Tents of Afghannomads in the northern Badghis province of Afghanistan. Early peasant farming villages came into existence in Afghanistan about 7,000 years ago.
Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others at Darra-e Kur in 1966 where 800 stone implements were recovered along with a fragment of Neanderthal right temporal bone, suggest that early humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 52,000 years ago. A cave called Kara Kamar contained Upper Paleolithic blades Carbon-14 dated at 34,000 years old.[13] Farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world.[14] Artifacts indicate that the indigenous people were small farmers and herdsmen, very probably grouped into tribes, with small local kingdoms rising and falling through the ages. Urbanization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE.[15]Gandhara is the name of an ancient kingdom from the Vedic period and its capital city located between the Hindukush and Sulaiman Mountains (mountains of Solomon),[16] although Kandahar in modern times and the ancient Gandhara are not geographically identical.[17][18]
Early inhabitants, around 3000 BCE were likely to have been 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 it is possible that the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar) was a part of Helmand culture.[19] The first known people were Indo-Iranians,[14] but their date of arrival has been estimated widely from as early as about 3000 BCE[20] to 1500 BCE.[21] (For further detail see Indo-Aryan migration.)
The Indus Valley civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) extending from present-day northwest Pakistan to present-day northwest India and present-day northeast Afghanistan.[22] An Indus Valley trading colony has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan.[23] Apart from Shortughai, Mundigak is another known site.[24] There are several other smaller IVC sites to be found in Afghanistan as well.
During the 6th century BCE, Gandhāra was an important imperial power in north-west South Asia, with the valley of Kaśmīra being part of the kingdom, while the other states of the Punjab region, such as the Kekayas, Madrakas, Uśīnaras, and Shivis being under Gāndhārī suzerainty. The Gāndhārī king Pukkusāti, who reigned around 550 BCE, engaged in expansionist ventures which brought him into conflict with the king Pradyota of the rising power of Avanti. Pukkusāti was successful in this struggle with Pradyota.[27][28]
By the later 6th century BCE, the founder of the PersianAchaemenid Empire, Cyrus, soon after his conquests of Media, Lydia, and Babylonia, marched into Gandhara and annexed it into his empire.[29] The scholar Kaikhosru Danjibuoy Sethna advanced that Cyrus had conquered only the trans-Indus borderlands around Peshawar which had belonged to Gandhāra while Pukkusāti remained a powerful king who maintained his rule over the rest of Gandhāra and the western Punjab.[30]
The Kambojas entered into conflict with Alexander the Great as he invaded Central Asia. The Macedonian conqueror made short shrift of the arrangements of Darius and after over-running the Achaemenid Empire he dashed into today's eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. There he encountered resistance from the Kamboja Aspasioi and Assakenoi tribes.[31][32] The Region of the Hindukush that was inhabitanted by the Kambojas has gone through many rules such as VedicMahajanapada, PaliKapiśi, Indo-Greeks, Kushan and Gandharans to Paristan and modern day being split between Pakistan and Eastern Afghanistan.
The descendants of Kambojas have mostly been assimilated into newer identities, however, some tribes remain today that still retain the names of their ancestors. The YusufzaiPashtuns are said to be the Esapzai/Aśvakas from the Kamboja age. The Kom/Kamoz people of Nuristan retain their Kamboj name. The Ashkun of Nuristan also retain the name of Aśvakas. The YashkunShina dards are another group that retain the name of the Kamboja Aśvakans. The Kamboj of Punjab are another group that still retain the name however have integrated into new identity. The country of Cambodiaderives its name from the Kamboja.[33]
Much of the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan was subordinated to the Achaemenid EmpireArachosia, Aria and Bactria were the ancient satraps of the Achaemenid Empire that made up most of what is now Afghanistan during 500 BCE.
Afghanistan fell to the Achaemenid Empire after it was conquered by Darius I of Persia. The area was divided into several provinces called satrapies, which were each ruled by a governor, or satrap. These ancient satrapies included: Aria: The region of Aria was separated by mountain ranges from the Paropamisadae in the east, Parthia in the west and Margiana and Hyrcania in the north, while a desert separated it from Carmania and Drangiana in the south. It is described in a very detailed manner by Ptolemy and Strabo[34] and corresponds, according to that, almost to the Herat Province of today's Afghanistan; Arachosia, corresponds to the modern-day Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, and Quetta. Arachosia bordered Drangiana to the west, Paropamisadae (i.e. Gandahara) to the north and to the east, and Gedrosia to the south. The inhabitants of Arachosia were Iranian peoples, referred to as Arachosians or Arachoti.[35] It is assumed that they were called Paktyans by ethnicity, and that name may have been in reference to the ethnic Paṣtun (Pashtun) tribes;[36]
Bactriana was the area north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Tian Shan, with the Amu Darya flowing west through the center (Balkh); Sattagydia was the easternmost regions of the Achaemenid Empire, part of its Seventh tax district according to Herodotus, along with Gandārae, Dadicae and Aparytae.[37] It is believed to have been situated east of the Sulaiman Mountains up to the Indus River in the basin around Bannu.[ (Ghazni); and Gandhara which corresponds to modern day Kabul, Jalalabad, and Peshawar.[38]
Alexander Empire in South AsiaAlexander's troops beg to return home from India in plate3 of 11 by Antonio Tempesta of Florence, 1608.
Alexander the Great arrived in the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier at the Battle of Gaugamela.[39] His army faced very strong resistance in the Afghan tribal areas where he is said to have commented that Afghanistan is "easy to march into, hard to march out of."[40] Although his expedition through Afghanistan was brief, Alexander left behind a Hellenic cultural influence that lasted several centuries. Several great cities were built in the region named "Alexandria," including: Alexandria-of-the-Arians (modern-day Herat); Alexandria-on-the-Tarnak (near Kandahar); Alexandria-ad-Caucasum (near Begram, at Bordj-i-Abdullah); and finally, Alexandria-Eschate (near Kojend), in the north. After Alexander's death, his loosely connected empire was divided. Seleucus, a Macedonian officer during Alexander's campaign, declared himself ruler of his own Seleucid Empire, which also included present-day Afghanistan.[41]
The territory fell to the Maurya Empire, which was led by Chandragupta Maurya. The Mauryas further entrenched Hinduism and introduced Buddhism to the region, and were planning to capture more territory of Central Asia until they faced local Greco-Bactrian forces. Seleucus is said to have reached a peace treaty with Chandragupta by giving control of the territory south of the Hindu Kush to the Mauryas upon intermarriage and 500 elephants.
Alexander took these away from the Hindus and established settlements of his own, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), upon terms of intermarriage and of receiving in exchange 500 elephants.[43]
Some time after, as he was going to war with the generals of Alexander, a wild elephant of great bulk presented itself before him of its own accord, and, as if tamed down to gentleness, took him on its back, and became his guide in the war, and conspicuous in fields of battle. Sandrocottus, having thus acquired a throne, was in possession of India, when Seleucus was laying the foundations of his future greatness; who, after making a league with him, and settling his affairs in the east, proceeded to join in the war against Antigonus. As soon as the forces, therefore, of all the confederates were united, a battle was fought, in which Antigonus was slain, and his son Demetrius put to flight.[44]
Having consolidated power in the northwest, Chandragupta pushed east towards the Nanda Empire. Afghanistan's significant ancient tangible and intangible Buddhist heritage is recorded through wide-ranging archeological finds, including religious and artistic remnants. Buddhist doctrines are reported to have reached as far as Balkh even during the life of the Buddha (563 BCE to 483 BCE), as recorded by Husang Tsang.
In this context a legend recorded by Husang Tsang refers to the first two lay disciples of Buddha, Trapusa and Bhallika responsible for introducing Buddhism in that country. Originally these two were merchants of the kingdom of Balhika, as the name Bhalluka or Bhallika probably suggests the association of one with that country. They had gone to India for trade and had happened to be at Bodhgaya when the Buddha had just attained enlightenment.[45]
One of Demetrius I's successors, Menander I, brought the Indo-Greek Kingdom (now isolated from the rest of the Hellenistic world after the fall of Bactria[48]) to its height between 165 and 130 BCE, expanding the kingdom in Afghanistan and Pakistan to even larger proportions than Demetrius. After Menander's death, the Indo-Greeks steadily declined and the last Indo-Greek kings (Strato II and Strato III) were defeated in c. 10 CE.[49] The Indo-Greek Kingdom was succeeded by the Indo-Scythians.
The Indo-Scythians were descended from the Sakas (Scythians) who migrated from southern Siberia to Pakistan and Arachosia from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century BCE. They displaced the Indo-Greeks and ruled a kingdom that stretched from Gandhara to Mathura. The power of the Saka rulers started to decline in the 2nd century CE after the Scythians were defeated by the south Indian Emperor Gautamiputra Satakarni of the Satavahana dynasty.[50][51] Later the Saka kingdom was completely destroyed by Chandragupta II of the Gupta Empire from eastern India in the 4th century.[52]
Gandhara Buddhist reliquary with content, including Indo-Parthian coins. 1st century CE.
The Indo-Parthian Kingdom was ruled by the Gondopharid dynasty, named after its eponymous first ruler Gondophares. They ruled parts of present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan,[53] and northwestern India, during or slightly before the 1st century AD. For most of their history, the leading Gondopharid kings held Taxila (in the present Punjab province of Pakistan) as their residence, but during their last few years of existence the capital shifted between Kabul and Peshawar. These kings have traditionally been referred to as Indo-Parthians, as their coinage was often inspired by the Arsacid dynasty, but they probably belonged to a wider groups of Iranic tribes who lived east of Parthia proper, and there is no evidence that all the kings who assumed the title Gondophares, which means "Holder of Glory", were even related. Christian writings claim that the Apostle Saint Thomas – an architect and skilled carpenter – had a long sojourn in the court of king Gondophares, had built a palace for the king at Taxila and had also ordained leaders for the Church before leaving for the Indus Valley in a chariot, for sailing out to eventually reach Malabar Coast.
Kushan territories (full line) and maximum extent of Kushan dominions under Kanishka (dotted line), according to the Rabatak inscription.
The Kushan Empire expanded out of Bactria (Central Asia) into the northwest of the subcontinent under the leadership of their first emperor, Kujula Kadphises, about the middle of the 1st century CE. They came from an Indo-European language speaking Central Asian tribe called the Yuezhi,[54][55] a branch of which was known as the Kushans. By the time of his grandson, Kanishka the Great, the empire spread to encompass much of Afghanistan,[56] and then the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares).[57]
Emperor Kanishka was a great patron of Buddhism; however, as Kushans expanded southward, the deities[58] of their later coinage came to reflect its new Hindu majority.[59]
They played an important role in the establishment of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent and its spread to Central Asia and China.
He played the part of a second Ashoka in the history of Buddhism.[60]
The empire linked the Indian Ocean maritime trade with the commerce of the Silk Road through the Indus valley, encouraging long-distance trade, particularly between China and Rome. The Kushans brought new trends to the budding and blossoming Gandhara Art, which reached its peak during Kushan Rule.
H. G. Rowlinson commented:
The Kushan period is a fitting prelude to the Age of the Guptas.[61]
By the 3rd century, their empire in India was disintegrating and their last known great emperor was Vasudeva I.[62][63]
After the Kushan Empire's rule was ended by Sassanids— officially known as the Empire of Iranians— was the last kingdom of the Persian Empire before the rise of Islam. Named after the House of Sasan, it ruled from 224 to 651 AD. In the east around 325, Shapur II regained the upper hand against the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom and took control of large territories in areas now known as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Much of modern-day Afghanistan became part of the Sasanian Empire, since Shapur I extended his authority eastwards into Afghanistan and the previously autonomous Kushans were obliged to accept his suzerainty.
From around 370, however, towards the end of the reign of Shapur II, the Sassanids lost the control of Bactria to invaders from the north. These were the Kidarites, the Hephthalites, the Alchon Huns, and the Nezaks: The four Huna tribes to rule Afghanistan.[65] These invaders initially issued coins based on Sasanian designs.[66]
The Kidarites were a nomadic clan, the first of the four Huna people in Afghanistan. They are supposed to have originated in Western China and arrived in Bactria with the great migrations of the second half of the 4th century.
The Alchons are one of the four Huna people that ruled in Afghanistan. A group of Central Asian tribes, Hunas or Huna, via the Khyber Pass, entered India at the end of the 5th or early 6th century and successfully occupied areas as far as Eran and Kausambi, greatly weakening the Gupta Empire.[67] The 6th-century Roman historian Procopius of Caesarea (Book I. ch. 3), related the Huns of Europe with the Hephthalites or "White Huns" who subjugated the Sassanids and invaded northwestern India, stating that they were of the same stock, "in fact as well as in name", although he contrasted the Huns with the Hephthalites, in that the Hephthalites were sedentary, white-skinned, and possessed "not ugly" features.[68][69]Song Yun and Hui Zheng, who visited the chief of the Hephthalite nomads at his summer residence in Badakshan and later in Gandhara, observed that they had no belief in the Buddhist law and served a large number of divinities."[70]
The Hephthalites (or Ephthalites), also known as the White Huns and one of the four Huna people in Afghanistan, were a nomadic confederation in Central Asia during the late antiquity period. The White Huns established themselves in modern-day Afghanistan by the first half of the 5th century. Led by the Hun military leader Toramana, they overran the northern region of Pakistan and North India. Toramana's son Mihirakula, a Saivite Hindu, moved up to near Pataliputra to the east and Gwalior to central India. Hiuen Tsiang narrates Mihirakula's merciless persecution of Buddhists and destruction of monasteries, though the description is disputed as far as the authenticity is concerned.[71] The Huns were defeated by the Indian kings Yasodharman of Malwa and Narasimhagupta in the 6th century. Some of them were driven out of India and others were assimilated in the Indian society.[72]
The Kabul Shahi dynasties ruled the Kabul Valley and Gandhara from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century.[89] The Shahis are generally split up into two eras: the Buddhist Shahis and the Hindu Shahis, with the change-over thought to have occurred sometime around 870. The kingdom was known as the Kabul Shahan or Ratbelshahan from 565 to 670, when the capitals were located in Kapisa and Kabul, and later Udabhandapura, also known as Hund[90] for its new capital.[91][92][93]
The Hindu Shahis under ruler Jayapala, is known for his struggles in defending his kingdom against the Ghaznavids in the modern-day eastern Afghanistan region. Jayapala saw a danger in the consolidation of the Ghaznavids and invaded their capital city of Ghazni both in the reign of Sebuktigin and in that of his son Mahmud, which initiated the Muslim Ghaznavid and Hindu Shahi struggles.[94] Sebuktigin, however, defeated him, and he was forced to pay an indemnity.[94] Jayapala defaulted on the payment and took to the battlefield once more.[94] Jayapala however, lost control of the entire region between the Kabul Valley and Indus River.[95]
Before his struggle began Jaipal had raised a large army of Punjabi Hindus. When Jaipal went to the Punjab region, his army was raised to 100,000 horsemen and an innumerable host of foot soldiers. According to Ferishta:
The two armies having met on the confines of Lumghan, Subooktugeen ascended a hill to view the forces of Jeipal, which appeared in extent like the boundless ocean, and in number like the ants or the locusts of the wilderness. But Subooktugeen considered himself as a wolf about to attack a flock of sheep: calling, therefore, his chiefs together, he encouraged them to glory, and issued to each his commands. His soldiers, though few in number, were divided into squadrons of five hundred men each, which were directed to attack successively, one particular point of the Hindoo line, so that it might continually have to encounter fresh troops.[95]
However, the army was hopeless in battle against the western forces, particularly against the young Mahmud of Ghazni.[95] In the year 1001, soon after Sultan Mahmud came to power and was occupied with the Qarakhanids north of the Hindu Kush, Jaipal attacked Ghazni once more and suffered yet another defeat by the powerful Ghaznavid forces, near present-day Peshawar. After the Battle of Peshawar, he committed suicide because his subjects thought he had brought disaster and disgrace to the Shahi dynasty.[94][95]
Jayapala was succeeded by his son Anandapala,[94] who along with other succeeding generations of the Shahiya dynasty took part in various campaigns against the advancing Ghaznavids but were unsuccessful. The Hindu rulers eventually exiled themselves to the KashmirSiwalik Hills.[95]
In 642 CE, Rashidun Arabs had conquered most of West Asia from the Sassanids and Byzantines, and from the western city of Herat they introduced the religion of Islam as they entered new cities. Afghanistan at that period had a number of different independent rulers, depending on the area. Ancestors of Abū Ḥanīfa, including his father, were from the Kabul region.
The early Arab forces did not fully explore Afghanistan due to attacks by the mountain tribes. Much of the eastern parts of the country remained independent, as part of the Hindu Shahi kingdoms of Kabul and Gandhara, which lasted that way until the forces of the Muslim Saffarid dynasty followed by the Ghaznavids conquered them.
Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam came out of the west to defeat the Sasanians in 642 CE and then they marched with confidence to the east. On the western periphery of the Afghan area the princes of Herat and Seistan gave way to rule by Arab governors but in the east, in the mountains, cities submitted only to rise in revolt and the hastily converted returned to their old beliefs once the armies passed. The harshness and avariciousness of Arab rule produced such unrest, however, that once the waning power of the Caliphate became apparent, native rulers once again established themselves independent. Among these the Saffarids of Seistan shone briefly in the Afghan area. The fanatic founder of this dynasty, the persian Yaqub ibn Layth Saffari, came forth from his capital at Zaranj in 870 CE and marched through Bost, Kandahar, Ghazni, Kabul, Bamyan, Balkh and Herat, conquering in the name of Islam.[97]
Ghaznavid Empire at its greatest extent in 1030 CE
The Ghaznavid dynasty ruled from the city of Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan. From 997 to his death in 1030, Mahmud of Ghazni turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today's Afghanistan, eastern and central Iran, Pakistan, parts of India, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Mahmud of Ghazni (Mahmude Ghaznavi in local pronunciation) consolidated the conquests of his predecessors and the city of Ghazni became a great cultural centre as well as a base for frequent forays into the Indian subcontinent. The Nasher Khans became princes of the Kharoti until the Soviet invasion.[98][99][100]
The Ghaznavid dynasty was defeated in 1148 by the Ghurids from Ghor, but the Ghaznavid Sultans continued to live in Ghazni as the 'Nasher' until the early 20th century.[98][99][100] The empire was established by three brothers from Ghor region of Afghanistan Qutb al-Din, Sayf al-Din, Baha al-Din which all them fought against Ghaznavid emperor Bahram Shah of Ghazni but were not successful and killed in the process. Initially Ala al-Din Husayn, the son of Baha al-Din defeated the Ghazanavid ruler Bahram Shah and to take revenge of his father and uncle's death ordered the city to be sacked. The Ghorids or Ghurids lost the northern territory of Transoxiana and northern Great Korasan especially their capital Ghor province due to the invasion of Seljucks but Sultan Ala al-Din's successors consolidated their power in India by defeating the remainder of Ghaznavid rulers. At their largest extent they ruled east of Iran, much of the Indian subcontinent like Pakistan, and north and central part of modern India.
