the HinduShahi Kingdom of Gandhara, which lasted until it was conquered by the Muslim Ghaznavid Empire in 1021 AD.

Mahmud of Ghazni (998-1030) consolidated the conquests of his predecessors and turned Ghazna (Ghazni) into a great cultural center as well as a base for frequent forays into India. The Ghaznavid dynasty was defeated in 1148 by the Ghurids (Ghor), but Ghaznavid Khans continued to live in Ghazni as the 'Nasher' until the early 20th century, but they did not regain their once vast power until about 500 years later when the Ghilzai Pashtuns's defeated the Safavid Persians in Kandahar. Various princes and Seljuk rulers attempted to rule parts of the country until the Shah Muhammad II of the Khwarezmid Empire conquered all of Persia in 1205. By 1219, the empire had fallen to the Mongols.

Mongol conquest (1200-1500)

Led by Genghis Khan, the invasion resulted in massive slaughter of the population, destruction of many cities, including Herat, Ghazni, and Balkh, and the despoliation of fertile agricultural areas. The country became a part of Mongol Empire. Ghazni was main base for the Mongol campaigns of India. Neguderis settled there under the rule of Chagatai Khans while most of Afghanistan was a part of Ilkhanate. De-facto of Chagatai Khanate Tamerlane, incorporated what is today Afghanistan into his own vast Asian empire. Babur, a descendant of Timur and the founder of Moghul Empire at the beginning of the 16th century, made Kabul the capital.

Post-Mongol divisions (1500-1700)

Afghanistan was divided from the 16th to the early 18th centuries. In the North were the Uzbeks, the west was under Safavid Persia's rule and the east was ruled by the Mughals and local Pashtun rule. In 1706, the Afghans (Pashstuns), led by Mirwais Khan Hotak decided to rise against the Persian Safavids. The Persians were expelled. In 1721 Mir Mahmud Hotaki, son of Mirwais led the Afghans in invading Persia. The Persians were defeated in the Battle of Gulnabad. The Afghans captured Isfahan (Iran) in 1722. Mir Mahmud became the Persian Shah. He began a reign of terror against his Persian subjects and was eventually murdered by his own troops. They selected Ashraf Khan as the new Afghan leader. He was able to secure peace with the Ottomans in 1727. However, in the next year, Nadir Shah of Persia launched a national revolt against the Afghan occupiers. He defeated the Afghans in the 1729 Battle of Damghan. Ashraf was killed the next year trying to flee back to Afghanistan. In 1739, Nadir Shah conquered Kandahar, and occupied Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore. After his death in 1747, the Durrani Pashtuns became the principal Afghan rulers. ^[5]

Hotaki dynasty (1709-1736)

A picture of life in the old city of Kandahar under Timurids, Safavids and the Moghuls has begun to emerge since the British Institute began its excavations in 1974. Bronze ewers, imported glazed ceramics and ornate glass from Persia and imported porcelains from China speak of widespread trade. Locally made glazed wares in the Persian style speak of a cultural orientation toward the west.

On the whole, the indigenous Pashtun tribes living in the Kandahar area were more attached to the Persians and, indeed, on those occasions when the Moghuls received the city by means other than conquest, it was disaffected Persian governors who instigated the transfer, not the tribes. The tribes were not above pitting foreigner against foreigner in order to further their attempts to better one another. However, siding sometimes with the Persians, sometimes with the Moghuls, but never with each other, they perpetuated tribal disunity and prolonged foreign domination.

The principal contenders in these tribal disputes came from the two most important Pashtun groups in the Kandahar area, the Ghilzai and the Abdali (later Durrani), between whom there was long-standing enmity. As a matter of fact, because of these quarrels, many of the turbulent Abdali had been forcibly transferred to Herat by the irritated Persians by the end of the 16th century. This left the Ghilzai paramount in Kandahar, but the dispute more hotly contested, the hatred more deeply entrenched, and revenge more fervently sought.

