Afghanistan, landlocked multiethnic country located in the heart of south-

central Asia. Lying along important trade routes connecting southern and
eastern Asia to Europe and the Middle East, Afghanistan has long been a prize
sought by empire builders, and for millennia great armies have attempted to
subdue it, leaving traces of their efforts in great monuments now fallen to ruin.
The country’s forbidding landscape of deserts and mountains has laid many
imperial ambitions to rest, as has the tireless resistance of its fiercely
independent peoples—so independent that the country has failed to
coalesce into a nation but has instead long endured as a patchwork of
contending ethnic factions and ever-shifting alliances.


 AfghanistanAfghanistanEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The Blue Mosque at Mazār-e Sharīf, Afghanistan.United States Army

The modern boundaries of Afghanistan were established in the late 19th

century in the context of a rivalry between imperial Britain and
tsarist Russia that Rudyard Kipling termed the “Great Game.” Modern
Afghanistan became a pawn in struggles over political ideology and
commercial influence.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, Afghanistan suffered the ruinous effects
of civil war greatly exacerbated by a military invasion and occupation by the
Soviet Union (1979–89). In subsequent armed struggles, a surviving
Afghan communist regime held out against Islamic insurgents (1989–92), and,
following a brief rule by mujahideen groups, an austere movement of religious
students—the Taliban—rose up against the country’s governing parties and
warlords and established a theocratic regime (1996–2001) that soon fell under
the influence of a group of well-funded Islamists led by an exiled Saudi
Arabian, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban regime collapsed in December 2001 in
the wake of a sustained U.S.-dominated military campaign aimed at the
Taliban and fighters of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization. Soon thereafter, anti-
Taliban forces agreed to a period of transitional leadership and an administration
that would lead to a new constitution and the establishment of a democratically
elected government.

The capital of Afghanistan is its largest city, Kabul. A serene city of mosques and
gardens during the storied reign of the emperor Bābur(1526–30), founder of
the Mughal dynasty, and for centuries an important entrepôt on the Silk Road,
Kabul lay in ruins following the long and violent Afghan War. So, too, fared much
of the country, its economy in shambles and its people scattered and
despondent. By the early 21st century an entire generation of Afghans had
come to adulthood knowing nothing but war.

Landlocked
Afghanistan is completely landlocked—the nearest coast lies along the Arabian
Sea, about 300 miles (480 km) to the south—and, because of both its isolation
and its volatile political history, it remains one of the most poorly surveyed areas
of the world. It is bounded to the east and south by Pakistan (including those
areas of Kashmir administered by Pakistan but claimed by India), to the west
by Iran, and to the north by the Central Asian states
of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It also has a short border with
Xinjiang, China, at the end of the long, narrow Vākhān (Wakhan Corridor), in
the extreme northeast. Its overall area is roughly twice that of Norway.

The Hindu Kush

Afghanistan’s shape has been compared to a leaf, of which the Vākhān strip,
nestled high in the Pamirs, forms the stem. The outstanding geographic
feature of Afghanistan is its mountain range, the Hindu Kush.
This formidable range creates the major pitch of Afghanistan from northeast to
southwest and, along with its subsidiary ranges, divides Afghanistan into
three distinct geographic regions, which roughly can be designated as the
central highlands, the northern plains, and the southwestern plateau. When
the Hindu Kush itself reaches a point some 100 miles (160 km) north of
Kabul, it spreads out and continues westward as a series of ranges under the
names of Bābā, Bāyan, Sefīd Kūh (Paropamisus), and others, and each section
in turn sends spurs in different directions. One of these spurs is the Torkestān
Mountains, which extend northwestward. Other important ranges include the
Sīāh Kūh, south of the Harīrūd, and the Ḥeṣār Mountains, which stretch
northward. A number of other ranges, including the Mālmand and Khākbād,
extend to the southwest. On the eastern frontier with Pakistan, several mountain
ranges effectively isolate the interior of the country from the moisture-laden
winds that blow from the Indian Ocean. This accounts for the dryness of the
climate.

Physiographic regions

The central highlands—actually a part of the Himalayan chain—include the

main Hindu Kush range. Its area of about 160,000 square miles (414,000
square km) is a region of deep, narrow valleys and lofty mountains, some peaks
of which rise above 21,000 feet (6,400 metres). High mountain passes,
generally situated between 12,000 and 15,000 feet (3,600 to 4,600 metres)
above sea level, are of great strategic importance and include the Shebar Pass,
located northwest of Kabul where the Bābā Mountains branch out from the
Hindu Kush, and the storied Khyber Pass, which leads to the Indian
subcontinent, on the Pakistan border southeast of Kabul.
The Badakhshān area in the northeastern part of the central highlands is the
location of the epicentres for many of the 50 or so earthquakes that occur in the
country each year.
The northern plains region, north of the central highlands, extends
eastward from the Iranian border to the foothills of the Pamirs, near the
border with Tajikistan. It comprises some 40,000 square miles (103,000
square km) of plains and fertile foothills sloping gently toward the Amu
Darya (the ancient Oxus River). This area is a part of the much larger Central
Asian Steppe, from which it is separated by the Amu Darya. The average
elevation is about 2,000 feet (600 metres). The northern plains region is
intensively cultivated and densely populated. In addition to fertile soils, the
region possesses rich mineral resources, particularly deposits of natural gas.
The south-western plateau, south of the central highlands, is a region of
high plateaus, sandy deserts, and semideserts. The average elevation is about
3,000 feet (900 metres). The southwestern plateau covers about 50,000 square
miles (130,000 square km), one-fourth of which forms the
sandy Rīgestān region. The smaller Mārgow Desert of salt flats and desolate
steppe lies west of Rīgestān. Several large rivers cross the southwestern plateau;
among them are the Helmand River and its major tributary, the Arghandāb.
Most of Afghanistan lies between 2,000 and 10,000 feet (600 and 3,000 metres)
in elevation. Along the Amu Darya in the north and the delta of the
Helmand River in the southwest, the elevation is about 2,000 feet (600
metres). The Sīstān depression of the southwestern plateau is roughly 1,500
to 1,700 feet (450 to 500 metres) in elevation.

Hindu Kush
Hindu Kush, great mountain system of Central Asia. Broadly defined, it is some
500 miles (800 km) long and as wide as 150 miles (240 km).
The Hindu Kush is one of the great watersheds of Central Asia, forming part of
the vast Alpine zone that stretches across Eurasia from east to west. It runs
northeast to southwest and divides the valley of the Amu Darya (the ancient
Oxus River) to the north from the Indus River valley to the south. To the
east the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir range near the point where the
borders of China, Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, and Afghanistan meet, after
which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan, finally merging
into minor ranges in western Afghanistan. The highest peak is Mount Tirich
Mir, which rises near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to 25,230 feet (7,690
metres).

It was through the high passes of the Hindu Kush in about 1500 BC that invaders
from Central Asia brought their Indo-European language—a forerunner of
the Indo-Iranian languages spoken throughout the region today. Historically, the
passes have been of great military significance, providing access to the
northern plains of India for such conquerors as Alexander the Great, the king
of Macedonia; the Mongols Genghis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane); and their
descendant Babur, the first Mughal emperor. During the period of British rule in
India, the Indian government was keenly concerned with the security both of
these passes and of an associated physical feature to the south, the Khyber
Pass. The Hindu Kush range has rarely constituted the frontier between major
powers but has usually formed part of an intermediate buffer zone. The name
Hindu Kush derives from the Arabic for “Mountains of India.” Its earliest known
usage occurs on a map published about AD1000.