The Mongols invaded Afghanistan in 1221 having defeated the Khwarazmian armies. The Mongols invasion had long-term consequences with many parts of Afghanistan never recovering from the devastation. The towns and villages suffered much more than the nomads who were able to avoid attack. The destruction of irrigation systems maintained by the sedentary people led to the shift of the weight of the country towards the hills. The city of Balkh was destroyed and even 100 years later Ibn Battuta described it as a city still in ruins. While the Mongols were pursuing the forces of Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu they besieged the city of Bamyan. In the course of the siege a defender's arrow killed Genghis Khan's grandson Mutukan. The Mongols razed the city and massacred its inhabitants in revenge, with its former site known as the City of Screams. Herat, located in a fertile valley, was destroyed as well but was rebuilt under the local Kart dynasty. After the Mongol Empire splintered, Herat eventually became part of the Ilkhanate while Balkh and the strip of land from Kabul through Ghazni to Kandahar went to the Chagatai Khanate.[109] The Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush were usually either allied with the Khalji dynasty of northern India or independent.
Timur (Tamerlane) incorporated much of the area into his own vast Timurid Empire. The city of Herat became one of the capitals of his empire, and his grandson Pir Muhammad held the seat of Kandahar. Timur rebuilt most of Afghanistan's infrastructure which was destroyed by his early ancestor. The area was progressing under his rule. Timurid rule began declining in the early 16th century with the rise of a new ruler in Kabul, Babur. Timur, a descendant of Genghis Khan, created a vast new empire across Russia and Persia which he ruled from his capital in Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan. Timur captured Herat in 1381 and his son, Shah Rukh moved the capital of the Timurid empire to Herat in 1405. The Timurids, a Turkic people, brought the Turkic nomadic culture of Central Asia within the orbit of Persian civilisation, establishing Herat as one of the most cultured and refined cities in the world. This fusion of Central Asian and Persian culture was a major legacy for the future Afghanistan. Under the rule of Shah Rukh the city served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance, whose glory matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth.[110][111] A century later, the emperor Babur, a descendant of Timur, visited Herat and wrote, "the whole habitable world had not such a town as Herat." For the next 300 years the eastern Afghan tribes periodically invaded India creating vast Indo-Afghan empires. In 1500 CE, Babur was driven out of his home in the Ferghana valley. By the 16th century western Afghanistan again reverted to Persian rule under the Safavid dynasty.[112][113]
In 1504, Babur, a descendant of Timur, arrived from present-day Uzbekistan and moved to the city of Kabul. He began exploring new territories in the region, with Kabul serving as his military headquarters. Instead of looking towards the powerful Safavids towards the Persian west, Babur was more focused on the Indian subcontinent. In 1526, he left with his army to capture the seat of the Delhi Sultanate, which at that point was possessed by the Afghan Lodi dynasty of India. After defeating Ibrahim Lodi and his army, Babur turned (Old) Delhi into the capital of his newly established Mughal Empire.
From the 16th century to the 17th century CE, Afghanistan was divided into three major areas. The north was ruled by the Khanate of Bukhara, the west was under the rule of the Iranian ShiaSafavids, and the eastern section was under the Sunni Mughals of northern India, who under Akbar established in Kabul one of the original twelve subahs (imperial top-level provinces), bordering Lahore, Multan and Kashmir (added to Kabul in 1596, later split-off) and short-lived Balkh Subah and Badakhshan Subah (only 1646–47). The Kandahar region in the south served as a buffer zone between the Mughals (who shortly established a Qandahar subah 1638–1648) and Persia's Safavids, with the native Afghans often switching support from one side to the other. Babur explored a number of cities in the region before his campaign into India. In the city of Kandahar, his personal epigraphy can be found in the Chilzina rock mountain. Like in the rest of the territories that used to make part of the Indian Mughal Empire, Afghanistan holds tombs, palaces, and forts built by the Mughals.[114]
Map of the Hotak Empire during the Reign of Mirwais Hotak, 1715.Hotaki Empire, 1728
In 1704, the Safavid Shah Husayn appointed George XI (Gurgīn Khān), a ruthless Georgian subject, to govern their easternmost territories in the Greater Kandahar region. One of Gurgīn's main objectives was to crush the rebellions started by native Afghans. Under his rule the revolts were successfully suppressed and he ruled Kandahar with uncompromising severity. He began imprisoning and executing the native Afghans, especially those suspected in having taken part in the rebellions. One of those arrested and imprisoned was Mirwais Hotak who belonged to an influential family in Kandahar. Mirwais was sent as a prisoner to the Persian court in Isfahan, but the charges against him were dismissed by the king, so he was sent back to his native land as a free man.[115]
In April 1709, Mirwais along with his militia under Saydal Khan Naseri revolted.[116][117] The uprising began when George XI and his escort were killed after a banquet that had been prepared by Mirwais at his house outside the city.[118] Around four days later, an army of well-trained Georgian troops arrived in the city after hearing of Gurgīn's death, but Mirwais and his Afghan forces successfully held the city against the troops. Between 1710 and 1713, the Afghan forces defeated several large Persian armies that were dispatched from Isfahan by the Safavids, which included Qizilbash and Georgian/Circassian troops.[119]
Several half-hearted attempts to subdue the rebellious city having failed, the Persian Government despatched Khusraw Khán, nephew of the late Gurgín Khán, with an army of 30,000 men to effect its subjugation, but in spite of an initial success, which led the Afghans to offer to surrender on terms, his uncompromising attitude impelled them to make a fresh desperate effort, resulting in the complete defeat of the Persian army (of whom only some 700 escaped) and the death of their general. Two years later, in 1713, another Persian army commanded by Rustam Khán was also defeated by the rebels, who thus secured possession of the whole province of Qandahár.[120]
Southern Afghanistan was made into an independent local Pashtun kingdom.[121] Refusing the title of king, Mirwais was called "Prince of Qandahár and general of the national troops" by his Afghan countrymen. He died of natural causes in November 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz Hotak. Aziz was killed about two years later by Mirwais' son Mahmud Hotaki, allegedly for planning to give Kandahar's sovereignty back to Persia.[122] Mahmud led an Afghan army into Persia in 1722 and defeated the Safavids at the Battle of Gulnabad. The Afghans captured Isfahan (Safavid capital) and Mahmud briefly became the new Persian Shah. He was known after that as Shah Mahmud.
Mahmud began a short-lived reign of terror against his Persian subjects who defied his rule from the very start, and he was eventually murdered in 1725 by his own cousin, Shah Ashraf Hotaki. Some sources say he died of madness . Ashraf became the new Afghan Shah of Persia soon after Mahmud's death, while the home region of Afghanistan was ruled by Mahmud's younger brother Shah Hussain Hotaki. Ashraf was able to secure peace with the Ottoman Empire in 1727 (SeeTreaty of Hamedan), winning against a superior Ottoman army during the Ottoman-Hotaki War, but the Russian Empire took advantage of the continuing political unrest and civil strife to seize former Persian territories for themselves, limiting the amount of territory under Shah Mahmud's control.
The short lived Hotaki dynasty was a troubled and violent one from the very start as internecine conflict made it difficult for them to establish permanent control. The dynasty lived under great turmoil due to bloody succession feuds that made their hold on power tenuous. There was a massacre of thousands of civilians in Isfahan; including more than three thousand religious scholars, nobles, and members of the Safavid family.[123] The vast majority of the Persians rejected the Afghan regime which they considered to have been usurping power from the very start. Hotaki's rule continued in Afghanistan until 1738 when Shah Hussain was defeated and banished by Nader Shah of Persia.[124]
The Hotakis were eventually removed from power in 1729, after a very short lived reign. They were defeated in the October 1729 by the Iranian military commander Nader Shah, head of the Afsharids, at the Battle of Damghan. After several military campaigns against the Afghans, he effectively reduced the Hotaki's power to only southern Afghanistan. The last ruler of the Hotaki dynasty, Shah Hussain, ruled southern Afghanistan until 1738 when the Afsharids and the Abdali Pashtuns defeated him at the long Siege of Kandahar.[124]
Nader Shah and his Afsharid army arrived in the town of Kandahar in 1738 and defeated Hussain Hotaki subsequently absorbing all of Afghanistan in his empire and renaming Kandahar as Naderabad. Around this time, a young teenager Ahmad Shah joined Nader Shah's army for his invasion of India.
The Afghan Durrani Empire at its height in 1761.
Nadir Shah was assassinated on 19 June 1747 by several of his Persian officers, and the Afsharid empire fell to pieces. At the same time the 25-year-old Ahmad Khan was busy in Afghanistan calling for a loya jirga ("grand assembly") to select a leader among his people. The Afghans gathered near Kandahar in October 1747 and chose Ahmad Shah from among the challengers, making him their new head of state. After the inauguration or coronation, he became known as Ahmad Shah Durrani. He adopted the title padshah durr-i dawran ('King, "pearl of the age") and the Abdali tribe became known as the Durrani tribe after this.[125] Ahmad Shah not only represented the Durranis but he also united all the Pashtun tribes. By 1751, Ahmad Shah Durrani and his Afghan army conquered the entire present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and for a short time, subjugated large swathes of the Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, along with Delhi in India.[126] He defeated the Maratha Empire in 1761 at the Battle of Panipat.
In October 1772, Ahmad Shah retired to his home in Kandahar where he died peacefully and was buried at a site that is now adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak. He was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah Durrani, who transferred the capital of their Afghan Empire from Kandahar to Kabul. Timur died in 1793 and his son Zaman Shah Durrani took over the reign.
Zaman Shah and his brothers had a weak hold on the legacy left to them by their famous ancestor. They sorted out their differences through a "round robin of expulsions, blindings and executions," which resulted in the deterioration of the Afghan hold over far-flung territories, such as Attock and Kashmir. Durrani's other grandson, Shuja Shah Durrani, fled the wrath of his brother and sought refuge with the Sikhs. Not only had Durrani invaded the Punjab region many times, but had destroyed the holiest shrine of the Sikhs – the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, defiling its sarowar with the blood of cows and decapitating Baba Deep Singh in 1757. The Sikhs, under Ranjit Singh, eventually wrested a large part of the Durrani Kingdom (present day Pakistan, but not including Sindh) from the Afghans while they were in civil war.[127]
The Emir Dost Mohammed Khan (1793–1863) gained control in Kabul in 1826 after toppling his brother, Sultan Mohammad Khan, and founded (c. 1837) the Barakzai dynasty. In 1837, the Afghan army descended through the Khyber Pass on Sikh forces at Jamrud killed the Sikh general Hari Singh Nalwa but could not capture the fort.[128] Rivalry between the expanding British and Russian Empires in what became known as "The Great Game" significantly influenced Afghanistan during the 19th century. British concern over Russian advances in Central Asia and over Russia's growing influence in West Asia and in Persia in particular culminated in two Anglo-Afghan wars and in the Siege of Herat (1837–1838), in which the Persians, trying to retake Afghanistan and throw out the British, sent armies into the country and fought the British mostly around and in the city of Herat. The first Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842) resulted in the destruction of a British army; causing great panic throughout British India and the dispatch of a second British invasion army.[129] Following the British defeat in the First Anglo-Afghan War, where they tried to re-establish the Durrani Kingdom as a de facto vassal, Dost Mohammad could focus on reuniting Afghanistan, which was divided following the Durrani-Barakzai civil wars. Dost Mohammad began his conquest while only ruling the major cities of Kabul, Ghazni, Jalalabad, and Bamyan. By the time of his death in 1863, Dost Mohammad had reunited most of Afghanistan. Following Dost Mohammad's death, a civil war broke out amongst his sons, leading to Sher Ali succeeding and beginning his rule. The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880) resulted from the refusal by Emir Shir Ali (reigned 1863 to 1866 and from 1868 to 1879) to accept a British diplomatic mission in Kabul. In the wake of this conflict Shir Ali's nephew, Emir Abdur Rahman, known as "Iron Emir",[130] came 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. Abdur Rahman's reforms of the army, legal system and structure of government gave Afghanistan a degree of unity and stability which it had not before known. This, however, came at the cost of strong centralisation, of harsh punishments for crime and corruption, and of a certain degree of international isolation.[131]
Habibullah Khan, Abdur Rahman's son, came to the throne in 1901 and kept Afghanistan neutral during World War I, despite encouragement by Central Powers of anti-British feelings and of Afghan rebellion along the borders of India. His policy of neutrality was not universally popular within the country, and Habibullah was assassinated in 1919, possibly by family members opposed to British influence. His third son, Amanullah (r. 1919–1929), regained control of Afghanistan's foreign policy after launching the Third Anglo-Afghan War (May to August 1919) with an attack on India. 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 19 August as their Independence Day.
King Amanullah Khan moved to end his country's traditional isolation in the years following the Third Anglo-Afghan war. After quelling the Khost rebellion in 1925, 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.[132] 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, which led to the revolt of the Shinwari in November 1928, marking the beginning of the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929). Although the Shinwari revolt was quelled, a concurrent Saqqawist uprising in the north eventually managed to depose Amanullah, leading to Habibullāh Kalakāni taking control of Kabul.[133]
Mohammed Nadir Khan became King of Afghanistan on 15 October 1929 after he took control of Afghanistan by defeating the Habibullah Kalakani. He then executed him in 1 November of same year.[134] 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 student from Kabul.
Mohammad Zahir Shah, Nadir Khan's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. The Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947 saw Zahir Shah's reign being challenged by Zadran, Safi and Mangal tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran and Salemai among others. 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 Khan. 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 looked for 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 parties on both the left and the right. This 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) was headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin who were supported by elements within the military, and the Parcham (Banner) led by Babrak Karmal.
Contemporary era (1973–present)edit
1973 film about contemporary events in Afghanistan
Republic of Afghanistan and the end of the monarchyedit
Amid corruption charges and malfeasance against the royal family and the poor economic conditions created by the severe 1971–72 drought, former Prime Minister Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan seized power in a non-violent coup on July 17, 1973, while Zahir Shah was receiving treatment for eye problems and therapy for lumbago in Italy.[135] 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. Nonetheless, Hafizullah Amin and a number of military wing officers of the PDPA's Khalq faction managed to remain at large and organize a military coup.
Democratic Republic and Soviet war (1978–1989)edit
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 General Secretary, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and in control of the Army. On 14 September, Amin overthrew Taraki, who was killed. Amin stated that "the Afghans recognize only crude force."[136] Afghanistan expert Amin Saikal writes: "As his powers grew, so apparently did his craving for personal dictatorship ... and his vision of the revolutionary process based on terror."[136]
Once it was in power, the PDPA implemented a Marxist–Leninist agenda. It moved to replace religious and traditional laws with secular and Marxist–Leninist ones. Men were obliged to cut their beards, women could not wear chadors, and mosques were declared off limits. The PDPA made a number of reforms on women's rights, banning forced marriages and giving state recognition of women's right to vote. 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 also carried out socialist land reforms and moved to promote state atheism.[137] They also prohibited usury.[138] 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 Soviet Union also sent contractors to build roads, hospitals and schools and to drill water wells; they also trained and equipped the Afghan Armed Forces. 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.
Ethnolinguistic groups in Afghanistan in 1982
At the same time, the PDPA imprisoned, tortured or murdered thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment, and the intelligentsia.[139] The government launched a campaign of violent repression, killing some 10,000 to 27,000 people and imprisoning 14,000 to 20,000 more, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison.[140][141][142] In December 1978 the PDPA leadership signed an agreement with the Soviet Union which would allow military support for the PDPA in Afghanistan if needed. The majority of people in the cities including Kabul either welcomed or were ambivalent to these policies. However, the Marxist–Leninist and secular nature of the government as well as its heavy dependence on the Soviet Union made it unpopular with a majority of the Afghan population. Repressions plunged large parts of the country, especially the rural areas, into open revolt against the new Marxist–Leninist government. By spring 1979 unrests had reached 24 out of 28 Afghan provinces including major urban areas. Over half of the Afghan army would either desert or join the insurrection. Most of the government's new policies clashed directly with the traditional Afghan understanding of Islam, making religion one of the only forces capable of unifying the tribally and ethnically divided population against the unpopular new government, and ushering in the advent of Islamist participation in Afghan politics.[143]
To bolster the Parcham faction, the Soviet Union decided to intervene on December 27, 1979, when the Red Army invaded its southern neighbor. Over 100,000 Soviet troops took part in the invasion, which was backed by another 100,000 Afghan military men and supporters of the Parcham faction. In the meantime, Hafizullah Amin was killed and replaced by Babrak Karmal.
The Carter administration started providing limited assistance to rebels before the Soviet invasion. After the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the U.S. began arming the Afghan mujahideen, thanks in large part to the efforts of Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos. Early reports estimated that $6–20 billion had been spent by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia[144] but more recent reports state that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia provided as much as up to $40 billion[145][146][147] in cash and weapons, which included over two thousand FIM-92 Stingersurface-to-air missiles, for building up Islamic groups against the Soviet Union. The U.S. handled most of its support through Pakistan's ISI.