The Persians were adept at manipulating such machinations and their rule at Kandahar was tolerant until the court at Isfahan began to sink in decadence. Mirroring this, the Persian governors of Kandahar became more and more rapacious and, in response, the tribes became more and more restless. Mounting tribal disturbances finally caught the concern of the court and they sent Gurgin Khan, a Georgian known for his uncompromising severity toward revolt, to Kandahar in 1704. Kandahar's mayor at this time was Mirwais Khan Hotak, the astute and influential leader of the Ghilzai.

Gurgin, advocate of law by force, burnt, plundered, murdered and imprisoned, but the tribes would not be subdued; revolts were crushed only to break out anew and Mirwais, credited with master-minding the rebellions, was sent to Isfahan tagged as a highly dangerous prisoner. Imagine Gurgin's surprise and dismay when Mirwais returned to Kandahar shortly thereafter clothed in lustrous robes of honor, symbols of respect and trust. The Shah of Persia thus declared the influence of Mirwais, not Gurgin, at the Persian court. Mirwais had extricated himself from a very nasty situation but, more importantly, he had observed the depths of decay at Isfahan, much as Babur had observed it at Herat, and correctly determined that the Safavid Empire was on the brink of collapse.

Mirwais formulated plans for disposing of the hated Gurgin; only the difficult task of waiting for the right moment remained.

The moment came in April, 1709. Because details of the assassination are varied, this discussion recounts the version popular among Kandarians today who say that Mirwais invited Gurgin to a picnic at his country estate at Kohkran on the outskirts of Kandahar city. Here the guests were fed all manner of rich dishes and plied with strong wines until "everyone was plunged in debauch." This was the moment. Mirwais struck, killing Gurgin, and his followers killed the Georgian's escort. The rebels then marched to take possession of the citadel.

Isfahan was astounded and sent emissaries to complain. The emissaries were imprisoned. Isfahan sent armies to take the city. The armies were defeated. The Persian court then sat in stunned idleness while Mirwais extended his authority throughout the Kandahar region.

If they were to remain free, the tribes must be united and to this formidable task the venerable statesman devoted the rest of his life. But not many years were left for Mirwais. He died in 1715. An imposing blue domed mausoleum at Kohkaran Bagh, next to the orchard where Gurgin was assassinated, is a fitting monument to Afghanistan's first great nationalist.

The qualities which enabled Mirwais to lead the tribes toward a meaningful unity were not, unfortunately, inherited by his ambitious 18 year old son, Mahmood, whose visions only encompassed conquest and power. Killing his uncle, elected successor to Mirwais, Mahmood gathered his followers and marched across Persia and seized the Safavid throne (1722). Mahmood met an early death in 1725 and was succeeded by his cousin, Ashraf, who ruled until 1730 when a new soldier-of-fortune, the Turkman Nadir Quli Beg, ended Ghilzai rule.^[6]

Durrani Empire (1747-1818)

Ahmed Shah Durrani, the founder of the Durrani Empire and the modern state of Afghanistan, established his rule in 1747 at Kandahar. Ahmad Shah, a Pashtun from the Abdali clan, was elected King in a loya jirga after the assassination of Nadir Shah Afshari in the same year. Throughout his reign, Ahmad Shah consolidated chieftains, petty principalities, and fragmented provinces into one country. His rule extended from Mashad in the west to Kashmir and Delhi in the east, and from the Amu Darya (Oxus) River in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south. With the exception of a 9-month period in 1929, all of Afghanistan's rulers until the 1978 Marxist coup were from Durrani's Pashtun tribal confederation, and all were members of that tribe's Mohammedzai clan after 1818.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]

European influence in Afghanistan (1826-1919)