Physical Features of The Hindu Kush

The eastern limit of the Hindu Kush is difficult to determine because of a locally
complex topography, although the Karambar Pass (14,250 feet [4,343 metres])
between the valleys of the Konar (called the Kunar or Chitral in Pakistan) and
Gilgit rivers may be tentatively accepted as the boundary. The western limit
also is uncertain, as the mountains lose height and fan out into minor ranges
in Afghanistan. Geologists, however, consider the Hindu Kush range to extend
much farther west to the Iranian border.

Physiography

The Hindu Kush may be divided into three main sections: the eastern Hindu
Kush, which runs from the Karambar Pass in the east to the Dorāh (Do
Rāh) Pass (14,940 feet [4,554 metres]) not far from Mount Tirich Mir; the
central Hindu Kush, which then continues to the Shebar (Shībar) Pass (9,800
feet [2,987 metres]) to the northwest of Kabul; and the western Hindu Kush,
also known as the Bābā Mountains (Kūh-e Bābā), which gradually descends
to the Kermū Pass.

In its Extreme Eastern section, between the passes of Karambar and Baroghil
(Barowghīl; 12,480 feet [3,804 metres]), the eastern Hindu Kush is not very
high and has mountains that often take the form of rounded domes. Farther to
the west the main ridge rises rapidly to Baba Tangi (21,368 feet [6,513 metres])
and becomes rugged, after which, within the space of about 100 miles (160
km), are concentrated the highest mountains of the entire region—about
two dozen summits of more than 23,000 feet (7,000 metres) in elevation. A
first cluster of high peaks around Urgand (23,094 feet [7,039 metres]), in
Afghanistan, is followed farther south by the massif (principal mountain mass)
of Saraghrara (24,111 feet [7,349 metres]). Another line of imposing mountains,
which includes Mounts Langar (23,162 feet [7,060 metres]), Shachaur (23,346
feet [7,116 metres]), Udrem Zom (23,376 feet [7,125 metres]), and Nādīr Shāh
Zhāra (23,376 feet [7,125 metres]), leads to the three giant mountains of the
Hindu Kush, which are Mounts Noshaq (Nowshāk; 24,557 feet [7,485
metres]), Istoro Nal (24,242 feet [7,389 metres]), and Tirich Mir. Most major
glaciers of the Hindu Kush—among them Kotgaz, Niroghi, Atrak, and Tirich—
are in the valleys of this section.

The Central section from the Dorāh Pass to the Shebar Pass separates the
traditional Afghan regions of Badakhshān to the north
and Nūrestānand Kūhestān (Kohistan) around the upper Kābul River to the
south. The concentration of high summits in this region creates from some
vantage points the appearance of an unbroken horizon, a phenomenon known
as Gipfelflur (German: “summit plain”). Maximum heights, which are lower
than those in the eastern section, include Koh-i-Bandakor (22,451 feet [6,843
metres]), Koh-i-Mondi (20,498 feet [6,248 metres]), and Mīr Samīr (19,878 feet
[6,059 metres]). These peaks are surrounded by a host of lesser mountains.
Glaciers are poorly developed, but the mountain passes—which
include Putsigrām (13,450 feet [5,000 metres]), Verān (15,400 feet [4,694
metres]), Rām Gol (15,400 feet [4,694 metres]), and Anjoman (13,850 feet
[4,221 metres])—are high, making transmontane communications difficult.

The mountains of the Western region fan out gradually toward the Afghan
city of Herāt, near the Iranian border, declining into hills of lesser
importance
Communication is easier in this region, as roads have long since been built
through the passes, such as the Shebar Pass (9,800 feet [2,987 metres]).

A wider definition of the Hindu Kush would include a fourth region known
as Hindu Raj in Pakistan. This region is formed by a long, winding chain of
mountains—with some lofty peaks, such as Mounts Darkot (22,447 feet [6,842
metres]) and Buni Zom (21,499 feet [6,553 metres])—which strikes southward
from the Lupsuk Peak (18,861 feet [5,749 metres]) in the eastern region, then
continues to the Lawarai Pass (12,100 feet [3,688 metres]) and beyond to the
Kābul River. If this chain is considered part of the Hindu Kush, then the
outlying mountains of the Swat Kohistan region of Pakistan to the south also
form part of the complex.

International boundaries running through the Hindu Kush are primarily those
of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Karambar Pass lies about 40 miles (60 km)
west of the Afghan-Chinese border, while to the west the Hindu Kush, strictly
considered, approaches the border between Afghanistan and Iran without
extending into Iranian territory. Between these extremes the Pakistan-
Afghanistan border follows the main watershed of the Hindu Kush throughout
its eastern region, from Lupsuk Peak just north of the Karambar Pass to the
Dorāh Pass just south of Mount Tirich Mir. Not far from the Dorāh Pass the
boundary leaves the main watershed and follows minor spurs until it crosses the
Kābul River, continuing along the crest of the Spin Ghar Mountains toward
the south. The Khyber Pass once was an important strategic gateway because
it cut through the Spin Ghar instead of through the Hindu Kush, thus offering
a comparatively easy route between the valley of the Kābul and the plains of
Punjab; the pass lost its importance after it was superseded by a more
accessible pass to the north.

The erratic boundary line is the result of a series of compromises reached at the
end of the 19th century between the British and the ruler of Afghanistan;
called the Durand Line for the British negotiator Sir Mortimer Durand, it
has been inherited by the modern states of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Another
curious configuration established about the same time and as yet unchanged is
the Vākhān region (Wakhan Corridor), a panhandle of Afghan territory
designed to act as a buffer between British India and tsarist Russia.

Geology

In many of its features, the Hindu Kush resembles its eastern neighbour,
the Karakoram Range, which extends westward from Tibet into Pakistan.
Indeed, some authorities consider the Hindu Kush a continuation of the
Karakoram. Both ranges are products of the collision of the Indian and
Eurasian continental plates beginning about 50 million years ago. Still
actively deforming, the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs constitute the most
seismically active intermediate-depth earthquake zone in the world. The
earthquakes originate between 100 and 140 miles (160 and 230 km) below the
surface in a 25-mile- (40-km-) wide belt. Much of the Hindu
Kush comprises metamorphic rock, including metamorphosed granodiorite,
dated to approximately 115 million years ago, and metamorphosed sedimentary
rocks of amphibolite and greenschist facies. The Hindu Kush also
contains granites of Cenozoic age (i.e., those formed sometime within
approximately the past 65 million years) intruded during the India-Eurasia
collision, that are rich in muscovitemica and tourmaline. The Hindu Kush is
bounded to the south by a right lateral strike-slip fault, the Heart Fault, but the
northern margin is less well defined.