Scholars such as W. Michael Reisman,[148] Charles Norchi[149] and Mohammed Kakar, believe that the Afghans were victims of a genocide which was committed against them by the Soviet Union.[150][151] Soviet forces and their proxies killed between 562,000[152] and 2 million Afghans[153][154] and Russian soldiers also engaged in abductions and rapes of Afghan women.[155][156] About 6 million fled as Afghan refugees to Pakistan and Iran, and from there over 38,000 made it to the United States[157] and many more to the European Union. The Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan brought with them verifiable stories of murder, collective rape, torture and depopulation of civilians by the Soviet forces.[158] Faced with mounting international pressure and great number of casualties on both sides, the Soviets withdrew in 1989. Their withdrawal from Afghanistan was seen as an ideological victory in the United States, which had backed some Mujahideen factions through three U.S. presidential administrations to counter Soviet influence in the vicinity of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The USSR continued to support Afghan leader Mohammad Najibullah (former head of the Afghan secret service, KHAD) until 1992.[159]
Foreign interference and civil war (1989–1996)edit
Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), headed by Hamid Gul at the time, was interested in a trans-national Islamic revolution which would cover Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. For this purpose the ISI masterminded an attack on Jalalabad in March 1989, for the Mujahideen to establish their own government in Afghanistan, but this failed in three months.[160]
With the crumbling of the Najibullah regime early in 1992, Afghanistan fell into further disarray and civil war. A U.N.-supported attempt to have the mujahideen parties and armies form a coalition government shattered. Mujahideen did not abide by the mutual pledges and Ahmad Shah Masood forces because of his proximity to Kabul captured the capital before Mujahideen Govt was established. So the elected prime minister and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, started war on his president and Massod force entrenched in Kabul. This ignited civil war, because the other mujahideen parties would not settle for Hekmatyar ruling alone or sharing actual power with him. Within weeks, the still frail unity of the other mujahideen forces also evaporated, and six militias were fighting each other in and around Kabul.
Sibghatuallah Mojaddedi was elected as Afghanistan's elected interim president for two months and then professor Burhanuddin Rabbani a well known Kabul university professor and the leader of Jamiat-e-Islami party of Mujahiddin who fought against Russians during the occupation was chosen by all of the Jahadi leaders except Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Rabbani reigned as the official and elected president of Afghanistan by Shurai Mujahiddin Peshawer (Peshawer Mujahiddin Council) from 1992 until 2001 when he officially handed over the presidency post to Hamid Karzai the next US appointed interim president. During Rabbani's presidency some parts of the country including a few provinces in the north such as Mazar e-Sharif, Jawzjan, Faryab, Shuburghan and some parts of Baghlan provinces were ruled by general Abdul Rashid Dostum. During Rabbani's first five years illegal term before the emergence of the Taliban, the eastern and western provinces and some of the northern provinces such as Badakhshan, Takhar, Kunduz, the main parts of Baghlan Province, and some parts of Kandahar and other southern provinces were under the control of the central government while the other parts of southern provinces did not obey him because of his Tajik ethnicity. During the 9 year presidency of Burhanuddin Rabani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was directed, funded and supplied by the Pakistani army.[161] Afghanistan analyst Amin Saikal concludes in his book Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival:
Pakistan was keen to gear up for a breakthrough in Central Asia. [...] Islamabad could not possibly expect the new Islamic government leaders [...] to subordinate their own nationalist objectives in order to help Pakistan realize its regional ambitions. [...] Had it not been for the ISI's logistic support and supply of a large number of rockets, Hekmatyar's forces would not have been able to target and destroy half of Kabul.[162]
There was no time for the interim government to create working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability. Saudi Arabia and Iran also armed and directed Afghan militias.[136] A publication by the George Washington University describes:
[O]utside forces saw instability in Afghanistan as an opportunity to press their own security and political agendas.[163]
According to Human Rights Watch, numerous Iranian agents were assisting the ShiaHezb-i Wahdat forces of Abdul Ali Mazari, as Iran was attempting to maximize Wahdat's military power and influence.[136][164][165] Saudi Arabia was trying to strengthen the WahhabiteAbdul Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction.[136][164] Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos as described in reports by Human Rights Watch and the Afghanistan Justice Project.[164][166] Again, Human Rights Watch writes:
Rare ceasefires, usually negotiated by representatives of Ahmad Shah Massoud, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi or Burhanuddin Rabbani (the interim government), or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commonly collapsed within days.[164]
Meanwhile, the southern city of Kandahar was a centre of lawlessness, crime and atrocities fuelled by complex Pashtun tribal rivalries.[167] In 1994, the Taliban (a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a politico-religious force, reportedly in opposition to the tyranny of the local governor.[167]Mullah Omar started his movement with fewer than 50 armed madrassah students in his hometown of Kandahar.[167] As Gulbuddin Hekmatyar remained unsuccessful in conquering Kabul, Pakistan started supporting the Taliban.[136][168] Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests.[136] In 1994 the Taliban took power in several provinces in southern and central Afghanistan.
In 1995 the Hezb-i Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Iranian-backed Hezb-i Wahdat as well as Rashid Dostum's Junbish forces were defeated militarily in the capital Kabul by forces of the interim government under Massoud who subsequently tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections, also inviting the Taliban to join the process.[169] The Taliban declined.[169]
Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf sent more troops against the United Front of Ahmad Shah Massoud than the Afghan Taliban.Map of the situation in Afghanistan in late 1996; Massoud (red), Dostum (green) and Taliban (yellow) territories.Ethno-linguistic map of Afghanistan 1997Map of the situation in Afghanistan in August 2001 until October 2001
The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were defeated by forces of the Islamic State government under Ahmad Shah Massoud.[170] Amnesty International, referring to the Taliban offensive, wrote in a 1995 report:
This is the first time in several months that Kabul civilians have become the targets of rocket attacks and shelling aimed at residential areas in the city.[170]
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.[171] The Taliban seized Kabul on September 27, 1996, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their political and judicial interpretation of Islam, issuing edicts forbidding women from working outside the home, attending school or leaving their homes unless accompanied by a male relative.[172] Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said:
To PHR's knowledge, no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment.[172]
According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians.[175][176] UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001.[175][176] They also said, that "[t]hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the [Taliban] Ministry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself."[175][176] The Taliban especially targeted people of Shia religious or Hazara ethnic background.[175][176] Upon taking Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998, about 4,000 civilians were executed by the Taliban and many more reported torture.[177][178] Among those killed in Mazari Sharif were several Iranian diplomats. Others were kidnapped by the Taliban, touching off a hostage crisis that nearly escalated to a full-scale war, with 150,000 Iranian soldiers massed on the Afghan border at one time.[179] It was later admitted that the diplomats were killed by the Taliban, and their bodies were returned to Iran.[180]
The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings.[175][176]Osama bin Laden's so-called 055 Brigade was responsible for mass-killings of Afghan civilians.[181] The report by the United Nations quotes eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people.[175][176]
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf – then as Chief of Army Staff – was responsible for sending thousands of Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and Bin Laden against the forces of Massoud.[168][169][182][183] In total there were believed to be 28,000 Pakistani nationals fighting inside Afghanistan.[169] 20,000 were regular Pakistani soldiers either from the Frontier Corps or army and an estimated 8,000 were militants recruited in madrassas filling regular Taliban ranks.[181] The estimated 25,000 Taliban regular force thus comprised more than 8,000 Pakistani nationals.[181] A 1998 document by the U.S. State Department confirms that "20–40 percent of [regular] Taliban soldiers are Pakistani."[168] The document further states that the parents of those Pakistani nationals "know nothing regarding their child's military involvement with the Taliban until their bodies are brought back to Pakistan."[168] A further 3,000 fighter of the regular Taliban army were Arab and Central Asian militants.[181] From 1996 to 2001 the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a state within the Taliban state.[184] Bin Laden sent Arab recruits to join the fight against the United Front.[184][185] Of roughly 45,000 Pakistani, Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers fighting against the forces of Massoud only 14,000 were Afghan.[169][181]
According to Human Rights Watch in 1997 Taliban soldiers were summarily executed in and around Mazar-i Sharif by Dostum's Junbish forces.[186] Dostum was defeated by the Taliban in 1998 with the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif. Massoud remained the only leader of the United Front in Afghanistan.
In the areas under his control Ahmad Shah Massoud set up democratic institutions and signed the Women's Rights Charter.[187] Human Rights Watch cites no human rights crimes for the forces under direct control of Massoud for the period from October 1996 until the assassination of Massoud in September 2001.[186] As a consequence many civilians fled to the area of Ahmad Shah Massoud.[182][188]National Geographic concluded in its documentary Inside the Taliban:
The Taliban repeatedly offered Massoud a position of power to make him stop his resistance. Massoud declined for he did not fight to obtain a position of power. He said in one interview:
The Taliban say: "Come and accept the post of prime minister and be with us", and they would keep the highest office in the country, the presidentship. But for what price?! The difference between us concerns mainly our way of thinking about the very principles of the society and the state. We can not accept their conditions of compromise, or else we would have to give up the principles of modern democracy. We are fundamentally against the system called "the Emirate of Afghanistan".[189]
and
There should be an Afghanistan where every Afghan finds himself or herself happy. And I think that can only be assured by democracy based on consensus.[190]
Massoud wanted to convince the Taliban to join a political process leading towards democratic elections in a foreseeable future.[189] Massoud stated that:
The Taliban are not a force to be considered invincible. They are distanced from the people now. They are weaker than in the past. There is only the assistance given by Pakistan, Osama bin Laden and other extremist groups that keep the Taliban on their feet. With a halt to that assistance, it is extremely difficult to survive.[190]
In early 2001 Massoud employed a new strategy of local military pressure and global political appeals.[191] Resentment was increasingly gathering against Taliban rule from the bottom of Afghan society including the Pashtun areas.[191] Massoud publicized their cause "popular consensus, general elections and democracy" worldwide. At the same time he was very wary not to revive the failed Kabul government of the early 1990s.[191] Already in 1999 he started the training of police forces which he trained specifically to keep order and protect the civilian population in case the United Front would be successful.[169]
In early 2001 Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan.[192] He stated that the Taliban and Al Qaeda had introduced "a very wrong perception of Islam" and that without the support of Pakistan the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year.[192]
NATO's presence, the Emergency Loya Jirga, the Taliban's takeover and the Panjshir uprisingedit
On 9 September 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers inside Afghanistan. Two days later about 3,000 people became victims of the September 11 attacks in the United States, when Afghan-based Al-Qaeda suicide bombers hijacked planes and flew them into four targets in the Northeastern United States. Then US President George W. Bush accused Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the faces behind the attacks. When the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden to US authorities and to disband al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in which teams of American and British special forces worked with commanders of the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban.[193] At the same time the US-led forces were bombing Taliban and al-Qaeda targets everywhere inside Afghanistan with cruise missiles. These actions led to the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north followed by all the other cities, as the Taliban and al-Qaeda crossed over the porousDurand Line border into Pakistan. In December 2001, after the Taliban government was toppled and the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai was formed, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security to the Afghan people.[194][195] The majority of Afghans supported the American invasion of their country.[196][197]
While the Taliban began regrouping inside Pakistan, the rebuilding of war-torn Afghanistan kicked off in 2002 (see also War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)).[198][199] The Afghan nation was able to build democratic structures over the years by the creation of an emergency loya jirga to set up the modern Afghan government, and some progress was made in key areas such as governance, economy, health, education, transport, and agriculture. NATO had been training the Afghan armed forces as well its national police. ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them. By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form in many parts of the country complete with their own version of mediation court.[200] After U.S. President Barack Obama announced the deployment of another 30,000 soldiers in 2010 for a period of two years, Der Spiegel published images of the US soldiers who killed unarmed Afghan civilians.[201]
In 2009, the United States resettled 328 refugees from Afghanistan.[202] Over five million Afghan refugees were repatriated in the last decade, including many who were forcefully deported from NATO countries.[203][204] This large return of Afghans may have helped the nation's economy but the country still remains one of the poorest in the world due to the decades of war, lack of foreign investment, ongoing government corruption and the Pakistani-backed Taliban insurgency.[205][206] The United States also accuses neighboring Iran of providing small level of support to the Taliban insurgents.[207][208][209] According to a report by the United Nations, the Taliban and other militants were responsible for 76% of civilian casualties in 2009,[210] 75% in 2010[211] and 80% in 2011.[212]
In October 2008 U.S. Defense Secretary Gates had asserted that a political settlement with the Taliban was the endgame for the Afghanistan war. "There has to be ultimately – and I'll underscore ultimately – reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this," Gates stated.[213] By 2010 peace efforts began. In early January, Taliban commanders held secret exploratory talks with a United Nations special envoy to discuss peace terms. Regional commanders on the Taliban's leadership council, the Quetta Shura, sought a meeting with the UN special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, and it took place in Dubai on January 8. It was the first such meeting between the UN and senior members of the Taliban.[214] On 26 January 2010, at a major conference in London which brought together some 70 countries and organizations,[215]Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he intends to reach out to the Taliban leadership (including Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar). Supported by NATO, Karzai called on the group's leadership to take part in a loya jirga meeting to initiate peace talks. These steps have resulted in an intensification of bombings, assassinations and ambushes.[216] Some Afghan groups (including the former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh and opposition leader Dr. Abdullah Abdullah) believe that Karzai plans to appease the insurgents' senior leadership at the cost of the democratic constitution, the democratic process and progress in the field of human rights especially women's rights.[217] Dr. Abdullah stated:
I should say that Taliban are not fighting in order to be accommodated. They are fighting in order to bring the state down. So it's a futile exercise, and it's just misleading. ... There are groups that will fight to the death. Whether we like to talk to them or we don't like to talk to them, they will continue to fight. So, for them, I don't think that we have a way forward with talks or negotiations or contacts or anything as such. Then we have to be prepared to tackle and deal with them militarily. In terms of the Taliban on the ground, there are lots of possibilities and opportunities that with the help of the people in different parts of the country, we can attract them to the peace process; provided, we create a favorable environment on this side of the line. At the moment, the people are leaving support for the government because of corruption. So that expectation is also not realistic at this stage.[218]
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told world leaders during the London conference that he intends to reach out to the top echelons of the Taliban within a few weeks with a peace initiative.[219] Karzai set the framework for dialogue with Taliban leaders when he called on the group's leadership to take part in a "loya jirga" – or large assembly of elders – to initiate peace talks.[220] Karzai also asked for creation of a new peacemaking organization, to be called the National Council for Peace, Reconciliation and Reintegration.[219] Karzai's top adviser on the reconciliation process with the insurgents said that the country must learn to forgive the Taliban.[221] In March 2010, the Karzai government held preliminary talks with Hezb-i-Islami, who presented a plan which included the withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of 2010. The Taliban declined to participate, saying "The Islamic Emirate has a clear position. We have said this many, many times. There will be no talks when there are foreign troops on Afghanistan's soil killing innocent Afghans on daily basis."[222]In June 2010 the Afghan Peace Jirga 2010 took place. In September 2010 General David Petraeus commented on the progress of peace talks to date, stating, "The prospect for reconciliation with senior Taliban leaders certainly looms out there...and there have been approaches at (a) very senior level that hold some promise."[223]
In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan, and most especially the Pakistani army and ISI, jeopardizes not only the prospect of our strategic partnership but Pakistan's opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence. They may believe that by using these proxies, they are hedging their bets or redressing what they feel is an imbalance in regional power. But in reality, they have already lost that bet.[227]
The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, told Radio Pakistan that "The attack that took place in Kabul a few days ago, that was the work of the Haqqani network. There is evidence linking the Haqqani Network to the Pakistan government. This is something that must stop."[228] Other top U.S. officials such as Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta made similar statements.[226][229] On October 16, 2011, "Operation Knife Edge" was launched by NATO and Afghan forces against the Haqqani network in south-eastern Afghanistan. Afghan Defense Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, explained that the operation will "help eliminate the insurgents before they struck in areas along the troubled frontier".[230] In November 2011, NATO forces attacked Pakistani soldiers in the Pakistan border region. In 2014, Ashraf Ghani was elected to be the president of Afghanistan.
Taliban fighters patrolling Kabul in a Humvee, 17 August 2021
On 7 September 2021 Taliban announced an interim government headed by Mohammad Hassan Akhund,[233] although the government remained unrecognized internationally.
Western countries have suspended most humanitarian aid to Afghanistan following the Taliban's takeover of the country in August 2021.[234] The United States has frozen about $9 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank,[235] blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U.S. bank accounts.[236][237] In October 2021, more than half of Afghanistan's 39 million people faced an acute food shortage.[238] On 11 November 2021, the Human Rights Watch reported that Afghanistan is facing widespread famine due to collapsed economy and broken banking system. The UN World Food Program has also issued multiple warnings of worsening food insecurity.[239]
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^Reisman, W. Michael; Norchi, Charles H. (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 October 2016. Retrieved 7 January 2017. According to widely reported accounts, substantial programmes of depopulation have been conducted in these Afghan provinces: Ghazni, Nagarhar, Lagham, Qandahar, Zabul, Badakhshan, Lowgar, Paktia, Paktika and Kunar...There is considerable evidence that genocide has been committed against the Afghan people by the combined forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.
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^Goodson, Larry P. (2001). Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban. University of Washington Press. pp. 5. ISBN9780295980508. 2 million afghans killed soviet.
^The War Chronicles: From Flintlocks to Machine Guns. Fair Winds. 2009. p. 393. ISBN9781616734046. A final weapon of terror the Soviets used against the mujahideen was the abduction of Afghan women. Soldiers flying in helicopters would scan for women working in the fields in the absence of their men, land, and take the women captive. Russian soldiers in the city of Kabul would also steal young women. The object was rape, although sometimes the women were killed, as well. The women who returned home were often considered dishonored for life.
^Kakar, M. Hassan (1995). The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979–1982. University of California Press. ISBN9780520208933. While military operations in the country were going on, women were abducted. While flying in the country in search of mujahideen, helicopters would land in fields where women were spotted. While Afghan women do mainly domestic chores, they also work in fields assisting their husbands or performing tasks by themselves. The women were now exposed to the Russians, who kidnapped them with helicopters. By November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. In the city of Kabul, too, the Russians kidnapped women, taking them away in tanks and other vehicles, especially after dark. Such incidents happened mainly in the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons. At times such acts were committed even during the day. KhAD agents also did the same. Small groups of them would pick up young women in the streets, apparently to question them but in reality to satisfy their lust: in the name of security, they had the power to commit excesses.