Dost Mohammed Khan gained control in Kabul. Collision between the expanding British and Russian Empires significantly influenced Afghanistan during the 19th century in what was termed "The Great Game." British concern over Russian advances in Central Asia and growing influence in Persia culminated in two Anglo-Afghan wars and "The Siege of Herat" 1837-1838, in which Persians trying to retake Afghanistan and throw out the British and Russians sent armies into the country waging wars with the British mostly around and in the city of Herat. The first (1839-1842) resulted in the destruction of a British army; it is remembered as an example of the ferocity of Afghan resistance to foreign rule. The second Anglo-Afghan war (1878-1880) was sparked by Amir Shir Ali's refusal to accept a British mission in Kabul. This conflict brought Amir Abdur Rahman to the Afghan throne. During his reign (1880-1901), the British and Russians officially established the boundaries of what would become modern Afghanistan. The British retained effective control over Kabul's foreign affairs.

Afghanistan remained neutral during World War I, despite German encouragement of anti-British feelings and Afghan rebellion along the borders of British India. The Afghan king's policy of neutrality was not universally popular within the country, however.

Habibullah, Abdur Rahman's son and successor, was assassinated in 1919, possibly by family members opposed to British influence. His third son, Amanullah, regained control of Afghanistan's foreign policy after launching the Third Anglo-Afghan war with an attack on India in the same year. During the ensuing conflict, the war-weary British relinquished their control over Afghan foreign affairs by signing the Treaty of Rawalpindi in August 1919. In commemoration of this event, Afghans celebrate August 19 as their Independence Day.

Reforms of Amanullah Khan and civil war (1919-1929)

King Amanullah (1919-1929) moved to end his country's traditional isolation in the years following the Third Anglo-Afghan war. He established diplomatic relations with most major countries and, following a 1927 tour of Europe and Turkey (during which he noted the modernization and secularization advanced by Atatürk), introduced several reforms intended to modernize Afghanistan. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, Amanullah Khan's Foreign Minister and father-in-law - and an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's first constitution (declared through a Loya Jirga), which made elementary education compulsory.^[14] Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional Muslim veil for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to forces led by Habibullah Kalakani.

Reigns of Nadir Shah and Zahir Shah (1929-1973)

Prince Mohammed Nadir Khan, a cousin of Amanullah's, in turn defeated and killed Habibullah Kalakani in October of the same year, and with considerable Pashtun tribal support he was declared King Nadir Shah. He began consolidating power and regenerating the country. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favour of a more gradual approach to modernisation. In 1933, however, he was assassinated in a revenge killing by a Kabul student.

Mohammad Zahir Shah, Nadir Khan's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. In 1946, another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Sardar Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. In 1953, he was replaced as Prime Minister by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. However, disputes with Pakistan led to an economic crisis and he was asked to resign in 1963. From 1963 until 1973, Zahir Shah took a more active role.

In 1964, King Zahir Shah promulgated a liberal constitution providing for a bicameral legislature to which the king appointed one-third of the deputies. The people elected another third, and the remainder were selected indirectly by provincial assemblies. Although Zahir's "experiment in democracy" produced few lasting reforms, it permitted the growth of unofficial extremist parties on both the left and the right. These included the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had close ideological ties to the Soviet Union. In 1967, the PDPA split into two major rival factions: the Khalq (Masses) faction headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin and supported by elements within the military, and the Parcham (Banner) faction led by Babrak Karmal. The split reflected ethnic, class, and ideological divisions within Afghan society. However, most of the following presidents and heads of state were Ghilzai (Taraki, Amin, Najib, Mullah Omar), once again trying to wrest power from the Durrani.

Daoud's Republic of Afghanistan (1973-1978)

Amid charges of corruption and malfeasance against the royal family and poor economic conditions created by the severe 1971-72 drought, former Prime Minister Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan seized power in a military coup on July 17, 1973 while Zahir Shah was receiving treatment for eye problems and therapy for lumbago in Italy.^[15] Daoud abolished the monarchy, abrogated the 1964 constitution, and declared Afghanistan a republic with himself as its first President and Prime Minister. His attempts to carry out badly needed economic and social reforms met with little success, and the new constitution promulgated in February 1977 failed to quell chronic political instability.