People
A long and tormented history, together with fragmented topography, has
produced a veritable mosaic of peoples in the region. The lower parts of the
Vākhān and the higher parts of the Sanglīch and Anjoman valleys, all on the
northwestern slopes of the Hindu Kush, are sparsely inhabited by the so-called
Pamir or Mountain Tajik, most of whom are Ismāʿīlī Muslims. Other Tajik (who
are Sunni Muslims), Uzbek, and some Ḥazāra(Persian-speaking peoples of
Central Asian origin) live in the valleys of the central and western parts of the
Hindu Kush. Kyrgyz nomads formerly occupied the high pamir but migrated to
eastern Turkey in the 1980s during the Afghan War. Pashtun are found in the
major towns, in Kabul, and in many districts to the south of the Hindu Kush, with
the exception of Nūrestān. Pashtun nomads range over the western hills and into
northern high pastures in Afghanistan. Some Indic Gujar nomadic herders
seasonally penetrate the valleys of the southern slopes. On the southeast
(Pakistan) side of the Hindu Kush, most people are Kohistani, an ethnic
group that shows a marked cultural unity from Kashmir to Kabul.
The Kafir of Chitral are an exceptionally interesting people. Their name means
“Infidel” or “Non-Muslim” and seems to have been used since the 11th century.
Traditionally, they are divided into two groups—the kalasha(“black”) Kafir of
Chitral and the kati (“red”) Kafir of Nūrestān. In the past, the Kafir inhabited a
much larger area of the Hindu Kush. The Kafir of Nūrestān were forcibly
converted to Islam in 1896.

Physically, the Kafir do not seem to differ much from their neighbours; they
speak a language classed by some as Dardic. It is in their religion that their
ethnic individuality is most strikingly expressed. They practice a form of
polytheism; worship consists mainly in the sacrifice of animals. Dancing is
important, and shamans practice divination. Prior to modern legal prohibition of
the custom, the dead were disposed of, unburied, in heavy wooden coffins.
Large wooden statues of ancestors, often on horseback, traditionally stood near
graveyards; many of these works now reside in museums. Housing in Chitral and
Nūrestān consists of strong rectangular wooden buildings. The economy is based
on agriculture and the raising of goats and oxen.

Geography
The terrain consists of mountain ranges, undulating submontane areas, and
plains surrounded by hills. In the north the mountain ranges generally run north-
south; south of the Kābul River, which bisects the province from east to west,
the ranges generally run east-west. The Hindu Kush region in the north, long
noted for its scenic beauty, is divided by the Kunar River into two distinct
ranges: the northern Hindu Kush and the Hindu Raj. Tirich Mir rises to
25,230 feet (7,690 metres) and is the highest peak of the northern Hindu Kush.
To the south of the Hindu Raj lie the rugged basins of the Panjkora, Swat, and
Kandia rivers. The Lesser Himalayas and the Sub-Himalayas are situated in the
eastern part of the province and form definite ranges broken by hilly country
and small plains. The region is seismically active, with frequent mild to
moderate tremors. In 2005 a severe earthquake centered in nearby Azad
Kashmir killed thousands.
The fertile Vale of Peshawar extends northward along the Kābul River. Though
it covers less than one-tenth of the province’s area, this region contains about
half of its total population. The city of Peshawar lies in the western portion of
the vale. West of Peshawar, the historic Khyber Pass is strategically
important as the most easily negotiable route between Afghanistan and the
Indian subcontinent. South of the Kābul River lies the east-west-trending Spīn
Ghar (Safīd Kūh) Range. The Kurram, Tochi, and Gumal rivers drain the
province’s southern region, and the Indus River forms part of the province’s
eastern border.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly North-West Frontier Province, northernmost

province of Pakistan. It is bounded by Afghanistan to the west and north, Azad
Kashmir and the Northern Areas (the Pakistani-administered areas of
the Kashmir region) to the east and northeast, Punjab province to the southeast,
and Balochistān province to the southwest. On the western boundary of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, along the Afghan border, are the federally administered tribal
areas, a series of semiautonomous areas that are ethnically homogeneous with
the province but not politically connected to it. Peshawar is the provincial capital.
Area province, 28,773 square miles (74,521 square km); federally administered
tribal areas, 10,509 square miles (27,220 square km). Pop. (2006 est.) province,
21,392,000; federally administered tribal areas, 3,621,000.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is inhabited mainly by the Pashtun, who are noted for
their independence. The Pashtun comprise many tribes and clans, each taking
great pride in its genealogy. Pashto is the main language in the province, except
for some areas where Punjabi predominates, and virtually all of the population
is Muslim. Only a small part of the overall population is urban. The province’s
major cities include Peshawar, Mardan, Mingaora, Kohat, and Abbottabad.
Educational progress in the province has been quite slow, and the literacy rate
among the total population is lower than that of Pakistan as a whole.

In the tribal areas on the province’s western fringe, the Pashtun tribes are free to
govern themselves according to their own customs. Political and military agents
who are responsible to the central government have the power to award or
withhold subsidies and to control entry into and departure from the tribal areas.
The border with neighbouring Afghanistan, however, has traditionally been
porous, and Pashtun tribesmen have moved between countries with little
interference.

The province’s economy is essentially agricultural, even though the

mountainous terrain is not favourable to extensive cultivation. Irrigation is
carried out on about one-third of the cultivated land. Wheat, corn (maize),
sugarcane, and tobacco are the major crops. The principal industries are the
manufacture and refining of sugar, the canning and preservation of fruits and
vegetables, tobacco processing, and the manufacture of small arms and
accessories. Other products are cotton textiles, cement, ghee (clarified butter),
furniture, and milled grains.
Peshawar lies on an east-west road that connects Kabul, Afghanistan,
to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. A major north-south road traverses the
province, and an east-west railway runs from the Afghanistan border through
Peshawar to Lahore in Punjab province. A major airport is located in Peshawar.

History
In ancient times, the state of Gandhara occupied the Vale of Peshawarand
adjoining areas. This kingdom was important because of its strategic location
at the eastern end of the Khyber Pass.
Gandhara was annexed by the Persian Achaemenian dynasty in the early 6th
century BCE and remained a Persian satrapy until 327 BCE. The region then
passed successively under Greek, Indian, Indo-Bactrian, Sakan, Parthian,
and Kushan rule.

Muslim rule was first brought to the region by a former Turkish slave-soldier
(mamlūk) named Sebüktigin, who gained control of Peshawar in 988 CE. His
son, Maḥmūd of Ghazna, invaded northern India several times between 1001
and 1027 and brought a large area of the present-day province into the
boundaries of the Ghaznavid dynasty.

Beginning in the late 12th century, the region was held successively by
the Ghūrid sultanate, by various Muslim Afghan dynasties, and then by
the Mughal dynasty. After the invasion of the Iranian ruler Nādir Shah in 1738,
the territory remained under the loose control of the Afghan Durrānī clan.
Beginning about 1818, invading Sikhs from the Punjab region of India
increasingly secured control of the frontier territory until the coming of
the British in 1849.
The northwestern frontier areas were annexed to India by the British after the
Second Sikh War (1848–49). The territories thenceforth formed a part of the
Punjab until the province, then known as North-West Frontier Province, was
created in 1901. After Pakistan attained independence in 1947, the region
continued to exist as a separate Pakistani province. However, the inhabitants of
the tribal territories, the westernmost area along the Afghanistan border, were not
made subject to the Pakistani legal code. During the 1980s the province was
inundated by Afghan refugees seeking asylum from the Soviet occupation of
their country. The tribal areas were also a major staging area for mujahideen
fighters entering Afghanistan (see Afghan War). Following the collapse of
the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, the tribal areas became a refuge for
Taliban and mujahideen fighters.
In 2010 the name of the province was officially changed to Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa. Later that year, unusually heavy monsoon rains forced the Indus
River into extraordinary floods. The inundation devastated swaths of Pakistani
land, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Officials there, unprepared to deal with
such flooding with so little notice, were overwhelmed by the destruction and
human costs wrought by the floodwaters. By mid-August, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
accounted for about two-thirds of all reported flood-related deaths.