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External linksedit
December 02, 2023
history, afghanistan, history, afghanistan, preceding, establishment, emirate, afghanistan, 1823, shared, with, that, neighbouring, iran, central, asia, indian, subcontinent, sadozai, monarchy, ruled, afghan, durrani, empire, considered, founding, state, moder. The history of Afghanistan preceding the establishment of the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1823 is shared with that of neighbouring Iran central Asia and Indian subcontinent The Sadozai monarchy ruled the Afghan Durrani Empire considered the founding state of modern Afghanistan 1 Present day location of Afghanistan in AsiaHuman habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic era and the country s strategic location along the historic Silk Road has led it to being described picturesquely as the roundabout of the ancient world 2 The land has historically been home to various peoples and has witnessed numerous military campaigns including those by the Persians Alexander the Great the Maurya Empire Arab Muslims the Mongols the British the Soviet Union and most recently by a US led coalition 3 The various conquests and periods in both the Indian and Iranian cultural spheres 4 5 made the area a center for Buddhism Hinduism Zoroastrianism and later Islam throughout history 6 The Durrani Empire is considered to be the foundational polity of the modern nation state of Afghanistan with Ahmad Shah Durrani being credited as its Father of the Nation 7 8 However Dost Mohammad Khan is sometimes considered to be the founder of the first modern Afghan state 9 Following the Durrani Empire s decline and the death of Ahmad Shah Durrani and Timur Shah it was divided into multiple smaller independent kingdoms including but not limited to Herat Kandahar and Kabul Afghanistan would be reunited in the 19th century after seven decades of civil war from 1793 to 1863 with wars of unification led by Dost Mohammad Khan from 1823 to 1863 where he conquered the independent principalities of Afghanistan under the Emirate of Kabul Dost Mohammad died in 1863 days after his last campaign to unite Afghanistan and Afghanistan was consequently thrown back into civil war with fighting amongst his successors During this time Afghanistan became a buffer state in the Great Game between the British Raj in South Asia and the Russian Empire The British Raj attempted to subjugate Afghanistan but was repelled in the First Anglo Afghan War However the Second Anglo Afghan War saw a British victory and the successful establishment of British political influence over Afghanistan Following the Third Anglo Afghan War in 1919 Afghanistan became free of foreign political hegemony and emerged as the independent Kingdom of Afghanistan in June 1926 under Amanullah Khan This monarchy lasted almost half a century until Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973 following which the Republic of Afghanistan was established Since the late 1970s Afghanistan s history has been dominated by extensive warfare including coups invasions insurgencies and civil wars The conflict began in 1978 when a communist revolution established a socialist state and subsequent infighting prompted the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan in 1979 Mujahideen fought against the Soviets in the Soviet Afghan War and continued fighting amongst themselves following the Soviets withdrawal in 1989 The Islamic fundamentalist Taliban controlled most of the country by 1996 but their Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan received little international recognition before its overthrow in the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan The Taliban returned to power in 2021 after capturing Kabul and overthrowing the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan thus bringing an end to the 2001 2021 war 10 Although initially claiming it would form an inclusive government for the country in September 2021 the Taliban re established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with an interim government made up entirely of Taliban members 11 The Taliban government remains internationally unrecognized 12 Contents 1 Prehistory 1 1 Indus Valley civilization 1 2 Bactria Margiana 2 Ancient period c 1500 250 BCE 2 1 Gandhara Kingdom c 1500 535 BCE 2 2 Kamboja Kingdom c 700 200 BCE 2 3 Achaemenid Empire 2 4 Alexander and the Seleucus 2 5 Mauryan Empire 3 Classical Period c 250 BCE 565 CE 3 1 Greco Bactrian Kingdom 3 2 Indo Greek Kingdom 3 3 Indo Scythians 3 4 Indo Parthians 3 5 Kushans 3 6 Sassanian Empire 3 7 Huna 3 7 1 Kidarites 3 7 2 Alchon Huns 3 7 3 The White Huns 3 7 4 Nezak Huns 4 Middle Ages 565 1504 CE 4 1 Kabul Shahi 4 2 Islamic conquest 4 3 Ghaznavids 4 4 Ghorids 4 5 Mongol invasion 4 6 Timurids 5 Modern era 1504 1973 5 1 Mughals Uzbeks and Safavids 5 2 Hotak dynasty 5 3 Afsharid Invasion and Durrani Empire 5 4 Barakzai dynasty and British influence 5 5 Reforms of Amanullah Khan and civil war 5 6 Reigns of Nadir Khan and Zahir Khan 6 Contemporary era 1973 present 6 1 Republic of Afghanistan and the end of the monarchy 6 2 Democratic Republic and Soviet war 1978 1989 6 3 Foreign interference and civil war 1989 1996 6 4 Taliban and the United Front 1996 2001 6 5 NATO s presence the Emergency Loya Jirga the Taliban s takeover and the Panjshir uprising 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 9 1 Primary sources 10 External linksPrehistory editMain article Ancient history of Afghanistan nbsp Tents of Afghan nomads in the northern Badghis province of Afghanistan Early peasant farming villages came into existence in Afghanistan about 7 000 years ago Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others at Darra e Kur in 1966 where 800 stone implements were recovered along with a fragment of Neanderthal right temporal bone suggest that early humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 52 000 years ago A cave called Kara Kamar contained Upper Paleolithic blades Carbon 14 dated at 34 000 years old 13 Farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world 14 Artifacts indicate that the indigenous people were small farmers and herdsmen very probably grouped into tribes with small local kingdoms rising and falling through the ages Urbanization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE 15 Gandhara is the name of an ancient kingdom from the Vedic period and its capital city located between the Hindukush and Sulaiman Mountains mountains of Solomon 16 although Kandahar in modern times and the ancient Gandhara are not geographically identical 17 18 Early inhabitants around 3000 BCE were likely to have been 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 it is possible that the early city of Mundigak near Kandahar was a part of Helmand culture 19 The first known people were Indo Iranians 14 but their date of arrival has been estimated widely from as early as about 3000 BCE 20 to 1500 BCE 21 For further detail see Indo Aryan migration Indus Valley civilization edit Main article Indus Valley civilisation The Indus Valley civilisation IVC was a Bronze Age civilization 3300 1300 BCE mature period 2600 1900 BCE extending from present day northwest Pakistan to present day northwest India and present day northeast Afghanistan 22 An Indus Valley trading colony has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan 23 Apart from Shortughai Mundigak is another known site 24 There are several other smaller IVC sites to be found in Afghanistan as well Bactria Margiana edit Main article Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex The Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex became prominent between 2200 and 1700 BCE approximately The city of Balkh Bactra was founded about this time c 2000 1500 BCE 20 Ancient period c 1500 250 BCE edit nbsp The Mahajanapadas including the Gandhara and Kambojas kingdoms and Achaemenid Empire in West around c 500 BCEGandhara Kingdom c 1500 535 BCE edit Main article Gandhara kingdom nbsp Gandhara Kingdom in Early Vedic Period around 1500 BCEThe Gandhara region centered around the Peshawar Valley and Swat river valley though the cultural influence of Greater Gandhara extended across the Indus river to the Taxila region in Potohar Plateau and westwards into the Kabul and Bamiyan valleys in Afghanistan and northwards up to the Karakoram range 25 26 During the 6th century BCE Gandhara was an important imperial power in north west South Asia with the valley of Kasmira being part of the kingdom while the other states of the Punjab region such as the Kekayas Madrakas Usinaras and Shivis being under Gandhari suzerainty The Gandhari king Pukkusati who reigned around 550 BCE engaged in expansionist ventures which brought him into conflict with the king Pradyota of the rising power of Avanti Pukkusati was successful in this struggle with Pradyota 27 28 By the later 6th century BCE the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire Cyrus soon after his conquests of Media Lydia and Babylonia marched into Gandhara and annexed it into his empire 29 The scholar Kaikhosru Danjibuoy Sethna advanced that Cyrus had conquered only the trans Indus borderlands around Peshawar which had belonged to Gandhara while Pukkusati remained a powerful king who maintained his rule over the rest of Gandhara and the western Punjab 30 Kamboja Kingdom c 700 200 BCE edit Main article Kambojas The Kambojas entered into conflict with Alexander the Great as he invaded Central Asia The Macedonian conqueror made short shrift of the arrangements of Darius and after over running the Achaemenid Empire he dashed into today s eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan There he encountered resistance from the Kamboja Aspasioi and Assakenoi tribes 31 32 The Region of the Hindukush that was inhabitanted by the Kambojas has gone through many rules such as Vedic Mahajanapada Pali Kapisi Indo Greeks Kushan and Gandharans to Paristan and modern day being split between Pakistan and Eastern Afghanistan The descendants of Kambojas have mostly been assimilated into newer identities however some tribes remain today that still retain the names of their ancestors The Yusufzai Pashtuns are said to be the Esapzai Asvakas from the Kamboja age The Kom Kamoz people of Nuristan retain their Kamboj name The Ashkun of Nuristan also retain the name of Asvakas The Yashkun Shina dards are another group that retain the name of the Kamboja Asvakans The Kamboj of Punjab are another group that still retain the name however have integrated into new identity The country of Cambodia derives its name from the Kamboja 33 Achaemenid Empire edit Main article Achaemenid Empire See also Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley nbsp Much of the area corresponding to modern day Afghanistan was subordinated to the Achaemenid Empire nbsp Arachosia Aria and Bactria were the ancient satraps of the Achaemenid Empire that made up most of what is now Afghanistan during 500 BCE Afghanistan fell to the Achaemenid Empire after it was conquered by Darius I of Persia The area was divided into several provinces called satrapies which were each ruled by a governor or satrap These ancient satrapies included Aria The region of Aria was separated by mountain ranges from the Paropamisadae in the east Parthia in the west and Margiana and Hyrcania in the north while a desert separated it from Carmania and Drangiana in the south It is described in a very detailed manner by Ptolemy and Strabo 34 and corresponds according to that almost to the Herat Province of today s Afghanistan Arachosia corresponds to the modern day Kandahar Lashkar Gah and Quetta Arachosia bordered Drangiana to the west Paropamisadae i e Gandahara to the north and to the east and Gedrosia to the south The inhabitants of Arachosia were Iranian peoples referred to as Arachosians or Arachoti 35 It is assumed that they were called Paktyans by ethnicity and that name may have been in reference to the ethnic Paṣtun Pashtun tribes 36 Bactriana was the area north of the Hindu Kush west of the Pamirs and south of the Tian Shan with the Amu Darya flowing west through the center Balkh Sattagydia was the easternmost regions of the Achaemenid Empire part of its Seventh tax district according to Herodotus along with Gandarae Dadicae and Aparytae 37 It is believed to have been situated east of the Sulaiman Mountains up to the Indus River in the basin around Bannu Ghazni and Gandhara which corresponds to modern day Kabul Jalalabad and Peshawar 38 Alexander and the Seleucus edit Main article Indian campaign of Alexander the Great nbsp Alexander Empire in South Asia nbsp Alexander s troops beg to return home from India in plate 3 of 11 by Antonio Tempesta of Florence 1608 Alexander the Great arrived in the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier at the Battle of Gaugamela 39 His army faced very strong resistance in the Afghan tribal areas where he is said to have commented that Afghanistan is easy to march into hard to march out of 40 Although his expedition through Afghanistan was brief Alexander left behind a Hellenic cultural influence that lasted several centuries Several great cities were built in the region named Alexandria including Alexandria of the Arians modern day Herat Alexandria on the Tarnak near Kandahar Alexandria ad Caucasum near Begram at Bordj i Abdullah and finally Alexandria Eschate near Kojend in the north After Alexander s death his loosely connected empire was divided Seleucus a Macedonian officer during Alexander s campaign declared himself ruler of his own Seleucid Empire which also included present day Afghanistan 41 Mauryan Empire edit Main article Maurya Empire See also Seleucid Mauryan war nbsp Maurya Empire under Ashoka the Great nbsp Newly excavated Buddhist stupa at Mes Aynak in Logar Province of Afghanistan Similar stupas have been discovered in neighboring Ghazni Province including in the northern Samangan Province nbsp Aramaic Inscription of Laghman is an inscription on a slab of natural rock in the area of Laghman Afghanistan written in Aramaic by the Indian emperor Ashoka about 260 BCE and often categorized as one of Minor Rock Edicts of Ashoka 42 nbsp Kandahar Greek Edicts of Ashoka is among the Major Rock Edicts of the Indian Emperor Ashoka reigned 269 233 BCE which were written in the Greek language and Prakrit language The territory fell to the Maurya Empire which was led by Chandragupta Maurya The Mauryas further entrenched Hinduism and introduced Buddhism to the region and were planning to capture more territory of Central Asia until they faced local Greco Bactrian forces Seleucus is said to have reached a peace treaty with Chandragupta by giving control of the territory south of the Hindu Kush to the Mauryas upon intermarriage and 500 elephants Alexander took these away from the Hindus and established settlements of his own but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus Chandragupta upon terms of intermarriage and of receiving in exchange 500 elephants 43 Strabo 64 BCE 24 CE Some time after as he was going to war with the generals of Alexander a wild elephant of great bulk presented itself before him of its own accord and as if tamed down to gentleness took him on its back and became his guide in the war and conspicuous in fields of battle Sandrocottus having thus acquired a throne was in possession of India when Seleucus was laying the foundations of his future greatness who after making a league with him and settling his affairs in the east proceeded to join in the war against Antigonus As soon as the forces therefore of all the confederates were united a battle was fought in which Antigonus was slain and his son Demetrius put to flight 44 Junianus Justinus Having consolidated power in the northwest Chandragupta pushed east towards the Nanda Empire Afghanistan s significant ancient tangible and intangible Buddhist heritage is recorded through wide ranging archeological finds including religious and artistic remnants Buddhist doctrines are reported to have reached as far as Balkh even during the life of the Buddha 563 BCE to 483 BCE as recorded by Husang Tsang In this context a legend recorded by Husang Tsang refers to the first two lay disciples of Buddha Trapusa and Bhallika responsible for introducing Buddhism in that country Originally these two were merchants of the kingdom of Balhika as the name Bhalluka or Bhallika probably suggests the association of one with that country They had gone to India for trade and had happened to be at Bodhgaya when the Buddha had just attained enlightenment 45 Classical Period c 250 BCE 565 CE editGreco Bactrian Kingdom edit Main article Greco Bactrian Kingdom nbsp Approximate maximum extent of the Greco Bactrian kingdom circa 180 BCE including the regions of Tapuria and Traxiane to the West Sogdiana and Ferghana to the north Bactria and Arachosia to the south The Greco Bactrian Kingdom was a Hellenistic kingdom 46 founded when Diodotus I the satrap of Bactria and probably the surrounding provinces seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BCE 47 The Greco Bactria Kingdom continued until c 130 BCE when Eucratides I s son King Heliocles I was defeated and driven out of Bactria by the Yuezhi tribes from the east The Yuezhi now had complete occupation of Bactria It is thought that Eucratides dynasty continued to rule in Kabul and Alexandria of the Caucasus until 70 BCE when King Hermaeus was also defeated by the Yuezhi Indo Greek Kingdom edit Main articles Indo Greek Kingdom and History of the Indo Greek Kingdom One of Demetrius I s successors Menander I brought the Indo Greek Kingdom now isolated from the rest of the Hellenistic world after the fall of Bactria 48 to its height between 165 and 130 BCE expanding the kingdom in Afghanistan and Pakistan to even larger proportions than Demetrius After Menander s death the Indo Greeks steadily declined and the last Indo Greek kings Strato II and Strato III were defeated in c 10 CE 49 The Indo Greek Kingdom was succeeded by the Indo Scythians Indo Scythians edit nbsp The Bimaran casket representing the Buddha surrounded by Brahma left and Sakra right was found inside a stupa with coins of Azes inside British Museum The Indo Scythians were descended from the Sakas Scythians who migrated from southern Siberia to Pakistan and Arachosia from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century BCE They displaced the Indo Greeks and ruled a kingdom that stretched from Gandhara to Mathura The power of the Saka rulers started to decline in the 2nd century CE after the Scythians were defeated by the south Indian Emperor Gautamiputra Satakarni of the Satavahana dynasty 50 51 Later the Saka kingdom was completely destroyed by Chandragupta II of the Gupta Empire from eastern India in the 4th century 52 Indo Parthians edit Main article Indo Parthian Kingdom nbsp Gandhara Buddhist reliquary with content including Indo Parthian coins 1st century CE The Indo Parthian Kingdom was ruled by the Gondopharid dynasty named after its eponymous first ruler Gondophares They ruled parts of present day Afghanistan Pakistan 53 and northwestern India during or slightly before the 1st century AD For most of their history the leading Gondopharid kings held Taxila in the present Punjab province of Pakistan as their residence but during their last few years of existence the capital shifted between Kabul and Peshawar These kings have traditionally been referred to as Indo Parthians as their coinage was often inspired by the Arsacid dynasty but they probably belonged to a wider groups of Iranic tribes who lived east of Parthia proper and there is no evidence that all the kings who assumed the title Gondophares which means Holder of Glory were even related Christian writings claim that the Apostle Saint Thomas an architect and skilled carpenter had a long sojourn in the court of king Gondophares had built a palace for the king at Taxila and had also ordained leaders for the Church before leaving for the Indus Valley in a chariot for sailing out to eventually reach Malabar Coast Kushans edit Main article Kushan Empire nbsp Kushan territories full line and maximum extent of Kushan dominions under Kanishka dotted line according to the Rabatak inscription The Kushan Empire expanded out of Bactria Central Asia into the northwest of the subcontinent under the leadership of their first emperor Kujula Kadphises about the middle of the 1st century CE They came from an Indo European language speaking Central Asian tribe called the Yuezhi 54 55 a branch of which was known as the Kushans By the time of his grandson Kanishka the Great the empire spread to encompass much of Afghanistan 56 and then the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi Benares 57 Emperor Kanishka was a great patron of Buddhism however as Kushans expanded southward the deities 58 of their later coinage came to reflect its new Hindu majority 59 They played an important role in the establishment of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent and its spread to Central Asia and China Historian Vincent Smith said about Kanishka He played the part of a second Ashoka in the history of Buddhism 60 The empire linked the Indian Ocean maritime trade with the commerce of the Silk Road through the Indus valley encouraging long distance trade particularly between