As disillusionment set in, in 1978 a prominent member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), Mir Akbar Khyber (or "Kaibar"), was killed by the government. The leaders of PDPA apparently feared that Daoud was planning to exterminate them all, especially since most of them were arrested by the government shortly after. Hafizullah Amin and a number of military wing officers of the PDPA's Khalq faction (more independent of Moscow than the Parcham faction) managed to remain at large and organized an uprising.

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978-1979)

On 27 April 1978 the PDPA, led by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Babrak Karmal and Amin overthrew the regime of Mohammad Daoud, who was killed along with his family. The uprising was known as the Great Saur Revolution ('Saur' corresponds to parts of 'April' and May). On 1 May, Taraki became President , Prime Minister and General Secretary of the PDPA. The country was then renamed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), and the PDPA regime lasted, in some form or another, until April 1992.

Once in power, the PDPA implemented a liberal and socialist agenda. It moved to replace religious and traditional laws with secular and Marxist ones. Men were obliged to cut their beards, women couldn't wear a burqa, and mosques were placed off limits. It carried out an ambitious land reform, waiving farmers' debts countrywide and banning usury.

The government also made a number of decrees on women’s rights, banning forced marriages, giving state recognition of women’s right to vote, and introducing women to political life. A prominent example was Anahita Ratebzad, who was a major Marxist leader and a member of the Revolutionary Council. Ratebzad wrote the famous New Kabul Times editorial (May 28 1978) which declared: “Privileges which women, by right, must have are equal education, job security, health services, and free time to rear a healthy generation for building the future of the country .... Educating and enlightening women is now the subject of close government attention.”

The PDPA invited the Soviet Union to assist in modernizing its economic infrastructure (predominantly its exploration and mining of rare minerals and natural gas). The USSR also sent contractors to build roads, hospitals and schools and to drill water wells; they also trained and equipped the Afghan army. Upon the PDPA's ascension to power, and the establishment of the DRA, the Soviet Union promised monetary aid amounting to at least $1.262 billion.

File:Evstafiev-afghan-apc-passes-russian.jpg

Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1988.

The majority of people in the cities including Kabul either welcomed or were ambivalent to these policies. However, the secular nature of the government made it unpopular with conservative Afghans in the villages and the countryside, who favoured traditionalist 'Islamic' restrictions on women's rights and in daily life. Many groups - partly led by members of the traditional establishment who lost their privileges in the land reform - were formed in an attempt to reverse dependence on the Soviet Union, some resorting to violence and sabotage of the country's industry and infrastructure. The government responded with heavy-handed military reprisals and arrested, exiled and executed many Mujahideen "holy Muslim warriors". The Mujahideen belonged to various different factions, but all shared, to varying degrees, a similarly conservative 'Islamic' ideology.

The U.S. saw the situation as a prime opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union. As part of a Cold War strategy, in 1979 the United States government (under President Jimmy Carter and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski) began to covertly fund and train anti-government Mujahideen forces through the Pakistani secret service known as Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), with the intention of provoking Soviet intervention, (according to Brzezinski).

In March 1979 Hafizullah Amin took over as prime minister, retaining the position of field marshal and becoming vice-president of the Supreme Defence Council. Taraki remained President and in control of the Army. On 14 September, Amin overthrew Taraki, who died or was killed.

Soviet intervention (1979-1992)

In 1979, with the Afghan army unable to cope with the large number of violent incidents, the Soviet Union sent troops to crush the uprising, install a pro-Moscow government, and support the new government. On December 25, 1979, the Soviet army entered Kabul. This was the starting point of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which ended only in 1989 with a full withdrawal of Soviet troops under the Geneva Accords reached in 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For over nine years, the Soviet Army conducted military operations against the Afghan mujahedin rebels. The American CIA, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia assisted in the financing of the resistance because of their anti-communist stance, and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, because of their Islamist inclinations.