Ethnic groups

No national census has been conducted in Afghanistan since a partial count in

1979, and years of war and population dislocation have made an accurate ethnic
count impossible. Current population estimates are therefore rough
approximations, which show that Pashtuns comprise about two-fifths of the
population. The two largest Pashtun tribal groups are
the Durrānī and Ghilzay. Tajiks are likely to account for some one-fourth of
Afghans and Ḥazāra nearly one-fifth. Uzbeks and Chahar Aimaks each account
for slightly more than 5 percent of the population and Turkmen an even smaller
portion.
 Afghanistan: Ethnolinguistic compositionEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The Hindu Kush divides the country into northern and southern regions,
which can be further subdivided on the basis of topography, national and
ethnolinguistic settlement patterns, or historical tradition. Northern Afghanistan,
for example, may be subdivided into the Badakhshān-Vākhān region in the east
and the Balkh-Meymaneh region in the west. The east, which is mainly a
conglomeration of mountains and high plateaus, is inhabited chiefly by Tajiks.
Although there are also pockets of Tajiks in other areas of the country, in the east
they are sedentary in the plains—where they are mostly farmers and artisans—
and semisedentary in the higher valleys. The Tajiks are not divided into clear-
cut tribal groups. There are also small numbers of Kyrgyz in the Vākhān in the
extreme northeast, where they practice herding.
The west, which is mostly plains of comparatively low elevation, contains a
mixture of peoples in which Uzbeks and Turkmen, both of Turkic origin,
predominate. The Uzbeks are usually farmers, while the Turkmen have
traditionally been seminomadic herders. The Uzbeks are the largest Turkic-
speaking group in Afghanistan. There are also other smaller Turco-
Mongolian groups.

Southern Afghanistan can be subdivided into four regions—those of Kabul,

Kandahār, Herāt, and Ḥazārajāt. The Kabul region combines the area drained
by the Kābul River and the high plateau of eastern Afghanistan, bounded in the
south by the Gowmal (Gumal) River. This region is the main corridor
connecting the other regions and their peoples. The traditional homeland of the
Pashtun lies in an area east, south, and southwest of Kabul, but this group is
also well represented in the west and north. The Pashtun are divided into a
number of tribes, some sedentary and others nomadic, and many live
in contiguous territory in Pakistan. This region is also inhabited by Tajiks, and
the Nuristani inhabit an area of some 5,000 square miles (13,000 square km)
north and east of Kabul.
The Kandahār region is a sparsely populated part of southern Afghanistan. The
Durrānī Pashtun, who have formed the traditional nucleus of Afghanistan’s
social and political elite, live in the area around the city of Kandahār itself, which
is located in a fertile oasis near the Arghandāb River, and the Ghilzay inhabit
the region between Kabul and Kandahār. In addition, there are a small number
of Balochi (Baluchi) and Brahui people in the region.

The region of Herāt, or western Afghanistan, is inhabited by a mixture of Tajiks,

Pashtun, and Chahar Aimak. The life of the region revolves around the city of
Herāt. The Chahar Aimak are probably of Turkic or Turco-Mongolian origin,
judging by their physical appearance and their housing (Mongolian-style yurts).
They are located mostly in the western part of the central mountain region.

The mountainous region of Ḥazārajāt occupies the central part of the country and
is inhabited principally by the Ḥazāra. Because of the scarcity of land, however,
many have migrated to other parts of the country. Although Ḥazārajāt is located
in the heart of the country, its high mountains and poor communication facilities
make it the most isolated part of Afghanistan.
Resources and power

Extensive surveys have revealed the existence of a number of minerals of

economic importance. One significant discovery was the country’s natural
gas deposits, with large reserves near Sheberghān near
the Turkmenistan border, about 75 miles (120 km) west of Mazār-e Sharīf.
The Khvājeh Gūgerdak and Yatīm Tāq fields were major producers, with storage
and refining facilities. Until the 1990s, pipelines delivered natural gas
to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and to a thermal power plant and chemical fertilizer
plant in Mazār-e Sharīf. Petroleum resources, on the other hand, have proved to
be insignificant. Many coal deposits have been found in the northern slopes of
the Hindu Kush. Major coal fields are at Maʿdan-e Karkar and Eshposhteh,
between Kabul and Mazār-e Sharīf, and Qalʿeh-ye Sarkārī, southwest of Mazār-e
Sharīf. In general, however, Afghanistan’s energy resources, including its large
reserves of natural gas, remain untapped, and fuel shortages are chronic.
Afghanistan has been known for some time to bear other minerals as well: high-
grade iron ore has been discovered at Ḥājjī Gak, northwest of
Kabul; copper has been mined at ʿAynak, near Kabul; and uranium has been
identified in the mountains near Khvājah Rawāsh, east of Kabul. Other known
deposits include those of copper, lead, and zinc near Kondoz; beryllium in Khāṣ
Konaṛ; chrome ore in the Lowgar River valley near Herāt; and the semiprecious
stone lapis lazuli in Badakhshān, in addition to deposits of rock salt, beryl,
barite, fluorspar, bauxite, lithium, tantalum, gold, silver, asbestos, mica,
and sulfur. Taxation of mined and traded lapis lazuli and emeralds helped finance
anti-Taliban forces during the civil war.
The development of Central Asian natural gas and oil resources has sparked
international interest in Afghanistan as a route for pipelines to markets in South
Asia and beyond. If built, a pipeline could carry gas and, later, oil from
Turkmenistan over some 1,100 miles (1,750 km), mostly through Afghanistan, to
Multan in Pakistan for transshipment. Such a pipeline could become a major
source of income for Afghanistan and also offer a source of training and
employment to Afghans.
Afghanistan is potentially rich in hydroelectric resources. However, the seasonal
flow of the country’s many streams and waterfalls—torrential in spring, when the
snow melts in the mountains, but negligible in summer—necessitates the costly
construction of dams and reservoirs in remote areas. The country’s negligible
demand for electricity renders such projects unprofitable except near large cities
or industrial centres. The potential of hydroelectricity has been tapped
substantially only in the Kabul-Jalālābād region.

Historical beginnings (to the 7th century CE)

The Achaemenids and the Greeks

In the 6th century BCE the Achaemenian ruler Cyrus II (the Great) established his
authority over the area. Darius I (the Great) consolidated Achaemenian rule of the region
through the provinces, or satrapies, of Aria (in the region of modern
Herāt), Bactria (Balkh), Sattagydia (modern Ghaznī to the Indus
River), Arachosia (Kandahār), and Drangiana (Sīstān).

Alexander the Great overthrew the Achaemenids and conquered most of

the Afghan satrapies before he left for India in 327 BCE. Ruins of an
outpost Greek city founded about 325 BCE were discovered at Ay Khānom, at
the confluence of the Amu Darya and Kowkcheh River. Excavations there
produced inscriptions and transcriptions of Delphic precepts written in a script
influenced by cursive Greek. Greek decorative elements dominate the
architecture, including an immense administrative centre, a theatre, and a
gymnasium. A nomadic raid about 130 BCE ended the Greek era at Ay
Khānom.