China and Rome The Kushans brought new trends to the budding and blossoming Gandhara Art which reached its peak during Kushan Rule H G Rowlinson commented The Kushan period is a fitting prelude to the Age of the Guptas 61 By the 3rd century their empire in India was disintegrating and their last known great emperor was Vasudeva I 62 63 nbsp Early Mahayana Buddhist triad From left to right a Kushan devotee Maitreya the Buddha Avalokitesvara and a Buddhist monk 2nd 3rd century Gandhara nbsp Kumara or Kartikeya with a Kushan devotee 2nd century CE nbsp Kushan prince said to be Huvishka making a donation to a Boddhisattva 64 nbsp Shiva Linga worshipped by Kushan devotees circa 2nd century CE Sassanian Empire edit Main article Sasanian Empire nbsp The Sasanian Empire at its greatest extent c 620 under Khosrow IIAfter the Kushan Empire s rule was ended by Sassanids officially known as the Empire of Iranians was the last kingdom of the Persian Empire before the rise of Islam Named after the House of Sasan it ruled from 224 to 651 AD In the east around 325 Shapur II regained the upper hand against the Kushano Sasanian Kingdom and took control of large territories in areas now known as Afghanistan and Pakistan Much of modern day Afghanistan became part of the Sasanian Empire since Shapur I extended his authority eastwards into Afghanistan and the previously autonomous Kushans were obliged to accept his suzerainty From around 370 however towards the end of the reign of Shapur II the Sassanids lost the control of Bactria to invaders from the north These were the Kidarites the Hephthalites the Alchon Huns and the Nezaks The four Huna tribes to rule Afghanistan 65 These invaders initially issued coins based on Sasanian designs 66 nbsp SASANIANEMPIRE BYZANTINEEMPIRE NORTHERNWEI LIANG AlchonHuns GUPTAEMPIRE JUAN JUAN KHAGANATE Gaoju Turks nbsp The Imperial Hephthalites c 500 CE Huna edit Main article Huna people The Hunas were peoples who were of a group of Central Asian tribes Four of the Huna tribe conquered and ruled Afghanistan the Kidarites Hepthalites Alchon Huns and the Nezaks Kidarites edit Main article Kidarites The Kidarites were a nomadic clan the first of the four Huna people in Afghanistan They are supposed to have originated in Western China and arrived in Bactria with the great migrations of the second half of the 4th century Alchon Huns edit Main article Alchon Huns nbsp Vishnu Nicolo Seal representing Vishnu with a worshipper probably Mihirakula 4th 6th century CE The inscription in cursive Bactrian reads Mihira Vishnu and Shiva British Museum The Alchons are one of the four Huna people that ruled in Afghanistan A group of Central Asian tribes Hunas or Huna via the Khyber Pass entered India at the end of the 5th or early 6th century and successfully occupied areas as far as Eran and Kausambi greatly weakening the Gupta Empire 67 The 6th century Roman historian Procopius of Caesarea Book I ch 3 related the Huns of Europe with the Hephthalites or White Huns who subjugated the Sassanids and invaded northwestern India stating that they were of the same stock in fact as well as in name although he contrasted the Huns with the Hephthalites in that the Hephthalites were sedentary white skinned and possessed not ugly features 68 69 Song Yun and Hui Zheng who visited the chief of the Hephthalite nomads at his summer residence in Badakshan and later in Gandhara observed that they had no belief in the Buddhist law and served a large number of divinities 70 The White Huns edit Main article Hephthalite Empire The Hephthalites or Ephthalites also known as the White Huns and one of the four Huna people in Afghanistan were a nomadic confederation in Central Asia during the late antiquity period The White Huns established themselves in modern day Afghanistan by the first half of the 5th century Led by the Hun military leader Toramana they overran the northern region of Pakistan and North India Toramana s son Mihirakula a Saivite Hindu moved up to near Pataliputra to the east and Gwalior to central India Hiuen Tsiang narrates Mihirakula s merciless persecution of Buddhists and destruction of monasteries though the description is disputed as far as the authenticity is concerned 71 The Huns were defeated by the Indian kings Yasodharman of Malwa and Narasimhagupta in the 6th century Some of them were driven out of India and others were assimilated in the Indian society 72 Nezak Huns edit Main article Nezak The Nezaks are one of the four Huna people that ruled in Afghanistan Middle Ages 565 1504 CE edit nbsp Map of the region during the 7th centuryFrom the Middle Ages to around 1750 the eastern regions of Afghanistan such as Kabulistan and Zabulistan now Kabul Kandahar and Ghazni were recognized as being part of Indian subcontinent Al Hind 73 74 while its western parts were included in Khorasan 75 76 Tokharistan 77 and Sistan 78 Two of the four main capitals of Khorasan Balkh and Herat are now located in Afghanistan The countries of Kandahar Ghazni and Kabul formed the frontier region between Khorasan and the Indus 79 This land inhabited by the Afghan tribes i e ancestors of Pashtuns was called Afghanistan which loosely covered a wide area between the Hindu Kush and the Indus River principally around the Sulaiman Mountains 80 81 The earliest record of the name Afghan Abgan being mentioned is by Shapur I of the Sassanid Empire during the 3rd century CE 82 83 84 which is later recorded in the form of Avagana by the Vedic astronomer Varaha Mihira in his 6th century CE Brihat samhita 85 It was used to refer to a common legendary ancestor known as Afghana grandson of King Saul of Israel 86 Hiven Tsiang a Chinese pilgrim visiting the Afghanistan area several times between 630 and 644 CE also speaks about them 82 Ancestors of many of today s Turkic speaking Afghans settled in the Hindu Kush area and began to assimilate much of the culture and language of the Pashtun tribes already present there 87 Among these were the Khalaj people which are known today as Ghilzai 88 Kabul Shahi edit Main articles Turk Shahis and Hindu Shahi The Kabul Shahi dynasties ruled the Kabul Valley and Gandhara from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century 89 The Shahis are generally split up into two eras the Buddhist Shahis and the Hindu Shahis with the change over thought to have occurred sometime around 870 The kingdom was known as the Kabul Shahan or Ratbelshahan from 565 to 670 when the capitals were located in Kapisa and Kabul and later Udabhandapura also known as Hund 90 for its new capital 91 92 93 The Hindu Shahis under ruler Jayapala is known for his struggles in defending his kingdom against the Ghaznavids in the modern day eastern Afghanistan region Jayapala saw a danger in the consolidation of the Ghaznavids and invaded their capital city of Ghazni both in the reign of Sebuktigin and in that of his son Mahmud which initiated the Muslim Ghaznavid and Hindu Shahi struggles 94 Sebuktigin however defeated him and he was forced to pay an indemnity 94 Jayapala defaulted on the payment and took to the battlefield once more 94 Jayapala however lost control of the entire region between the Kabul Valley and Indus River 95 Before his struggle began Jaipal had raised a large army of Punjabi Hindus When Jaipal went to the Punjab region his army was raised to 100 000 horsemen and an innumerable host of foot soldiers According to Ferishta The two armies having met on the confines of Lumghan Subooktugeen ascended a hill to view the forces of Jeipal which appeared in extent like the boundless ocean and in number like the ants or the locusts of the wilderness But Subooktugeen considered himself as a wolf about to attack a flock of sheep calling therefore his chiefs together he encouraged them to glory and issued to each his commands His soldiers though few in number were divided into squadrons of five hundred men each which were directed to attack successively one particular point of the Hindoo line so that it might continually have to encounter fresh troops 95 However the army was hopeless in battle against the western forces particularly against the young Mahmud of Ghazni 95 In the year 1001 soon after Sultan Mahmud came to power and was occupied with the Qarakhanids north of the Hindu Kush Jaipal attacked Ghazni once more and suffered yet another defeat by the powerful Ghaznavid forces near present day Peshawar After the Battle of Peshawar he committed suicide because his subjects thought he had brought disaster and disgrace to the Shahi dynasty 94 95 Jayapala was succeeded by his son Anandapala 94 who along with other succeeding generations of the Shahiya dynasty took part in various campaigns against the advancing Ghaznavids but were unsuccessful The Hindu rulers eventually exiled themselves to the Kashmir Siwalik Hills 95 nbsp The Gardez Ganesha representing a Hindu deity Ganesha consecrated by the Shahis in Gardez Afghanistan nbsp Coins of the Hindu Shahis which later inspired Abbasid coins in the Middle East 96 Islamic conquest edit Main article Muslim conquests of Afghanistan In 642 CE Rashidun Arabs had conquered most of West Asia from the Sassanids and Byzantines and from the western city of Herat they introduced the religion of Islam as they entered new cities Afghanistan at that period had a number of different independent rulers depending on the area Ancestors of Abu Ḥanifa including his father were from the Kabul region The early Arab forces did not fully explore Afghanistan due to attacks by the mountain tribes Much of the eastern parts of the country remained independent as part of the Hindu Shahi kingdoms of Kabul and Gandhara which lasted that way until the forces of the Muslim Saffarid dynasty followed by the Ghaznavids conquered them Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam came out of the west to defeat the Sasanians in 642 CE and then they marched with confidence to the east On the western periphery of the Afghan area the princes of Herat and Seistan gave way to rule by Arab governors but in the east in the mountains cities submitted only to rise in revolt and the hastily converted returned to their old beliefs once the armies passed The harshness and avariciousness of Arab rule produced such unrest however that once the waning power of the Caliphate became apparent native rulers once again established themselves independent Among these the Saffarids of Seistan shone briefly in the Afghan area The fanatic founder of this dynasty the persian Yaqub ibn Layth Saffari came forth from his capital at Zaranj in 870 CE and marched through Bost Kandahar Ghazni Kabul Bamyan Balkh and Herat conquering in the name of Islam 97 Nancy Hatch Dupree 1971 Ghaznavids edit Main articles Ghaznavids and Ghaznavid campaigns in India nbsp Ghaznavid Empire at its greatest extent in 1030 CEThe Ghaznavid dynasty ruled from the city of Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan From 997 to his death in 1030 Mahmud of Ghazni turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today s Afghanistan eastern and central Iran Pakistan parts of India Turkmenistan Tajikistan and Uzbekistan Mahmud of Ghazni Mahmude Ghaznavi in local pronunciation consolidated the conquests of his predecessors and the city of Ghazni became a great cultural centre as well as a base for frequent forays into the Indian subcontinent The Nasher Khans became princes of the Kharoti until the Soviet invasion 98 99 100 Ghorids edit Main article Ghurid dynasty nbsp Map of Ghurid territory before the assassination of Muhammad of Ghor 101 102 103 In the west Ghurid territory extended to Nishapur and Merv 104 105 while Ghurid troops reached as far as Gorgan on the shores of the Caspian Sea 106 107 Eastward the Ghurids invaded as far as Bengal 108 The Ghaznavid dynasty was defeated in 1148 by the Ghurids from Ghor but the Ghaznavid Sultans continued to live in Ghazni as the Nasher until the early 20th century 98 99 100 The empire was established by three brothers from Ghor region of Afghanistan Qutb al Din Sayf al Din Baha al Din which all them fought against Ghaznavid emperor Bahram Shah of Ghazni but were not successful and killed in the process Initially Ala al Din Husayn the son of Baha al Din defeated the Ghazanavid ruler Bahram Shah and to take revenge of his father and uncle s death ordered the city to be sacked The Ghorids or Ghurids lost the northern territory of Transoxiana and northern Great Korasan especially their capital Ghor province due to the invasion of Seljucks but Sultan Ala al Din s successors consolidated their power in India by defeating the remainder of Ghaznavid rulers At their largest extent they ruled east of Iran much of the Indian subcontinent like Pakistan and north and central part of modern India Mongol invasion edit Further information Mongol conquest of Central Asia and Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire nbsp Mongol invasions and conquests seriously depopulated large areas of AfghanistanThe Mongols invaded Afghanistan in 1221 having defeated the Khwarazmian armies The Mongols invasion had long term consequences with many parts of Afghanistan never recovering from the devastation The towns and villages suffered much more than the nomads who were able to avoid attack The destruction of irrigation systems maintained by the sedentary people led to the shift of the weight of the country towards the hills The city of Balkh was destroyed and even 100 years later Ibn Battuta described it as a city still in ruins While the Mongols were pursuing the forces of Jalal ad Din Mingburnu they besieged the city of Bamyan In the course of the siege a defender s arrow killed Genghis Khan s grandson Mutukan The Mongols razed the city and massacred its inhabitants in revenge with its former site known as the City of Screams Herat located in a fertile valley was destroyed as well but was rebuilt under the local Kart dynasty After the Mongol Empire splintered Herat eventually became part of the Ilkhanate while Balkh and the strip of land from Kabul through Ghazni to Kandahar went to the Chagatai Khanate 109 The Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush were usually either allied with the Khalji dynasty of northern India or independent Timurids edit Main article Timurid Empire nbsp Timurid Empire at its greatest extent in 1405Timur Tamerlane incorporated much of the area into his own vast Timurid Empire The city of Herat became one of the capitals of his empire and his grandson Pir Muhammad held the seat of Kandahar Timur rebuilt most of Afghanistan s infrastructure which was destroyed by his early ancestor The area was progressing under his rule Timurid rule began declining in the early 16th century with the rise of a new ruler in Kabul Babur Timur a descendant of Genghis Khan created a vast new empire across Russia and Persia which he ruled from his capital in Samarkand in present day Uzbekistan Timur captured Herat in 1381 and his son Shah Rukh moved the capital of the Timurid empire to Herat in 1405 The Timurids a Turkic people brought the Turkic nomadic culture of Central Asia within the orbit of Persian civilisation establishing Herat as one of the most cultured and refined cities in the world This fusion of Central Asian and Persian culture was a major legacy for the future Afghanistan Under the rule of Shah Rukh the city served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance whose glory matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth 110 111 A century later the emperor Babur a descendant of Timur visited Herat and wrote the whole habitable world had not such a town as Herat For the next 300 years the eastern Afghan tribes periodically invaded India creating vast Indo Afghan empires In 1500 CE Babur was driven out of his home in the Ferghana valley By the 16th century western Afghanistan again reverted to Persian rule under the Safavid dynasty 112 113 Modern era 1504 1973 editMughals Uzbeks and Safavids edit Main articles Mughal Empire and Khanate of Bukhara nbsp A miniature from Padshahnama depicting the surrender of the Shia Safavid garrison of Kandahar in 1638 to the Mughal army of Shah Jahan commanded by Kilij Khan In 1504 Babur a descendant of Timur arrived from present day Uzbekistan and moved to the city of Kabul He began exploring new territories in the region with Kabul serving as his military headquarters Instead of looking towards the powerful Safavids towards the Persian west Babur was more focused on the Indian subcontinent In 1526 he left with his army to capture the seat of the Delhi Sultanate which at that point was possessed by the Afghan Lodi dynasty of India After defeating Ibrahim Lodi and his army Babur turned Old Delhi into the capital of his newly established Mughal Empire From the 16th century to the 17th century CE Afghanistan was divided into three major areas The north was ruled by the Khanate of Bukhara the west was under the rule of the Iranian Shia Safavids and the eastern section was under the Sunni Mughals of northern India who under Akbar established in Kabul one of the original twelve subahs imperial top level provinces bordering Lahore Multan and Kashmir added to Kabul in 1596 later split off and short lived Balkh Subah and Badakhshan Subah only 1646 47 The Kandahar region in the south served as a buffer zone between the Mughals who shortly established a Qandahar subah 1638 1648 and Persia s Safavids with the native Afghans often switching support from one side to the other Babur explored a number of cities in the region before his campaign into India In the city of Kandahar his personal epigraphy can be found in the Chilzina rock mountain Like in the rest of the territories that used to make part of the Indian Mughal Empire Afghanistan holds tombs palaces and forts built by the Mughals 114 Hotak dynasty edit Main article Hotak dynasty nbsp Map of the Hotak Empire during the Reign of Mirwais Hotak 1715 nbsp Hotaki Empire 1728In 1704 the Safavid Shah Husayn appointed George XI Gurgin Khan a ruthless Georgian subject to govern their easternmost territories in the Greater Kandahar region One of Gurgin s main objectives was to crush the rebellions started by native Afghans Under his rule the revolts were successfully suppressed and he ruled Kandahar with uncompromising severity He began imprisoning and executing the native Afghans especially those suspected in having taken part in the rebellions One of those arrested and imprisoned was Mirwais Hotak who belonged to an influential family in Kandahar Mirwais was sent as a prisoner to the Persian court in Isfahan but the charges against him were dismissed by the king so he was sent back to his native land as a free man 115 In April 1709 Mirwais along with his militia under Saydal Khan Naseri revolted 116 117 The uprising began when George XI and his escort were killed after a banquet that had been prepared by Mirwais at his house outside the city 118 Around four days later an army of well trained Georgian troops arrived in the city after hearing of Gurgin s death but Mirwais and his Afghan forces successfully held the city against the troops Between 1710 and 1713 the Afghan forces defeated several large Persian armies that were dispatched from Isfahan by the Safavids which included Qizilbash and Georgian Circassian troops 119 Several half hearted attempts to subdue the rebellious city having failed the Persian Government despatched Khusraw Khan nephew of the late Gurgin Khan with an army of 30 000 men to effect its subjugation but in spite of an initial success which led the Afghans to offer to surrender on terms his uncompromising attitude impelled them to make a fresh desperate effort resulting in the complete defeat of the Persian army of whom only some 700 escaped and the death of their general Two years later in 1713 another Persian army commanded by Rustam Khan was also defeated by the rebels who thus secured possession of the whole province of Qandahar 120 Edward G Browne 1924 nbsp Modern day sketch work of Mahmud HotakiSouthern Afghanistan was made into an independent local Pashtun kingdom 121 Refusing the title of king Mirwais was called Prince of Qandahar and general of the national troops by his Afghan countrymen He died of natural causes in November 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz Hotak Aziz was killed about two years later by Mirwais son Mahmud Hotaki allegedly for planning to give Kandahar s sovereignty back to Persia 122 Mahmud led an Afghan army into Persia in 1722 and defeated the Safavids at the Battle of Gulnabad The Afghans captured Isfahan Safavid capital and Mahmud briefly became the new Persian Shah He was known after that as Shah Mahmud Mahmud began a short lived reign of terror against his Persian subjects who defied his rule from the very start and he was eventually murdered in 1725 by his own cousin Shah Ashraf Hotaki Some sources say he died of madness Ashraf became the new Afghan Shah of Persia soon after Mahmud s death while the home region of Afghanistan was ruled by Mahmud s younger brother Shah Hussain Hotaki Ashraf was able to secure peace with the Ottoman Empire in 1727 See Treaty of Hamedan winning against a superior Ottoman army during the Ottoman Hotaki War but the Russian Empire took advantage of the continuing political unrest and civil strife to seize former Persian territories for themselves limiting the amount of territory