Among the foreign participants in the war was Osama bin Laden, whose Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) (Office of Order) organization trained a small number of mujahideen and provided some arms and funds to fight the Soviets. Bin Laden played only a limited part in this conflict and, in 1988, he broke away from the MAK with some of its more militant members to form Al-Qaida, in order to expand the anti-Soviet resistance effort into a worldwide Islamic fundamentalist movement.

The Soviet Union withdrew its troops in February 1989, but continued to aid the government, led by Mohammed Najibullah. Massive amounts of aid from the CIA and Saudi Arabia to the mujahadin also continued.

1990s

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Najibullah government was overthrown on April 18, 1992 when Abdul Rashid Dostum mutinied, and allied himself with Ahmed Shah Massoud, to take control of Kabul and declare the Islamic State of Afghanistan. When the victorious mujahideen entered Kabul to assume control over the city and the central government, internecine fighting began between the various militias, which had coexisted only uneasily during the Soviet occupation. With the demise of their common enemy, the militias' ethnic, clan, religious, and personality differences surfaced, and civil war continued.

An interim Islamic Jihad Council was put in place, first led by Sibghatullah Mojadeddi for two months, then by Burhanuddin Rabbani. Fighting among rival factions intensified. In reaction to the anarchy and warlordism prevalent in the country, and the lack of Pashtun representation in the Kabul government, the Taliban, a movement of religious scholars and former mujahideen, emerged from the southern province of Kandahar. These Taliban took control of approximately 95% of the country by the end of 2000, limiting the opposition mostly to a small corner in the northeast. The opposition formed the Afghan Northern Alliance, which continued to receive diplomatic recognition in the United Nations as the government of Afghanistan.

2000s

In response to the Taliban support of Al Qaida, the terrorist group that perpetrated the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Taliban's refusal to assist the U.S. in prosecuting Al Qaida, and the Taliban's ruthless attack on women's rights (e.g., women were not allowed to see male doctors, but women were not allowed to attend school, leaving women without medical care), the United States and its coalition allies launched an invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban government. Sponsored by the UN, Afghan factions met in Bonn, Germany and chose a 30 member interim authority led by Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun from Kandahar. After governing for 6 months, former King Zahir Shah convened a Loya Jirga, which elected Karzai as president and gave him authority to govern for two more years. Then, on October 9, 2004, Karzai was elected as president of Afghanistan in the country's first ever presidential election.

References

^ For the development of the name Afghanistan, see Origins of the name Afghan.
^ Nancy Hatch Dupree - An Historical Guide To Afghanistan - Sites in Perspective (Chapter 3)...Link
^ John Ford Shroder, B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Regents Professor of Geography and Geology, University of Nebraska. Editor, Himalaya to the Sea: Geology, Geomorphology, and the Quaternary and other books. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2006 - Afghanistan...Link
^ ^a ^b Ancient India, History and Archaeology By Dilip Kumar Ganguly
^ A History of Asia, Volume 2 (Woodridge Bingham, Hilary Conroy, Frank W. Ikle) Allyn and Bacon, Inc.: Boston, 1974 (LCC 73-77190)
^ Afghanland - History - Mirwais Khan Hotak...Link
^ CIA World Factbook - Afghanistan...Link
^ Encyclopaedia Britannica - Ahmad Shah Durrani...Link
^ Nancy Hatch Dupree - An Historical Guide To Afghanistan - The South (Chapter 16)...Link
^ Columbia Encyclopedia - Afghanistan: History...Link
^ History Of Nations - History of Afghanistan...Link
^ Afghanistan Online - Biography (Ahmad Shah Abdali)...Link
^ Britannica Student Encyclopedia - Government and History (from Afghanistan)...Link
^ "Education in Afghanistan," published in Encylopaedia Iranica, volume VIII - pp. 237-241...Link
^ Barry Bearak, Former King of Afghanistan Dies at 92, The New York Times, July 23, 2007.

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