The Mauryan Dynasty

After Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, the eastern satrapies passed to

the Seleucid dynasty, which ruled from Babylon. About 304 BCE the
territory south of the Hindu Kush was ceded to the Mauryan dynasty of
northern India. Bilingual rock inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic (the
official language of the Achaemenids) found at Kandahār and Laghmān (in
eastern Afghanistan) date from the reign of Ashoka (c. 265–238 BCE or c.273–
232 BCE), the Mauryan dynasty’s most renowned emperor.
Diodotus, a local Greco-Bactrian governor, declared the Afghan plain of
the Amu Darya independent about 250 BCE. Greco-Bactrian conquerors
moved south about 180 BCE and established their rule at Kabul and in
the Punjab.
The Parthians of eastern Iran also broke away from the Seleucids,
establishing control over Sīstān and Kandahār in the south.

The Kushāns

About 135 BCE a loose confederation of five Central Asian nomadic tribes
known as the Yuezhi wrested Bactria from the Bactrian Greeks. These tribes
united under the banner of the Kushān (Kuṣāṇa), one of the five tribes, and
conquered the Afghan area. The zenith of Kushān power was reached in the
2nd century CE under King Kaniṣka (c. 78–144 CE), whose empire stretched
from Mathura in north-central India beyond Bactria as far as the frontiers
of China in Central Asia.
The Kushāns were patrons of the arts and of religion. A major branch of
the Silk Road—which carried luxury goods and facilitated the exchange of
ideas between Rome, India, and China—passed through Afghanistan, where a
transhipment centre existed at Balkh. Indian pilgrims traveling the Silk Road
introduced Buddhism to China during the early centuries CE, and
Buddhist Gandhāra art flourished during this period. The world’s largest
Buddha figures (175 feet [53 metres] and 120 feet [about 40 metres] tall) were
carved into a cliff at Bamiyan in the central mountains of Afghanistan during
the 4th and 5th centuries CE; the statues were destroyed in 2001 by the
country’s ruling Taliban. Further evidence of the trade and cultural achievement
of the period has been recovered at the Kushān summer capital of Bagrām,
north of Kabul, including painted glass from Alexandria; plaster matrices,
bronzes, porphyries, and alabasters from Rome; carved ivories from India;
and lacquers from China. A massive Kushān city at Delbarjin, north of Balkh,
and a major gold hoard of superb artistry near Sheberghān, west of Balkh, also
have been excavated.

The Sāsānids and Hephthalites

The Kushān empire did not long survive Kaniṣka, though for centuries Kushān
princes continued to rule in various provinces. Persian Sāsānids established
control over parts of Afghanistan, including Bagrām, in 241 CE. In 400 a new
wave of Central Asian nomads under the Hephthalites took control, only to
be defeated in 565 by a coalition of Sāsānids and Western Turks. From the 5th
through the 7th century many Chinese Buddhist pilgrims continued to travel
through Afghanistan. The pilgrim Xüanzang wrote an important account of his
travels, and several of the religious centres he visited, including Hadda, Ghazna
(Ghaznī), Kondoz, Bamiyan, Shotorak, and Bagrām, have been excavated.

The 7th–18th centuries

Under the Hephthalites and Sāsānids, many of the Afghan princedoms were
influenced by Hinduism. The Hindu kings of the Shāhī family were
concentrated in the Kabul and Ghaznī areas. Excavated sites of the period
include a major Hindu Shāhī temple north of Kabul and a chapel in Ghaznī that
contains both Buddhist and Hindu statuary, indicating that there was a mingling
of these two religions.

The first Muslim dynasties

Islamic armies defeated the Sāsānids in 642 at the Battle of Nahāvand(near

modern Hamadān, Iran) and advanced into the Afghan area, but they were
unable to hold the territory; cities submitted, only to rise in revolt, and the hastily
converted returned to their old beliefs once the armies had passed.

The 9th and 10th centuries witnessed the rise of numerous local
Islamic dynasties. One of the earliest was the Ṭāhirids of Khorāsān, whose
kingdom included Balkh and Herāt; they established virtual independence from
the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in 820. The Ṭāhirids were succeeded in 867–869 by a
native dynasty from Sīstān, the Ṣaffārids. Local princes in the north soon
became feudatories of the powerful Sāmānids, who ruled from Bukhara. From
872 to 999 Bukhara, Samarkand, and Balkh enjoyed a golden age under
Sāmānid rule.

In the middle of the 10th century a former Turkish slave named Alptigin
seized Ghazna. He was succeeded by another former slave, Subüktigin, who
extended the conquests to Kabul and the Indus. His son was the
great Maḥmūd of Ghazna, who came to the throne in 998. Maḥmūd conquered
the Punjab and Multan and carried his raids into the heart of India. The hitherto
obscure town of Ghazna became a splendid city, as did the second capital at
Bust (Lashkar Gāh).

The Mongol invasion

Genghis Khan invaded the eastern part of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s empire in 1219.
Avoiding a battle, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn retreated to a small island in the Caspian Sea,
where he died in 1220. Soon after ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s death, his energetic son Jalāl
al-Dīn Mingburnu rallied the Afghan highlanders at Parwan (modern Jabal os
Sarāj), near Kabul, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Mongols under
Kutikonian. Genghis Khan, who was then at Herāt, hastened to avenge the
defeat and laid siege to Bamiyan. There Ṃutugen, the khan’s grandson, was
killed, an event so infuriating to Genghis Khan that when he captured the
citadel he ordered that no living being be spared. Bamiyan was utterly
destroyed. Advancing on Ghazna, Genghis won a great victory over Jalāl al-
Dīn, who then fell back toward the Indus (1221), where he made a final but
unsuccessful stand.

Later dynasties

After Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, his vast empire fell to pieces. In
Afghanistan some local chiefs succeeded in establishing independent
principalities, and others acknowledged Mongol princes as suzerains. This state
of affairs continued until the end of the 14th century,
when Timur (Tamerlane) conquered a large part of the country.
Timur’s successors, the Timurids (1405–1507), were great patrons of learning
and the arts who enriched their capital city of Herāt with fine buildings. Under
their rule Afghanistan enjoyed peace and prosperity.

Early in the 16th century the Turkic Uzbeks rose to power in Central
Asiaunder Muḥammad Shaybānī, who took Herāt in 1507. In late 1510
the Ṣafavid shah Ismāʿīl I besieged Shaybānī in Merv and killed him. Bābur, a
descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, had made Kabul the capital of an
independent principality in 1504. He captured Kandahār in 1522, and in 1526 he
marched on Delhi. He defeated Ibrāhīm, the last of the Lodī Afghan kings of
India, and established the Mughal Empire, which lasted until the middle of the
19th century and included all of eastern Afghanistan south of the Hindu Kush.
The capital was at Agra. Nine years after his death in 1530, the body of Bābur
was taken to Kabul for burial.
During the next 200 years Afghanistan was parceled between the Mughals of
India and the Ṣafavids of Persia—the former holding Kabul north to the
southern foothills of the Hindu Kush and the latter, Herāt and Farāh.
Kandahār was in dispute for many years.