under Shah Mahmud s control The short lived Hotaki dynasty was a troubled and violent one from the very start as internecine conflict made it difficult for them to establish permanent control The dynasty lived under great turmoil due to bloody succession feuds that made their hold on power tenuous There was a massacre of thousands of civilians in Isfahan including more than three thousand religious scholars nobles and members of the Safavid family 123 The vast majority of the Persians rejected the Afghan regime which they considered to have been usurping power from the very start Hotaki s rule continued in Afghanistan until 1738 when Shah Hussain was defeated and banished by Nader Shah of Persia 124 The Hotakis were eventually removed from power in 1729 after a very short lived reign They were defeated in the October 1729 by the Iranian military commander Nader Shah head of the Afsharids at the Battle of Damghan After several military campaigns against the Afghans he effectively reduced the Hotaki s power to only southern Afghanistan The last ruler of the Hotaki dynasty Shah Hussain ruled southern Afghanistan until 1738 when the Afsharids and the Abdali Pashtuns defeated him at the long Siege of Kandahar 124 Afsharid Invasion and Durrani Empire edit Main articles Durrani Empire and Siege of Kandahar Nader Shah and his Afsharid army arrived in the town of Kandahar in 1738 and defeated Hussain Hotaki subsequently absorbing all of Afghanistan in his empire and renaming Kandahar as Naderabad Around this time a young teenager Ahmad Shah joined Nader Shah s army for his invasion of India nbsp The Afghan Durrani Empire at its height in 1761 Nadir Shah was assassinated on 19 June 1747 by several of his Persian officers and the Afsharid empire fell to pieces At the same time the 25 year old Ahmad Khan was busy in Afghanistan calling for a loya jirga grand assembly to select a leader among his people The Afghans gathered near Kandahar in October 1747 and chose Ahmad Shah from among the challengers making him their new head of state After the inauguration or coronation he became known as Ahmad Shah Durrani He adopted the title padshah durr i dawran King pearl of the age and the Abdali tribe became known as the Durrani tribe after this 125 Ahmad Shah not only represented the Durranis but he also united all the Pashtun tribes By 1751 Ahmad Shah Durrani and his Afghan army conquered the entire present day Afghanistan Pakistan and for a short time subjugated large swathes of the Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran along with Delhi in India 126 He defeated the Maratha Empire in 1761 at the Battle of Panipat In October 1772 Ahmad Shah retired to his home in Kandahar where he died peacefully and was buried at a site that is now adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak He was succeeded by his son Timur Shah Durrani who transferred the capital of their Afghan Empire from Kandahar to Kabul Timur died in 1793 and his son Zaman Shah Durrani took over the reign Zaman Shah and his brothers had a weak hold on the legacy left to them by their famous ancestor They sorted out their differences through a round robin of expulsions blindings and executions which resulted in the deterioration of the Afghan hold over far flung territories such as Attock and Kashmir Durrani s other grandson Shuja Shah Durrani fled the wrath of his brother and sought refuge with the Sikhs Not only had Durrani invaded the Punjab region many times but had destroyed the holiest shrine of the Sikhs the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar defiling its sarowar with the blood of cows and decapitating Baba Deep Singh in 1757 The Sikhs under Ranjit Singh eventually wrested a large part of the Durrani Kingdom present day Pakistan but not including Sindh from the Afghans while they were in civil war 127 Barakzai dynasty and British influence edit Further information European influence in Afghanistan and Barakzai dynasty nbsp Map of Afghanistan Emirate and surrounding nations dated 1860 nbsp King Yaqub Khan with Britain s Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari 26 May 1879 on the occasion of the signing of the Treaty of GandamakThe Emir Dost Mohammed Khan 1793 1863 gained control in Kabul in 1826 after toppling his brother Sultan Mohammad Khan and founded c 1837 the Barakzai dynasty In 1837 the Afghan army descended through the Khyber Pass on Sikh forces at Jamrud killed the Sikh general Hari Singh Nalwa but could not capture the fort 128 Rivalry between the expanding British and Russian Empires in what became known as The Great Game significantly influenced Afghanistan during the 19th century British concern over Russian advances in Central Asia and over Russia s growing influence in West Asia and in Persia in particular culminated in two Anglo Afghan wars and in the Siege of Herat 1837 1838 in which the Persians trying to retake Afghanistan and throw out the British sent armies into the country and fought the British mostly around and in the city of Herat The first Anglo Afghan War 1839 1842 resulted in the destruction of a British army causing great panic throughout British India and the dispatch of a second British invasion army 129 Following the British defeat in the First Anglo Afghan War where they tried to re establish the Durrani Kingdom as a de facto vassal Dost Mohammad could focus on reuniting Afghanistan which was divided following the Durrani Barakzai civil wars Dost Mohammad began his conquest while only ruling the major cities of Kabul Ghazni Jalalabad and Bamyan By the time of his death in 1863 Dost Mohammad had reunited most of Afghanistan Following Dost Mohammad s death a civil war broke out amongst his sons leading to Sher Ali succeeding and beginning his rule The Second Anglo Afghan War 1878 1880 resulted from the refusal by Emir Shir Ali reigned 1863 to 1866 and from 1868 to 1879 to accept a British diplomatic mission in Kabul In the wake of this conflict Shir Ali s nephew Emir Abdur Rahman known as Iron Emir 130 came 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 Abdur Rahman s reforms of the army legal system and structure of government gave Afghanistan a degree of unity and stability which it had not before known This however came at the cost of strong centralisation of harsh punishments for crime and corruption and of a certain degree of international isolation 131 Habibullah Khan Abdur Rahman s son came to the throne in 1901 and kept Afghanistan neutral during World War I despite encouragement by Central Powers of anti British feelings and of Afghan rebellion along the borders of India His policy of neutrality was not universally popular within the country and Habibullah was assassinated in 1919 possibly by family members opposed to British influence His third son Amanullah r 1919 1929 regained control of Afghanistan s foreign policy after launching the Third Anglo Afghan War May to August 1919 with an attack on India 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 19 August as their Independence Day Reforms of Amanullah Khan and civil war edit Main article Afghan Civil War 1928 1929 nbsp nbsp King Amanullah Khan and a photo of Habibullah Kalakani and his followers who rose against the King King Amanullah Khan moved to end his country s traditional isolation in the years following the Third Anglo Afghan war After quelling the Khost rebellion in 1925 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 Ataturk 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 132 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 which led to the revolt of the Shinwari in November 1928 marking the beginning of the Afghan Civil War 1928 1929 Although the Shinwari revolt was quelled a concurrent Saqqawist uprising in the north eventually managed to depose Amanullah leading to Habibullah Kalakani taking control of Kabul 133 Reigns of Nadir Khan and Zahir Khan edit Main articles Kingdom of Afghanistan and Golden Age of Afghanistan nbsp Mohammad Zahir Shah in 1963Mohammed Nadir Khan became King of Afghanistan on 15 October 1929 after he took control of Afghanistan by defeating the Habibullah Kalakani He then executed him in 1 November of same year 134 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 student from Kabul Mohammad Zahir Shah Nadir Khan s 19 year old son succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973 The Afghan tribal revolts of 1944 1947 saw Zahir Shah s reign being challenged by Zadran Safi and Mangal tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran and Salemai among others 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 Khan 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 looked for 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 parties on both the left and the right This 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 was headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin who were supported by elements within the military and the Parcham Banner led by Babrak Karmal Contemporary era 1973 present edit source source source source source source 1973 film about contemporary events in AfghanistanRepublic of Afghanistan and the end of the monarchy edit Main article Republic of Afghanistan 1973 1978 Amid corruption charges and malfeasance against the royal family and the poor economic conditions created by the severe 1971 72 drought former Prime Minister Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan seized power in a non violent coup on July 17 1973 while Zahir Shah was receiving treatment for eye problems and therapy for lumbago in Italy 135 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 Nonetheless Hafizullah Amin and a number of military wing officers of the PDPA s Khalq faction managed to remain at large and organize a military coup Democratic Republic and Soviet war 1978 1989 edit Main articles Afghan conflict History of Afghanistan 1978 1992 Democratic Republic of Afghanistan People s Democratic Party of Afghanistan Saur Revolution and Soviet Afghan War nbsp Outside the Presidential Palace in Kabul a day after the Marxist revolution on April 28 1978 nbsp The day after the Marxist revolution on April 28 1978On 28 April 1978 the PDPA led by Nur Mohammad Taraki Babrak Karmal and Amin Taha overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud who was assassinated along with all his family members in a bloody military coup The coup became known as the Saur Revolution On 1 May Taraki became head of state head of government 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 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 General Secretary Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and in control of the Army On 14 September Amin overthrew Taraki who was killed Amin stated that the Afghans recognize only crude force 136 Afghanistan expert Amin Saikal writes As his powers grew so apparently did his craving for personal dictatorship and his vision of the revolutionary process based on terror 136 Once it was in power the PDPA implemented a Marxist Leninist agenda It moved to replace religious and traditional laws with secular and Marxist Leninist ones Men were obliged to cut their beards women could not wear chadors and mosques were declared off limits The PDPA made a number of reforms on women s rights banning forced marriages and giving state recognition of women s right to vote 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 also carried out socialist land reforms and moved to promote state atheism 137 They also prohibited usury 138 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 Soviet Union also sent contractors to build roads hospitals and schools and to drill water wells they also trained and equipped the Afghan Armed Forces 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 nbsp Ethnolinguistic groups in Afghanistan in 1982At the same time the PDPA imprisoned tortured or murdered thousands of members of the traditional elite the religious establishment and the intelligentsia 139 The government launched a campaign of violent repression killing some 10 000 to 27 000 people and imprisoning 14 000 to 20 000 more mostly at Pul e Charkhi prison 140 141 142 In December 1978 the PDPA leadership signed an agreement with the Soviet Union which would allow military support for the PDPA in Afghanistan if needed The majority of people in the cities including Kabul either welcomed or were ambivalent to these policies However the Marxist Leninist and secular nature of the government as well as its heavy dependence on the Soviet Union made it unpopular with a majority of the Afghan population Repressions plunged large parts of the country especially the rural areas into open revolt against the new Marxist Leninist government By spring 1979 unrests had reached 24 out of 28 Afghan provinces including major urban areas Over half of the Afghan army would either desert or join the insurrection Most of the government s new policies clashed directly with the traditional Afghan understanding of Islam making religion one of the only forces capable of unifying the tribally and ethnically divided population against the unpopular new government and ushering in the advent of Islamist participation in Afghan politics 143 To bolster the Parcham faction the Soviet Union decided to intervene on December 27 1979 when the Red Army invaded its southern neighbor Over 100 000 Soviet troops took part in the invasion which was backed by another 100 000 Afghan military men and supporters of the Parcham faction In the meantime Hafizullah Amin was killed and replaced by Babrak Karmal The Carter administration started providing limited assistance to rebels before the Soviet invasion After the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the U S began arming the Afghan mujahideen thanks in large part to the efforts of Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos Early reports estimated that 6 20 billion had been spent by the U S and Saudi Arabia 144 but more recent reports state that the U S and Saudi Arabia provided as much as up to 40 billion 145 146 147 in cash and weapons which included over two thousand FIM 92 Stinger surface to air missiles for building up Islamic groups against the Soviet Union The U S handled most of its support through Pakistan s ISI Scholars such as W Michael Reisman 148 Charles Norchi 149 and Mohammed Kakar believe that the Afghans were victims of a genocide which was committed against them by the Soviet Union 150 151 Soviet forces and their proxies killed between 562 000 152 and 2 million Afghans 153 154 and Russian soldiers also engaged in abductions and rapes of Afghan women 155 156 About 6 million fled as Afghan refugees to Pakistan and Iran and from there over 38 000 made it to the United States 157 and many more to the European Union The Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan brought with them verifiable stories of murder collective rape torture and depopulation of civilians by the Soviet forces 158 Faced with mounting international pressure and great number of casualties on both sides the Soviets withdrew in 1989 Their withdrawal from Afghanistan was seen as an ideological victory in the United States which had backed some Mujahideen factions through three U S presidential administrations to counter Soviet influence in the vicinity of the oil rich Persian Gulf The USSR continued to support Afghan leader Mohammad Najibullah former head of the Afghan secret service KHAD until 1992 159 Foreign interference and civil war 1989 1996 edit Main articles Afghan Civil War 1989 1992 and Afghan Civil War 1992 1996 nbsp Kabul during civil war in 1993 Pakistan s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence ISI headed by Hamid Gul at the time was interested in a trans national Islamic revolution which would cover Pakistan Afghanistan and Central Asia For this purpose the ISI masterminded an attack on Jalalabad in March 1989 for the Mujahideen to establish their own government in Afghanistan but this failed in three months 160 With the crumbling of the Najibullah regime early in 1992 Afghanistan fell into further disarray and civil war A U N supported attempt to have the mujahideen parties and armies form a coalition government shattered Mujahideen did not abide by the mutual pledges and Ahmad Shah Masood forces because of his proximity to Kabul captured the capital before Mujahideen Govt was established So the elected prime minister and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar started war on his president and Massod force entrenched in Kabul This ignited civil war because the other mujahideen parties would not settle for Hekmatyar ruling alone or sharing actual power with him Within weeks the still frail unity of the other mujahideen forces also evaporated and six militias were fighting each other in and around Kabul Sibghatuallah Mojaddedi was elected as Afghanistan s elected interim president for two months and then professor Burhanuddin Rabbani a well known Kabul university professor and the leader of Jamiat e Islami party of Mujahiddin who fought against Russians during the occupation was chosen by all of the Jahadi leaders except Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Rabbani reigned as the official and elected president of Afghanistan by Shurai Mujahiddin Peshawer Peshawer Mujahiddin Council from 1992 until 2001 when he officially handed over the presidency post to Hamid Karzai the next US appointed interim president During Rabbani s presidency some parts of the country including a few provinces in the north such as Mazar e Sharif Jawzjan Faryab Shuburghan and some parts of Baghlan provinces were ruled by general Abdul Rashid Dostum During Rabbani s first five years illegal term before the emergence of the Taliban the eastern and western provinces and some of the northern provinces such as Badakhshan Takhar Kunduz the main parts of Baghlan Province and some parts of Kandahar and other southern provinces were under the control of the central government while the other parts of southern provinces did not obey him because of his Tajik ethnicity During the 9 year presidency of Burhanuddin Rabani Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was directed funded and supplied by the Pakistani army 161 Afghanistan analyst Amin Saikal concludes in his book Modern Afghanistan A History of Struggle and Survival Pakistan was keen to gear up for a breakthrough in Central Asia Islamabad could not possibly expect the new Islamic government leaders to subordinate their own nationalist objectives in order to help Pakistan realize its regional ambitions Had it not been for the ISI s logistic support and supply of a large number of rockets Hekmatyar s forces would not have been able to target and destroy half of Kabul 162 There was no time for the interim government to create working government departments police units or a system of justice and accountability Saudi Arabia and Iran also armed and directed Afghan militias 136 A publication by the George Washington University describes O utside forces saw instability in Afghanistan as an opportunity to press their own security and political agendas 163 According to Human Rights Watch numerous Iranian agents were assisting the Shia Hezb i Wahdat forces of Abdul Ali Mazari as Iran was attempting to maximize Wahdat s military power and influence 136 164 165 Saudi Arabia was trying to strengthen the Wahhabite Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad i Islami faction 136 164 Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos as described in reports by Human Rights Watch and the Afghanistan Justice Project 164 166 Again Human Rights Watch writes Rare ceasefires usually negotiated by representatives of Ahmad Shah Massoud Sibghatullah Mojaddedi or Burhanuddin Rabbani the interim government or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC commonly collapsed within days 164 The main forces involved during that period in Kabul northern central and eastern Afghanistan were the Hezb i Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar directed by Pakistan the Hezb i Wahdat of Abdul Ali Mazari directed by Iran the Ittehad i Islami of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf supported by Saudi Arabia the Junbish i Milli of Abdul Rashid Dostum backed by Uzbekisten the Harakat i Islami of Hussain Anwari and the Shura i Nazar operating as the regular Islamic State forces as agreed upon in the Peshawar Accords under the Defence Ministry of Ahmad Shah Massoud Meanwhile the southern city of Kandahar was a centre of lawlessness crime and atrocities fuelled by complex Pashtun tribal rivalries 167 In 1994 the Taliban a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema e Islam run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan also developed in Afghanistan as a politico religious force reportedly in opposition to the tyranny of the local governor 167 Mullah Omar started his movement with fewer than 50 armed madrassah students in his hometown of Kandahar 167 As Gulbuddin Hekmatyar remained unsuccessful in conquering Kabul Pakistan started supporting the Taliban 136 168 Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan s regional interests 136 In 1994 the Taliban took power in several provinces in southern and central Afghanistan In 1995 the Hezb i Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar the Iranian backed Hezb i Wahdat as well as Rashid Dostum s Junbish forces were defeated militarily in the capital Kabul by forces of the interim government under Massoud who subsequently tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections also inviting the Taliban to join the process 169 The Taliban declined 169 Taliban and the United Front 1996 2001 edit Main articles Taliban History of the Taliban Northern Alliance Afghan training camp and Afghan Civil War 1996 2001 nbsp Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf sent more troops against the United Front of Ahmad Shah Massoud than the Afghan Taliban nbsp Map of the situation in Afghanistan in late 1996 Massoud red Dostum green and Taliban yellow territories nbsp Ethno linguistic map of Afghanistan 1997 nbsp Map of the situation in Afghanistan in August 2001 until October 2001The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were defeated by forces of the Islamic State government under Ahmad Shah Massoud 170 Amnesty International referring to the Taliban offensive wrote in a 1995 report This is the first time in several months that Kabul civilians have become the targets of rocket attacks and shelling aimed at residential areas in the city 170 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 171 The Taliban seized Kabul on September 27 1996 and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan They imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their political and judicial interpretation of Islam issuing edicts forbidding women from working outside the home attending school or leaving their homes unless accompanied by a male relative 172 Physicians for Human Rights PHR said To PHR s knowledge no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment 172 After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on September 27 1996 173 Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum two former enemies created the United Front Northern Alliance against the Taliban who were preparing offensives against the remaining areas under the control of Massoud and Dostum 174 The United Front included beside the dominantly Tajik forces of Massoud and the Uzbek forces of Dostum Hazara factions and Pashtun forces under the leadership of commanders such as Abdul Haq Haji Abdul Qadir Qari Baba or diplomat Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai From the Taliban conquest in 1996 until November 2001 the United Front controlled roughly 30 of Afghanistan s population in provinces such as Badakhshan Kapisa Takhar and parts of Parwan Kunar Nuristan Laghman Samangan Kunduz Ghōr and Bamyan According to a 55 page report by the United Nations the Taliban while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan committed systematic massacres against civilians 175 176 UN officials stated that there had been 15 massacres between 1996 and 2001 175 176 They also said that t hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the Taliban Ministry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself 175 176 The Taliban especially targeted people of Shia religious or Hazara ethnic background 175 176 Upon taking Mazar i Sharif in 1998 about 4 000 civilians were executed by the Taliban and many more reported torture 177 178 Among those killed in Mazari Sharif were several Iranian diplomats Others were kidnapped by the Taliban touching off a hostage crisis that nearly escalated to a full scale war with 150 000 Iranian soldiers massed on the Afghan border at one time 179 It was later admitted that the diplomats were killed by the Taliban and their bodies were returned to Iran 180 The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings 175 176 Osama bin Laden s so called 055 Brigade was responsible for mass killings of Afghan civilians 181 The report by the United Nations quotes eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people 175 176 Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf then as Chief of Army Staff was responsible for sending thousands of Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and Bin Laden against the forces of Massoud 168 169 182 183 In total there were believed to be 28 000 Pakistani nationals fighting inside Afghanistan 169 20 000 were regular Pakistani soldiers either from the Frontier Corps or army and an estimated 8 000 were militants recruited in madrassas filling regular Taliban ranks 181 The estimated 25 000 Taliban regular force thus comprised more than 8 000 Pakistani nationals 181 A 1998 document by the U S State Department confirms that 20 40 percent of regular Taliban soldiers are Pakistani 168 The document further states that the parents of those Pakistani nationals know nothing regarding their child s military involvement with the Taliban until their bodies are brought back to Pakistan 168 A further 3 000 fighter of the regular Taliban army were Arab and Central Asian militants 181 From 1996 to 2001 the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri became a state within the Taliban state 184 Bin Laden sent Arab recruits to join the fight against the United Front 184 185 Of roughly 45 000 Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers fighting against the forces of Massoud only 14 000 were Afghan 169 181 According to Human Rights Watch in 1997 Taliban soldiers were summarily executed in and around Mazar i Sharif by Dostum s Junbish forces 186 Dostum was defeated by the Taliban in 1998 with the fall of Mazar i Sharif Massoud remained the only leader of the United Front in Afghanistan In the areas under his control Ahmad Shah Massoud set up democratic institutions and signed the Women s Rights Charter 187 Human Rights Watch cites no human rights crimes for the forces under direct control of Massoud for the period from October 1996 until the assassination of Massoud in September 2001 186 As a consequence many civilians fled to the area of Ahmad Shah Massoud 182 188 National Geographic concluded in its documentary Inside the Taliban The only thing standing in the way of future Taliban massacres is Ahmad Shah Massoud 182 The Taliban repeatedly offered Massoud a position of power to make him stop his resistance Massoud declined for he did not fight to obtain a position of power He said in one interview The Taliban say Come and accept the post of prime minister and be with us and they would keep the highest office in the country the presidentship But for what price The difference between us concerns mainly our way of thinking about the very principles of the society and the state We can not accept their conditions of compromise or else we would have to give up the principles of modern democracy We are fundamentally against the system called the Emirate of Afghanistan 189 and There should be an Afghanistan where every Afghan finds himself or herself happy And I think that can only be assured by democracy based on consensus 190 Massoud wanted to convince the Taliban to join a political process leading towards democratic elections in a foreseeable future 189 Massoud stated that The Taliban are not a force to be considered invincible They are distanced from the people now They are weaker than in the past There is only the assistance given by Pakistan Osama bin Laden and other extremist groups that keep the Taliban on their feet With a halt to that assistance it is extremely difficult to survive 190 In early 2001 Massoud employed a new strategy of local military pressure and global political appeals 191 Resentment was increasingly gathering against Taliban rule from the bottom of Afghan society including the Pashtun areas 191 Massoud publicized their cause popular consensus general elections and democracy worldwide At the same time he was very wary not to revive the failed Kabul government of the early 1990s 191 Already in 1999 he started the training of police forces which he trained specifically to keep order and protect the civilian population in case the United Front would be successful 169 In early 2001 Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan 192 He stated that the Taliban and Al Qaeda had introduced a very wrong perception of Islam and that without the support of Pakistan the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year 192 NATO s presence the Emergency Loya Jirga the Taliban s takeover and the Panjshir uprising edit Further information Presidency of Hamid Karzai Taliban insurgency Operation Enduring Freedom War in Afghanistan 2001 2021 and Panjshir conflict nbsp Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaking before U S Congress in June 2004On 9 September 2001 Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers inside Afghanistan Two days later about 3 000 people became victims of the September 11 attacks in the United States when Afghan based Al Qaeda suicide bombers hijacked planes and flew them into four targets in the Northeastern United States Then US President George W Bush accused Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the faces behind the attacks When the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden to US authorities and to disband al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in which teams of American and British special forces worked with commanders of the United Front Northern Alliance against the Taliban 193 At the same time the US led forces were bombing Taliban and al Qaeda targets everywhere inside Afghanistan with cruise missiles These actions led to the fall of Mazar i Sharif in the north followed by all the other cities as the Taliban and al Qaeda crossed over the porous Durand Line border into Pakistan In December 2001 after the Taliban government was toppled and the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai was formed the International Security Assistance Force ISAF was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security to the Afghan people 194 195 The majority of Afghans supported the American invasion of their country 196 197 nbsp Soldiers of the Afghan National Army in 2010 including the ANA Commando Battalion standing in the front While the Taliban began regrouping inside Pakistan the rebuilding of war torn Afghanistan kicked off in 2002 see also War in Afghanistan 2001 2021 198 199 The Afghan nation was able to build democratic structures over the years by the creation of an emergency loya jirga to set up the modern Afghan government and some progress was made in key areas such as governance economy health education transport and agriculture NATO had been training the Afghan armed forces as well its national police ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them By 2009 a Taliban led shadow government began to form in many parts of the country complete with their own version of mediation court 200 After U S President Barack Obama announced the deployment of another 30 000 soldiers in 2010 for a period of two years Der Spiegel published images of the US soldiers who killed unarmed Afghan civilians 201 In 2009 the United States resettled 328 refugees from Afghanistan 202 Over five million Afghan refugees were repatriated in the last decade including many who were forcefully deported from NATO countries 203 204 This large return of Afghans may have helped the nation s economy but the country still remains one of the poorest in the world due to the decades of war lack of foreign investment ongoing government corruption and the Pakistani backed Taliban insurgency 205 206 The United States also accuses neighboring Iran of providing small level of support to the Taliban insurgents 207 208 209 According to a report by the United Nations the Taliban and other militants were responsible for 76 of civilian casualties in 2009 210 75 in 2010 211 and 80 in 2011 212 nbsp NATO s military terminal at Kabul International AirportIn October 2008 U S Defense Secretary Gates had asserted that a political settlement with the Taliban was the endgame for the Afghanistan war There has to be ultimately and I ll underscore ultimately reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this Gates stated 213 By 2010 peace efforts began In early January Taliban commanders held secret exploratory talks with a United Nations special envoy to discuss peace terms Regional commanders on the Taliban s leadership council the Quetta Shura sought a meeting with the UN special representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide and it took place in Dubai on January 8 It was the first such meeting between the UN and senior members of the Taliban 214 On 26 January 2010 at a major conference in London which brought together some 70 countries and organizations 215 Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he intends to reach out to the Taliban leadership including Mullah Omar Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Supported by NATO Karzai called on the group s leadership to take part in a loya jirga meeting to initiate peace talks These steps have resulted in an intensification of bombings assassinations and ambushes 216 Some Afghan groups including the former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh and opposition leader Dr Abdullah Abdullah believe that Karzai plans to appease the insurgents senior leadership at the cost of the democratic constitution the democratic process and progress in the field of human rights especially women s rights 217 Dr Abdullah stated I should say that Taliban are not fighting in order to be accommodated They are fighting in order to bring the state down So it s a futile exercise and it s just misleading There are groups that will fight to the death Whether we like to talk to them or we don t like to talk to them they will continue to fight So for them I don t think that we have a way forward with talks or negotiations or contacts or anything as such Then we have to be prepared to tackle and deal with them militarily In terms of the Taliban on the ground there are lots of possibilities and opportunities that with the help of the people in different parts of the country we can attract them to the peace process provided we create a favorable environment on this side of the line At the moment the people are leaving support for the government because of corruption So that expectation is also not realistic at this stage 218 nbsp From left to right Abdullah Abdullah John Kerry and Ashraf Ghani during the 2014 Afghan presidential electionAfghan President Hamid Karzai told world leaders during the London conference that he intends to reach out to the top echelons of the Taliban within a few weeks with a peace initiative 219 Karzai set the framework for dialogue with Taliban leaders when he called on the group s leadership to take part in a loya jirga or large assembly of elders to initiate peace talks 220 Karzai also asked for creation of a new peacemaking organization to be called the National Council for Peace Reconciliation and Reintegration 219 Karzai s top adviser on the reconciliation process with the insurgents said that the country must learn to forgive the Taliban 221 In March 2010 the Karzai government held preliminary talks with Hezb i Islami who presented a plan which included the withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of 2010 The Taliban declined to participate saying The Islamic Emirate has a clear position We have said this many many times There will be no talks when there are foreign troops on Afghanistan s soil killing innocent Afghans on daily basis 222 In June 2010 the Afghan Peace Jirga 2010 took place In September 2010 General David Petraeus commented on the progress of peace talks to date stating The prospect for reconciliation with senior Taliban leaders certainly looms out there and there have been approaches at a very senior level that hold some promise 223 After the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan many prominent Afghan figures began being assassinated including Mohammed Daud Daud Ahmad Wali Karzai Jan Mohammad Khan Ghulam Haider Hamidi Burhanuddin Rabbani and others 224 Also in the same year the Pakistani Afghan border skirmishes intensified and many large scale attacks by the Pakistani based Haqqani network took place across Afghanistan This led to the United States warning Pakistan of a possible military action against the Haqqanis in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas 225 The U S blamed Pakistan s government mainly Pakistani Army and its ISI spy network as the masterminds behind all of this 226 In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy the government of Pakistan and most especially the Pakistani army and ISI jeopardizes not only the prospect of our strategic partnership but Pakistan s opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence They may believe that by using these proxies they are hedging their bets or redressing what they feel is an imbalance in regional power But in reality they have already lost that bet 227 Admiral Mike Mullen Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff The U S ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter told Radio Pakistan that The attack that took place in Kabul a few days ago that was the work of the Haqqani network There is evidence linking the Haqqani Network to the Pakistan government This is something that must stop 228 Other top U S officials such as Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta made similar statements 226 229 On October 16 2011 Operation Knife Edge was launched by NATO and Afghan forces against the Haqqani network in south eastern Afghanistan Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak explained that the operation will help eliminate the insurgents before they struck in areas along the troubled frontier 230 In November 2011 NATO forces attacked Pakistani soldiers in the Pakistan border region In 2014 Ashraf Ghani was elected to be the president of Afghanistan nbsp Taliban fighters patrolling Kabul in a Humvee 17 August 2021In 2021 the United States forces and allies withdrew from Afghanistan which allowed the Taliban to intensify their insurgency On 15 August 2021 as the Taliban entered Kabul President Ghani fled to Tajikistan and the U S backed Afghan government collapsed 231 Anti Taliban forces formed the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan and launched an uprising from the Panjshir Valley 232 On 7 September 2021 Taliban announced an interim government headed by Mohammad Hassan Akhund 233 although the government remained unrecognized internationally Western countries have suspended most humanitarian aid to Afghanistan following the Taliban s takeover of the country in August 2021 234 The United States has frozen about 9 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank 235 blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U S bank accounts 236 237 In October 2021 more than half of Afghanistan s 39 million people faced an acute food shortage 238 On 11 November 2021 the Human Rights Watch reported that Afghanistan is facing widespread famine due to collapsed economy and broken banking system The UN World Food Program has also issued multiple warnings of worsening food insecurity 239 See also editFall of Kabul 2021 Invasions of Afghanistan List of Pashtun empires and dynasties List of heads of state of Afghanistan Politics of Afghanistan Timeline of Kabul Timeline of HeratReferences edit Rahimi Mukiib Rahman State Formation in Afghanistan A Theoretical and Political History Bloomsbury Publishing 2017 ISBN missing page needed Hyman Anthony 1984 The Land and the People in History Afghanistan Under Soviet Domination 1964 83 pp 3 22 doi 10 1007 978 1 349 17443 0 1 ISBN 978 0 333 36353 9 Griffin Luke 14 January 2002 The Pre Islamic Period Afghanistan Country Study Illinois Institute of Technology Archived from the original on 3 November 2001 Retrieved 14 October 2010 Denise Cush Catherine Robinson Michael York 2012 Encyclopedia of Hinduism Routledge p 200 ISBN 9781135189792 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link The remarkable rugs of war Drill Hall Gallery The Australian 30 July 2021 Archived from the original on 22 November 2021 Retrieved 22 November 2021 Professing Faith Religious traditions in Afghanistan are diverse 16 September 2021 Afghanistan the land that forgot time The Guardian 26 October 2001 Pepe Escobar 30 September 2021 The Pashtun will outlast all empires but can they hold Afghanistan s center Archived from the original on 10 October 2021 Retrieved 7 May 2023 DŌST MOḤAMMAD KHAN Encyclopaedia Iranica 1995 Retrieved February 8 2023 Watkins Andrew H November 2021 Cruickshank Paul Hummel Kristina eds An Assessment of Taliban Rule at Three Months PDF CTC Sentinel West Point New York Combating Terrorism Center 14 9 1 14 Archived PDF from the original on 29 November 2021 Retrieved 29 November 2021 Who Will Run the Taliban Government www crisisgroup org 2021 09 09 Retrieved 2022 10 18 The Taliban Unrecognized and unrepentant Middle East Institute Retrieved 2022 10 18 Langer William L ed 1972 An Encyclopedia of World History 5th ed Boston MA Houghton Mifflin Company pp 9 ISBN 0 395 13592 3 a b Shroder John Ford 2006 Afghanistan Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia Microsoft Corporation Archived from the original on 2009 10 31 Retrieved 2009 10 31 Baxter Craig 1995 Historical Setting pp 90 120 page 91 In Gladstone Cary 2001 Afghanistan revisited Nova Science Publications