Last Afghan empire

Overthrow of foreign rule

Periodic attempts were made to gain independence. In 1709 Mīr Vays Khan, a leader of
the Hotaki Ghilzay tribe, led a successful rising against Gorgīn Khan, the Persian
governor of Kandahār.
The Hotakis
Mīr Vays Khan governed Kandahār until his death in 1715. In 1716 the Abdālīs (Durrānī)
of Herāt, encouraged by his example, took up arms against the Persians and under their
leader, Asad Allāh Khan, succeeded in liberating their province. Maḥmūd, Mīr Vays’s
young son and successor, was not content with holding Kandahār, and in 1722 he led
some 20,000 men against Eṣfahān; the Ṣafavid government surrendered after a six-month
siege.
Maḥmūd died in 1725 and was succeeded by Ashraf, who had to contend with Russian
pressure from the north and Ottoman Turk advances from the west. Shah Ashraf halted
both the Russian and Turkish onslaughts, but a brigand chief, Nādr Qolī Beg, defeated the
Afghans at Dāmghān in October 1729 and drove them from Persia. During the retreat
Ashraf was murdered, probably on orders from his cousin, who was then holding
Kandahār.
Nādir Shah
Nādr Qolī Beg took Herāt in 1732 after a desperate siege. Nādr was impressed by the
courage of the Herātis and recruited many of them to serve in his army. He had himself
elected shah of Persia, with the name Nādir Shah, in 1736.
In 1738, after a year’s siege, the city of Kandahār fell to Nādir Shah’s army of 80,000
men. Nādir Shah seized Ghazna and Kabul and occupied the Mughal capital at Delhi in
1739. His booty included the Koh-i-noordiamond and the Peacock Throne. He was
assassinated at Fatḥābād, Iran, in 1747, which led to the disintegration of his empire and
the rise of the last great Afghan empire.
The Durrānī dynasty
The commander of Nādir Shah’s 4,000-man Afghan bodyguard was Aḥmad Khan Abdālī,
who returned to Kandahār and was elected shah by a tribal council. He adopted the title
Durr-i Durrān (“Pearl of Pearls”). Supported by most tribal leaders, Aḥmad Shah
Durrānī extended Afghan control from Meshed to Kashmir and Delhi, from the Amu
Darya to the Arabian Sea. The Durrānī was the second greatest Muslim empire in the
second half of the 18th century, surpassed in size only by the Ottoman.
Aḥmad Shah died in 1772 and was succeeded by his son, Tīmūr Shah, who received
but nominal homage from the tribal chieftains. Much of his reign was spent in quelling
their rebellions. Because of this opposition, Tīmūr shifted his capital from Kandahār to
Kabul in 1776.
Zamān Shah (1793–1800)
After the death of Tīmūr in 1793, his fifth son, Zamān, seized the throne with the help of
Sardār Pāyenda Khan, a chief of the Bārakzay. Zamān then turned to India with the object
of repeating the exploits of Aḥmad Shah. This alarmed the British, who induced Fatḥ ʿAlī
Shah of Persia to bring pressure on the Afghan king and divert his attention from India.
The shah went a step further by helping Maḥmūd, governor of Herāt and a brother of
Zamān, with men and money and encouraging him to advance on Kandahār. Maḥmūd,
assisted by his vizier, Fatḥ Khan Bārakzay, eldest son of Sardār Pāyenda Khan, and by
Fatḥ ʿAlī Shah, took Kandahār and advanced on Kabul. Zamān, in India, hurried back to
Afghanistan. There he was handed over to Maḥmūd, blinded, and imprisoned (1800). The
Durrānī empire had begun to disintegrate after 1798, when Zamān Shah appointed a
Sikh, Ranjit Singh, as governor of Lahore.
Shah Maḥmūd (1800–03; 1809–18)

Shah Maḥmūd left affairs of state to Fatḥ Khan. Some of the chiefs who had grievances
against the king or his ministers joined forces and invited Zamān’s brother Shah
Shojāʿ (1803–09; 1839–42) to Kabul. The intrigue was successful. Shah Shojāʿ occupied
the capital, and Maḥmūd sued for peace.
The new king, Shah Shojāʿ, ascended the throne in 1803. The chiefs had become
powerful and unruly, and the outlying provinces were asserting their independence. The
Sikhs of the Punjab were encroaching on Afghan territories from the east, while the
Persians were threatening from the west.
Napoleon I, then at the zenith of his power in Europe, proposed to Alexander I
of Russia a combined invasion of India. A British mission, headed by Mountstuart
Elphinstone, met Shah Shojāʿ at Peshawar to discuss mutual defense against this threat,
which never developed. In a treaty of friendship concluded June 7, 1809, the shah
promised to oppose the passage of foreign troops through his dominions. Shortly after the
mission left Peshawar, news was received that Kabul had been occupied by the forces of
Maḥmūd and Fatḥ Khan. The troops of Shah Shojāʿ were routed, and the shah withdrew
from Afghanistan and found asylum with the British at Ludhiāna, India, in 1815.
The rise of the Bārakzay
The Bārakzay were now dominant. This situation incited the jealousy of Kāmrān,
Maḥmūd’s eldest son, who seized and blinded Fatḥ Khan. Later Shah Maḥmūd had him
cut to pieces.

Modern Afghanistan

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khan (1880–1901)

The British finally withdrew from Kandahār in April 1881. In 1880 ʿAbd al-
Raḥmān Khan, a cousin of Shīr ʿAlī, had returned from exile in Central Asia and
proclaimed himself emir of Kabul. During the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the
boundaries of modern Afghanistan were drawn by the British and the Russians.
The Durand Line of 1893 divided zones of responsibility for the maintenance of
law and order between British India and the kingdom of Afghanistan; it was never
intended as a de jure international boundary. Afghanistan, therefore, although
never dominated by a European imperial government, became a buffer between
tsarist Russia and British India.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān exerted his influence, if not actual control, over the various
ethnolinguistic groups inside Afghanistan, fighting some 20 small wars to convince them
that a strong central government existed in Kabul. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was so successful
that, at his death, his designated successor and eldest son, Ḥabībullāh Khan, succeeded to
the throne as Ḥabībullāh I without the usual fratricidal fighting. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān can be
considered the founder of modern Afghanistan.
Ḥabībullāh Khan (1901–19)
The introduction of modern European technology begun by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was
furthered by Ḥabībullāh. Western ideals and styles penetrated the Afghan royal court and
upper classes. An Afghan nationalist, Maḥmūd Beg Ṭarzī, published (1911–18) the
periodical Serāj al-Akbār (“Torch of the News”), which had political influence far
beyond the boundaries of Afghanistan.
Ḥabībullāh Khan visited British India in 1907 as a guest of the viceroy of India, Gilbert
Elliot, 4th earl of Minto. Impressed with British power, Ḥabībullāh resisted pressures
from Ṭarzī, Amānullāh (Ḥabībullāh’s third son, who had married Soraya, a daughter of
Ṭarzī), and others to enter World War I on the side of the Central Powers. The peace
ending World War I brought death to Ḥabībullāh—he was murdered on February 20,
1919, by persons associated with the anti-British movement—and Amānullāh seized
power.
Amānullāh (1919–29)
Amānullāh launched the inconclusive Third Anglo-Afghan War in May 1919. The
monthlong war gained the Afghans the conduct of their own foreign affairs.
The Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed on August 8, 1919, and amended in 1921.
Before signing the final document with the British, the Afghans concluded a treaty
of friendship with the new Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union. Afghanistan
thereby became one of the first states to recognize the Soviet government, and a
“special relationship” evolved between the two governments that lasted until
December 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

Amānullāh changed his title from emir to pādshāh (“king”) in 1923 and
inaugurated a decade of reforms—including implementingconstitutional and
administrative changes, allowing women to remove their veils, and establishing
coeducational schools—that offended conservative religious and tribal leaders.