New York ISBN 1 59033 421 3 Lendering Jona 11 August 2020 Gandara Livius W Vogelsang Gandahar in The Circle Of Ancient Iranian Studies E Herzfeld The Persian Empire Studies on Geography and Ethnography of the Ancient Near East ed G Walser Wiesbaden 1968 pp 279 293 94 336 38 345 Dupree Nancy Hatch 1977 An Historical Guide To Afghanistan Chapter 3 Sites in Perspective 2 ed United States Afghan Air Authority Afghan Tourist Organization p 492 Retrieved 2010 08 22 a b Mallory J P 1997 BMAC Encyclopedia of Indo European culture London Fitzroy Dearborn ISBN 1 884964 98 2 Francfort H P 2005 La civilisation de l Oxus et les Indo iraniens et les Indo aryens en Asie centrale In Fussman G et al 2005 Aryas Aryens et Iraniens en Asie Centrale Paris de Boccard pp 276 285 ISBN 2 86803 072 6 Wright Rita P 2009 The Ancient Indus Urbanism Economy and Society Cambridge University Press p 1 ISBN 9780521576529 Kenoyer Jonathan Mark 1998 Ancient cities of the Indus Valley Civilization pp 96 Peeping through the past Prof G R Sharma memorial volume Dept of Ancient History Culture amp Archaeology University of Allahabad pp 124 129 Neelis Jason 19 November 2010 Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks Mobility and Exchange Within and Beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia BRILL p 232 ISBN 978 90 04 18159 5 Eggermont Pierre Herman Leonard 1975 Alexander s Campaigns in Sind and Baluchistan and the Siege of the Brahmin Town of Harmatelia Peeters Publishers pp 175 177 ISBN 978 90 6186 037 2 Prakash Buddha 1951 Poros Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 32 1 198 233 JSTOR 41784590 Retrieved 12 June 2022 Jain Kailash Chand 1972 Malwa Through the Ages Delhi India Motilal Banarsidass pp 98 104 ISBN 978 8 120 80824 9 Young T Cuyler 1988 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coins were struck in gold and silver in the name of Muhammad b Sam Tanner Stephen 2003 Afghanistan A Military History From Alexander The Great To The Fall Of The Taliban DA CAPO PRESS pp 81 82 ISBN 9780585482132 Periods of World History A Latin American Perspective Page 129 The Empire of the Steppes A History of Central Asia Page 465 Babur Nama translated by Nette Beverage Sang e Meel Publications Lahore 1979 Taliban Militant Islam Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia 2nd ed Rashid Ahmed Introduction page 9 Yale University Press Ross Marlay Clark D Neher Patriots and Tyrants Ten Asian Leaders pp 269 ISBN 0 8476 8442 3 Otfinoski Steven Bruce 2004 Afghanistan Infobase Publishing p 130 ISBN 0 8160 5056 2 Retrieved 2010 09 27 Afghan Leaders Yearbook Afghanistan main interactive web site made by Afghans for Afghans www afghanembassy com Archived from the original on 18 March 2013 Retrieved 17 January 2022 Runion Meredith L The History of Afghanistan p 63 at Google Books Malleson George 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24 a b Until His Assassination In A D 1747 Edward Granville Browne London Packard Humanities Institute p 33 Archived from the original on 2016 03 04 Retrieved 2010 09 24 Afghanistan Central Intelligence Agency CIA United States The World Factbook Retrieved 2010 08 16 Friedrich Engels 1857 Afghanistan Andy Blunden The New American Cyclopaedia Vol I Retrieved 2010 08 25 Nalwa V 2009 Hari Singh Nalwa Champion of the Khalsaji New Delhi Manohar p 18 ISBN 81 7304 785 5 Nalwa V 2009 Hari Singh Nalwa Champion of the Khalsaji New Delhi Manohar p 198 ISBN 81 7304 785 5 archive org Sale s brigade in Afghanistan with an account of the seizure and defence of Jellalabad by Gleig G R George Robert 1796 1888 London John Murray 1846 Tanner Stephen 2002 Afghanistan A Military History From Alexander The Great To The Fall Of The Taliban reprint ed Da Capo Press published 2003 p 218 ISBN 9780306812330 Retrieved 14 December 2020 Abdur Rahman had meanwhile become known as the Iron Emir for his ruthless 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The Soviet Afghan War Breaking the Hammer amp Sickle PDF Archived from the original PDF on June 17 2010 Afghanistan Lcweb2 loc gov Retrieved 2010 11 14 2AFGHAN www hrw org Retrieved 2022 01 24 Benjamin A Valentino Final Solutions Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century Cornell University Press 2004 p 219 ISBN 0 8014 3965 5 Kaplan Robert D Soldiers of God With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan New York Vintage Departures 2001 p 115 Kabul s prison of death Archived 2017 06 05 at the Wayback Machine BBC February 27 2006 Afghanistan Berkley Center for Religion Peace and World Affairs Archived from the original on 2011 02 05 Retrieved 2011 12 01 How the CIA created Osama bin Laden greenleft 2001 Putting Empires at Rest Al Ahram Democracy 2010 dead link Story of US CIA and Taliban The Brunei Times 2009 Archived from the original on 2013 12 05 The Cost of an Afghan Victory The Nation 1999 Archived from the original on 2014 03 02 Retrieved 2010 11 23 Reisman W Michael Norchi Charles H Genocide and the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan PDF Archived from the original PDF on 26 October 2016 Retrieved 7 January 2017 W Michael Reisman is Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and a member of the Independent Counsel on International Human Rights Reisman W Michael Norchi Charles Genocide and the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan PDF Archived from the original PDF on 26 October 2016 Retrieved 7 January 2017 Charles Norchi a Visiting Scholar at Yale Law School directed the Independent Counsel on International Human Rights with the Committee for a Free Afghanistan Kakar Mohammed 3 March 1997 The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response 1979 1982 University of California Press ISBN 9780520208933 The Afghans are among the latest victims of genocide by a superpower Large numbers of Afghans were killed to suppress resistance to the army of the Soviet Union which wished to vindicate its client regime and realize its goal in Afghanistan Reisman W Michael Norchi Charles H Genocide and the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan PDF Archived from the original PDF on 26 October 2016 Retrieved 7 January 2017 According to widely reported accounts substantial programmes of depopulation have been conducted in these Afghan provinces Ghazni Nagarhar Lagham Qandahar Zabul Badakhshan Lowgar Paktia Paktika and Kunar There is considerable evidence that genocide has been committed against the Afghan people by the combined forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union Lacina Bethany Gleditsch Nils Petter 2005 Monitoring Trends in Global Combat A New Dataset of Battle Deaths PDF European Journal of Population 21 2 3 154 doi 10 1007 s10680 005 6851 6 S2CID 14344770 Archived from the original PDF on 2014 10 06 Retrieved 2017 03 01 Klass Rosanne 1994 The Widening Circle of Genocide Transaction Publishers p 129 ISBN 9781412839655 During the intervening fourteen years of Communist rule an estimated 1 5 to 2 million Afghan civilians were killed by Soviet forces and their proxies the four Communist regimes in Kabul and the East Germans Bulgarians Czechs Cubans Palestinians Indians and others who assisted them These were not battle casualties or the unavoidable civilian victims of warfare Soviet and local Communist forces seldom attacked the scattered guerilla bands of the Afghan Resistance except in a few strategic locales like the Panjsher valley Instead they deliberately targeted the civilian population primarily in the rural areas Goodson Larry P 2001 Afghanistan s Endless War State Failure Regional Politics and the Rise of the Taliban University of Washington Press pp 5 ISBN 9780295980508 2 million afghans killed soviet The War Chronicles From Flintlocks to Machine Guns Fair Winds 2009 p 393 ISBN 9781616734046 A final weapon of terror the Soviets used against the mujahideen was the abduction of Afghan women Soldiers flying in helicopters would scan for women working in the fields in the absence of their men land and take the women captive Russian soldiers in the city of Kabul would also steal young women The object was rape although sometimes the women were killed as well The women who returned home were often considered dishonored for life Kakar M Hassan 1995 The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response 1979 1982 University of California Press ISBN 9780520208933 While military operations in the country were going on women were abducted While flying in the country in search of mujahideen helicopters would land in fields where women were spotted While Afghan women do mainly domestic chores they also work in fields assisting their husbands or performing tasks by themselves The women were now exposed to the Russians who kidnapped them with helicopters By November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country including Laghman and Kama In the city of Kabul too the Russians kidnapped women taking them away in tanks and other vehicles especially after dark Such incidents happened mainly in the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana near the Soviet garrisons At times such acts were committed even during the day KhAD agents also did the same Small groups of them would pick up young women in the streets apparently to question them but in reality to satisfy their lust in the name of security they had the power to commit excesses Refugee Admissions Program for Near East and South Asia Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration Brathwaite Rodric 2013 Afgantsy The Russians in Afghanistan 1979 89 Oxford University Press p 232 ISBN 9780199322480 2 Archived 2021 08 17 at the Wayback Machine Columbia Encyclopedia Afghanistan History Nasir Abbas 18 August 2015 The legacy of Pakistan s loved and loathed Hamid Gul Al Jazeera Retrieved 4 January 2017 His commitment to jihad to an Islamic revolution transcending national boundaries was such that he dreamed one day the green Islamic flag would flutter not just over Pakistan and Afghanistan but also over territories represented by the former Soviet Union Central Asian republics After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan as the director general of the Pakistan s intelligence organisation Inter Services Intelligence ISI directorate an impatient Gul and West wanted to establish a government of the so called Mujahideen on Afghan soil in order to recognise it He then ordered an assault using mujahideen leaders on Jalalabad the first major urban centre across the Khyber Pass from Pakistan with the aim capturing it and declaring it as the seat of the new administration Neamatollah Nojumi The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan Mass Mobilization Civil War and the Future of the Region 2002 1st ed Palgrave New York Amin Saikal 13 November 2004 Modern Afghanistan A History of Struggle and Survival 2006 1st ed I B Tauris amp Co Ltd London New York p 352 ISBN 1 85043 437 9 The September 11 Sourcebooks Volume VII The Taliban File gwu edu 2003 a b c d Blood Stained Hands Past Atrocities in Kabul and 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Deliberate and Arbitrary Killings Civilians in Kabul 16 November 1995 Accessed at Afghanistan Further information on fear for safety and new concern Deliberate and arbitrary killings Civilians in Kabul 16 November 1995 Retrieved 2014 10 18 Coll Ghost Wars New York Penguin 2005 14 a b The Taliban s War on Women A Health and Human Rights Crisis in Afghanistan PDF Physicians for Human Rights 1998 Archived from the original PDF on 2007 07 02 Retrieved 2010 11 23 Afghan rebels seize capital hang former president CNN News 1996 07 27 Archived from the original on 8 October 2008 Massoud s last stand against the Taliban Archived 2009 09 27 at the Wayback Machine on YouTube a b c d e f Newsday October 2001 Taliban massacres outlined for UN Chicago Tribune a b c d e f Newsday 2001 Confidential UN report details mass killings of civilian villagers newsday org Archived from the original on November 18 2002 Retrieved October 12 2001 Afghanistan Situation in or around Aqcha Jawzjan province including 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Taliban The Guardian London Retrieved 9 February 2010 Aziakou Gerard 27 January 2010 AFP UN chief names new envoy to Afghanistan Retrieved 9 February 2010 Trofimov Yaroslav September 11 2010 Karzai Divides Afghanistan in Reaching Out to Taliban The Wall Street Journal Retrieved September 11 2010 Starkey Jerome September 30 2010 Karzai s Taleban talks raise spectre of civil war warns former spy chief The Scotsman Edinburgh Abdullah Abdullah Talks With Taliban Futile National Public Radio NPR October 22 2010 a b Richter Paul 29 January 2010 U S cool to Karzai plan on Taliban Los Angeles Times Retrieved 9 February 2010 Hamid Shalizi and Abdul Malek 29 January 2010 Taliban say no decision yet on Karzai offer of talks Reuters Retrieved 9 February 2010 Shah Saeed Afghan government pursues talks with Taliban leaders World AP MiamiHerald com Retrieved 9 February 2010 dead link Taliban say not involved in Kabul peace talks Reuters 23 March 2010 Retrieved 25 March 2010 Gates Says U S Forces in Afghanistan for Years to Come Fox News 2 September 2010 Retrieved 4 September 2010 President Karzai Address to the Nation on Afghanistan s Peace Efforts The Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington DC Archived from the original on October 12 2011 Retrieved October 10 2011 Panetta U S will pursue Pakistan based militants USA Today September 2011 Archived from the original on 2016 03 05 Retrieved 2011 09 21 a b U S blames Pakistan agency in Kabul attack Reuters September 22 2011 Archived from the original on 2011 09 25 Retrieved 2011 09 22 Pakistan condemns US comments about spy agency Associated Press September 23 2011 Retrieved 2011 09 23 U S links Pakistan to group it blames for Kabul attack Reuters September 17 2011 Archived from the original on 2015 09 24 Retrieved 2011 09 21 Clinton Presses Pakistan to Help Fight Haqqani Insurgent Group Fox News September 18 2011 Retrieved 2011 09 21 Sharifzada Jawad October 18 2011 Push launched against Haqqanis in border areas Pajhwok Afghan News Gall Carlotta Khapalwak Ruhullah 2021 08 15 Afghanistan Live Updates Government Collapses as President Flees and Taliban Enter Kabul The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 2021 08 15 Anti Taliban resistance group says it has thousands of fighters BBC News 2021 08 23 Retrieved 2021 08 29 Taliban announce new government for Afghanistan BBC News 7 September 2021 Afghanistan Can the Taliban avert a food crisis without foreign aid Deutsche Welle 11 November 2021 Taliban blames U S as 1 million Afghan kids face death by starvation CBS News 20 October 2021 Is the United States Driving Afghanistan Toward Famine The New York Times 29 October 2021 Afghanistan s hunger crisis is a problem the U S can fix MSNBC 10 November 2021 Countdown to catastrophe half of Afghans face hunger this winter UN The Guardian 25 October 2021 Afghanistan Facing Famine UN World Bank US Should Adjust Sanctions Economic Policies Human Rights Watch 11 November 2021 Further reading editMain article Bibliography of Afghanistan Further information Bibliography of the history of Central Asia Adamec Ludwig W Historical dictionary of Afghanistan Scarecrow Press 2011 Adamec Ludwig W Historical dictionary of Afghan wars revolutions and insurgencies Scarecrow Press 2005 Adamec Ludwig W Afghanistan s foreign affairs to the mid twentieth century relations with the USSR Germany and Britain University of Arizona Press 1974 Banting Erinn Afghanistan the People Crabtree Publishing Company 2003 ISBN 0 7787 9336 2 Barfield Thomas Afghanistan A Cultural and Political History Princeton U P 2010 excerpt and text search Archived 2017 02 05 at the Wayback Machine Bleaney C H Maria Angeles Gallego Afghanistan a bibliography Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Brill 2006 ISBN 90 04 14532 X Caroe Olaf 1958 The Pathans 500 B C A D 1957 Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints Oxford University Press 1983 ISBN 0 19 577221 0 Clements Frank Conflict in Afghanistan a historical encyclopedia Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine ABC CLIO 2003 ISBN 1 85109 402 4 Dupree Louis Afghanistan Princeton University Press 1973 ISBN 0 691 03006 5 Dupree Nancy Hatch An Historical Guide to Afghanistan Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine 2nd Edition Revised and Enlarged Afghan Air Authority Afghan Tourist Organization 1977 Ewans Martin Afghanistan a new history Routledge 2013 Fowler Corinne Chasing tales travel writing journalism and the history of British ideas about Afghanistan Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Rodopi 2007 Amsterdam and New York ISBN 90 420 2262 0 Griffiths John C 1981 Afghanistan a history of conflict Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Carlton Books 2001 ISBN 1 84222 597 9 Gommans Jos J L The rise of the Indo Afghan empire c 1710 1780 Brill 1995 ISBN 90 04 10109 8 Gregorian Vartan The emergence of modern Afghanistan politics of reform and modernization 1880 1946 Stanford University Press 1969 ISBN 0 8047 0706 5 Habibi Abdul Hai Afghanistan An Abridged History Fenestra Books 2003 ISBN 1 58736 169 8 Harmatta Janos History of Civilizations of Central Asia The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B C to A D 250 Motilal Banarsidass Publ 1999 ISBN 81 208 1408 8 Hiebert Fredrik Talmage Afghanistan hidden treasures from the National Museum Kabul National Geographic Society 2008 ISBN 1 4262 0295 4 Hill John E 2003 Annotated Translation of the Chapter on the Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu 2nd Draft Edition The Han Histories Depts washington edu Archived from the original on 2006 04 26 Retrieved 2010 01 31 Holt Frank Into the Land of Bones Alexander the Great in Afghanistan University of California Press 2006 ISBN 0 520 24993 3 Hopkins B D 2008 The Making of Modern Afghanistan Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Palgrave Macmillan 2008 ISBN 0 230 55421 0 Jabeen Mussarat Prof Dr Muhammad Saleem Mazhar and Naheed S Goraya US Afghan Relations A Historical Perspective of Events of 9 11 South Asian Studies 25 1 2020 Kakar M Hassan A Political and Diplomatic History of Afghanistan 1863 1901 Brill 2006 online Archived 2021 09 09 at the Wayback Machine Malleson George Bruce 1878 History of Afghanistan from the Earliest Period to the Outbreak of the War of 1878 Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Elibron Classic Replica Edition Adamant Media Corporation 2005 ISBN 1 4021 7278 8 Olson Gillia M Afghanistan Capstone Press 2005 ISBN 0 7368 2685 8 Omrani Bijan amp Leeming Matthew Afghanistan A Companion and Guide Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Odyssey Publications 2nd Edition 2011 ISBN 962 217 816 2 Reddy L R Inside Afghanistan end of the Taliban era Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine APH Publishing 2002 ISBN 81 7648 319 2 Romano Amy A Historical Atlas of Afghanistan Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine The Rosen Publishing Group 2003 ISBN 0 8239 3863 8 Runion Meredith L The history of Afghanistan Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Greenwood Publishing Group 2007 ISBN 0 313 33798 5 Saikal Amin A G Ravan Farhadi and Kirill Nourzhanov Modern Afghanistan a history of struggle and survival IB Tauris 2012 Shahrani M Nazif ed Modern Afghanistan The Impact of 40 Years of War Indiana UP 2018 Siddique Abubakar The Pashtun Question The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan Hurst 2014 Tanner Stephen Afghanistan a military history from Alexander the Great to the war against the Taliban Da Capo Press 2009 Wahab Shaista Barry Youngerman A brief history of Afghanistan Infobase Publishing 2007 ISBN 0 8160 5761 3 Vogelsang Willem The Afghans Archived 2022 12 28 at the Wayback Machine Wiley Blackwell 2002 Oxford UK amp Massachusetts US ISBN 0 631 19841 5 Primary sources edit Durand s Curse A Line Across the Pathan Heart by Rajiv Dogra Publisher Rupa Publications India Green Nile ed Afghan History Through Afghan Eyes Oxford University Press 2016 online edition for libraries doi 10 1093 acprof oso 9780190247782 001 0001 Elliot Henry Miers The history of India as told by its own historians The Muhammadan period Elibron com 1952 Volume 8 ISBN 0 543 94714 9 Elphinstone Mountstuart 1819 An account of the kingdom of Caubul and its dependencies in Persia Tartary and India Comprising a view of the Afghaun nation and a history of the Dooraunee monarchy Printed for Longman Hurst Rees Orme and Brown and J Murry 1819 Hill John E 2004 The Peoples of the West from the Weilue 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢 A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265 CE Draft annotated English translation Weilue The Peoples of the West Depts washington edu 2004 05 23 Archived from the original on 2005 03 15 Retrieved 2010 01 31 Levi Peter 1972 The light garden of the angel king journeys in Afghanistan Collins 1972 ISBN 0 00 211042 3 Wood John 1872 A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus New Edition edited by his son with an essay on the Geography of the Valley of the Oxus by Henry Yule John Murray London Gregg Division McGraw Hill 1971 ISBN 0 576 03322 7 External links edit span, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