Civil war broke out in November 1928, and a Tajik folk hero called Bacheh
Saqqāw (Bacheh-ye Saqqā; “Child of a Water Carrier”) occupied Kabul.
Amānullāh abdicated in January 1929 in favour of his elder brother, Inayatullāh,
but Bacheh Saqqāw proclaimed himself Ḥabībullāh Ghāzī (or Ḥabībullāh II), emir
of Afghanistan. Amānullāh failed to retrieve his throne and went into exile in Italy.
He died in 1960 in Zürich, Switzerland.

Moḥammad Nāder Shah (1929–33)

Ḥabībullāh II was driven from the throne by Moḥammad Nāder Khan and his
brothers, distant cousins of Amānullāh. On October 10, 1929, Ḥabībullāh II was
executed along with 17 of his followers. A tribal assembly elected Nāder Khan as
shah, and the opposition was bloodily persecuted.

Nāder Shah produced a new constitution in 1931 that was modeled on

Amānullāh’s constitution of 1923 but was more conservatively oriented to
appease Islamic religious leaders. The national economy developed in the 1930s
under the leadership of several entrepreneurs who began small-scale industrial
projects. Nāder Shah was assassinated on November 8, 1933, and the 19-year-
old crown prince, Zahir, succeeded his father.
Mohammad Zahir Shah (1933–73)
The first 20 years of Mohammad Zahir Shah’s reign were characterized by cautious
policies of national consolidation, an expansion of foreign relations, and internal
development using Afghan funds alone. World War II brought about a slowdown in
development processes, but Afghanistan maintained its traditional neutrality. The
“Pashtunistan” problem regarding the political status of those Pashtun living on the
British (Pakistani) side of the Durand Line developed after the independence
of Pakistan in 1947.
Shah Mahmud, prime minister from 1946 to 1953, sanctioned free elections and a
relatively free press, and the so-called “liberal parliament” functioned from 1949 to
1952. Conservatives in government, however, encouraged by religious leaders, supported
the seizure of power in 1953 by Lieutenant General Mohammad Daud Khan, brother-in-
law and first cousin of the king.
Prime Minister Daud Khan (1953–63) took a stronger line on Pashtunistan, and, to the
surprise of many, turned to the Soviet Union for economic and military assistance. The
Soviets ultimately became Afghanistan’s major aid-and-trade partner. The Afghans
refused to take sides in the Cold War, and Afghanistan became an “economic Korea,”
testing the Western (particularly U.S.) will and capability to compete with the Soviet bloc
in a nonaligned country. Daud Khan successfully introduced several far-reaching
educational and social reforms, such as allowing women to wear the veil voluntarily and
abolishing purdah (the practice of secluding women from public view), which
theoretically increased the labour force by about half. The regime remained politically
repressive, however, and tolerated no direct opposition.
The Pashtunistan issue precipitated Daud Khan’s downfall. In retaliation for Afghan
agitation, Pakistan closed the border with Afghanistan in August 1961. Its prolonged
closure led Afghanistan to depend increasingly on the Soviet Union for trade and in-
transit facilities. To reverse the trend, Daud Khan resigned in March 1963, and the border
was reopened in May. The Pashtunistan problem still existed, however.
Zahir Shah and his advisers instituted an experiment in constitutional monarchy. In 1964
a Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) approved a new constitution, under which the House of
the People was to have 216 elected members and the House of the Elders was to have 84
members, one-third elected by the people, one-third appointed by the king, and one-third
elected indirectly by new provincial assemblies.
Elections for both houses of the legislature were held in 1965 and 1969. Several
unofficial parties ran candidates with platforms ranging from fundamentalist Islam to the
extreme left. One such group was the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of
Afghanistan (PDPA), the major leftist organization in the country. Founded in 1965, the
party soon split into two factions, known as the People’s (Khalq) and Banner (Parcham)
parties. Another was a conservative religious organization known as the Islamic Society
(Jamʿiyyat-e Eslāmī), which was founded by a number of religiously minded individuals,
including members of the University of Kabul faculty of religion, in 1971. The Islamists
were highly influenced by the militant ideology of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and were
ardently opposed to the power of leftist and secular elements in Afghanistan.
National politics became increasingly polarized, a situation reflected in the appointment
by the king of five successive prime ministers between September 1965 and December
1972. The king refused to promulgateseveral key acts, thereby effectively blocking the
institutionalization of the political processes guaranteed in the constitution. Struggles for
power developed between the legislative and the executive branches, and an independent
Supreme Court, as called for in the 1964 constitution, was never appointed.
Mohammad Daud Khan sensed the stagnation of the constitutionalprocesses and seized
power on July 17, 1973, in a virtually bloodless coup. Leftist military officers and civil
servants of the Banner Party assisted in the overthrow, and a number of militant Islamists
were forced to flee the country. Daud Khan abolished the constitution of 1964 and
established the Republic of Afghanistan, with himself as chairman of the Central
Committee of the Republic and prime minister.
Afghanistan since 1973

The Republic of Afghanistan (1973–78)

During Daud Khan’s second tenure as prime minister, he attempted to introduce

socioeconomic reforms, to write a new constitution, and to effect a gradual movement
away from the socialist ideals his regime initially espoused. Afghanistan broadened and
intensified its relationships with other Muslim countries, trying to move away from its
dependency on the Soviet Union and the United States. In addition, Daud Khan
and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the prime minister of Pakistan, reached tentative agreement on a
solution to the Pashtunistan problem.
Daud Khan received approval in 1977 of his new constitution from a Loya Jirga, which
wrote in several new articles and amended others. In March 1977 Daud Khan, then
president of Afghanistan, appointed a new cabinet composed of sycophants, friends, sons
of friends, and even collateral members of the royal family. The two PDPA organizations,
the People’s and Banner parties, then reunited against Daud Khan after a 10-year
separation. There followed a series of political assassinations, massive antigovernment
demonstrations, and arrests of major leftist leaders. Before his arrest, Hafizullah Amin, a
U.S.-educated People’s Party leader, contacted party members in the armed forces and
devised a makeshift but successful coup. Daud Khan and most of his family were killed,
and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was born on April 27, 1978.
Civil war, communist phase (1978–92)
Nur Mohammad Taraki was elected president of the Revolutionary Council, prime
minister of the country, and secretary-general of the combined PDPA. Babrak
Karmal, a Banner leader, and Hafizullah Aminwere elected deputy prime
ministers. The leaders of the new government insisted that they were not
controlled by the Soviet Unionand proclaimed their policies to be based on
Afghan nationalism, Islamic principles, socioeconomic justice, nonalignment in
foreign affairs, and respect for all agreements and treaties signed by previous
Afghan governments.
Unity between the People’s and Banner factions rapidly faded as the People’s
Party emerged dominant, particularly because its major base of power was in the
military. Karmal and other selected Banner leaders were sent abroad as
ambassadors, and there were systematic purges of any Banner members or
others who might oppose the regime.

The Taraki regime announced its programs, which included eliminating usury,
ensuring equal rights for women, instituting land reforms, and making
administrative decrees in classic Marxist-Leninist rhetoric. The people in the
countryside, familiar with Marxist broadcasts from Soviet Central Asia, assumed
that the People’s Party was communist and pro-Soviet. The reform programs—
which threatened to undermine basic Afghan cultural patterns—and political
repression antagonized large segments of the population, but major violent
responses did not occur until the uprising in Nūrestān late in the summer of 1978.
Other revolts, largely uncoordinated, spread throughout all of Afghanistan’s
provinces, and periodic explosions rocked Kabul and other major cities. On
February 14, 1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs was killed, and the
elimination of U.S. assistance to Afghanistan was guaranteed.
Hafizullah Amin became prime minister on March 28, although Taraki retained his
posts as president of the Revolutionary Council and secretary general of the
PDPA. The expanding revolts in the countryside, however, continued, and the
Afghan army collapsed. The Amin regime asked for and received more Soviet
military aid.

Taraki was overthrown in mid September and, under orders from Amin, was killed
three weeks later. In a plot hatched in Moscow, Amin was to have been removed,
largely in the belief that he bore major responsibility for sparking the rebellion. But
Amin learned of the plan and preempted his would-be assassins. Amin then tried
to broaden his internal base of support and again to interest Pakistan and the
United States in Afghansecurity. Despite his efforts, on the night of December 24,
1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Amin and many of his followers were
killed on December 27.
Babrak Karmal returned to Afghanistan from the Soviet Union and became prime
minister, president of the Revolutionary Council, and secretary-general of the
PDPA. Opposition to the Soviets and Karmal spread rapidly, urban
demonstrations and violence increased, and resistance escalated in all regions.
By early 1980 several regional groups, collectively known as mujahideen (from
Arabic mujāhidūn, “those who engage in jihad”), had united inside Afghanistan, or
across the border in Peshawar, Pakistan, to resist the Soviet invaders and the
Soviet-backed Afghan army. Pakistan, along with the United States, China, and
several European and Arab states—most notably Saudi Arabia—were soon
providing small amounts of financial and military aid to the mujahideen. As this
assistance grew, the Pakistani military’s Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate
(ISI) assumed primary responsibility for funneling the money and weapons to
Afghan resistance groups. Pakistani authorities were determined to exercise tight
control over all such groups, and upwards of 40 separate resistance and refugee
organizations coalesced, under Pakistani influence, around seven resistance
parties. These parties, in turn, came together into two rival alliances, one
dominated by traditional Islamic conservatives and the other by Islamic radicals.
In 1985, under pressure from Pakistan and outside supporters, as well as from
guerrilla commanders inside Afghanistan, these two alliances set aside their
differences and formed a single coalition represented by a Supreme Council,
which was responsible for making major decisions. Pakistan’s exclusion
of secular groups from any role in the struggle fit the ideological temper of
the military regime of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq—which played heavily on
Islamic symbols for legitimacy—but also suited Pakistan’s determination that no
aid would go to Afghan nationalists who might harbour long-standing territorial
designs on Pakistan.
Recruits to the mujahideen came in large numbers from young Afghan men living
in refugee camps in Pakistan. They were joined throughout the 1980s by
thousands of volunteers from across the Muslim world, especially from Arab
countries. (A young Saudi Arabian, Osama bin Laden, was among them, and,
while he saw little military action, his personal wealth enabled him to fund high-
profile mujahideen activities and gain a widely favourable reputation among his
colleagues.) The bulk of the fighting was undertaken by small units that crossed
into Afghanistan from Pakistan and engaged mostly in brief hit-and-run
operations. One of the most persistent and often most effective militant groups,
however, was under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who instead fought
the Soviets from a redoubt in the Panjanshīr River valley (commonly Panjshēr
valley) northeast of Kabul. Massoud was among those
commanders affiliated with the Islamic Society (one of the most influential
mujahideen groups), then headed by an Azhar-trained scholar, Burhanuddin
Rabbani. Among the other Peshawar-based parties were Abd al-Rasul Sayyaf’s
militant Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan (Ettiḥād-e Eslāmī Barā-ye
Āzād-e Afghānistān), which derived its support largely from foreign Islamic
groups, and three parties headed by traditional religious leaders, including the
most pragmatic of the mujahideen parties, the National Islamic Front (Maḥāz-e
Mellī-ye Eslāmī), led by Ahmad Gailani. But the party receiving the most material
support from the ISI was the extremist and virulently anti-American Islamic Party
(Ḥezb-e Eslāmī; one of two parties by that name) loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Separate from the Peshawar front of Sunnite parties was an
ethnic Shīʿite resistance group among the Ḥazāra, which received strong support
from Iran.
Other than the Afghan fighters themselves, few had faith that the mujahideen
could prevail in a military conflict with the Soviet Union. The movement’s Western
sponsors viewed resistance operations as an opportunity to keep the Soviet army
bogged down and to bleed Moscow economically. However, the mujahideen
remained convinced that they ultimately would liberate their country from the
foreign invaders. After years of bedevilment by the Soviet military’s use of
helicopter gunships and jet bombers, the mujahideen’s prospects improved
greatly toward the end of 1986 when they began to receive more and better
weapons from the outside world—particularly from the United States, the United
Kingdom, and China—via Pakistan, the most important of these being shoulder-
fired ground-to-air missiles. The Soviet and Afghan air forces then began to suffer
considerable casualties.

In May 1986 Najibullah, former head of the secret police, replaced Karmal as
secretary-general of the PDPA, and in November Karmal was relieved of all his
government and party posts. Friction among the Banner and People’s parties
continued. A national reconciliation campaign approved by the Politburo in
September, which included a unilateral six-month cease-fire to begin in January
1987, met with little response inside Afghanistan and was rejected by resistance
leaders in Pakistan.
In November 1987 a new constitution changed the name of the country back to
the Republic of Afghanistan and allowed other political parties to participate in the
government. Najibullah was elected to the newly strengthened post of president.
Despite renewals of the official cease-fire, Afghan resistance to the Soviet
presence continued, and the effects of the war were felt in neighbouring
countries: Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran numbered more than five million.
Morale in the Afghan military was low. Draftees deserted at the earliest
opportunity, and the Afghan military dropped from its 1978 strength of 105,000
troops to about 20,000–30,000 by 1987. The Soviets attempted new tactics, but
the resistance always devised countertactics.

During the 1980s, talks between the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and
Pakistan were held in Geneva under UN auspices, the primary stumbling blocks
being the timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the cessation of arms
supplies to the mujahideen. Peace accords were finally signed in April 1988.
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachevsubsequently carried out an earlier
promise to begin withdrawing Soviet troops in May of that year; troops began
leaving as scheduled, and the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan in February
1989. The civil war continued, however, despite predictions of an early collapse
of the Najibullah government following the withdrawal of the Soviets. The
mujahideen formed an interim government in Pakistan, steadfastly resisting
Najibullah’s reconciliation efforts, and disunity among the mujahideen parties
contributed to their inability to dislodge the communist government.

Civil war, mujahideen-Taliban phase (1992–2001)

Najibullah was finally ousted from power in April 1992, soon after the breakup of
the Soviet Union (which had continued to provide military and economic
assistance to the Kabul government). A coalition built mainly of the mujahideen
parties that had fought the communists set up a fragile interim government, but
general peace and stability remained a distant hope. As rival militias vied for
influence, interethnic tensions flared, and the economy lay in ruins.
Under an arrangement to provide for the rotation of the executive office between
different factions, the presidency passed after two months from interim president
Sebghatullah Mujaddedi to Burhanuddin Rabbani. Rabbani, however, refused to
relinquish power to his successor after the expiration of his two-year term in
office. Over the next three years, rocket attacks by opposition forces—primarily
those of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Islamic Party—caused severe
damage to large sections of the capital. Delivery of food from international
aidorganizations and the UN became indispensable.
Outside of Kabul, law and order broke down across much of the country, and
Afghanistan became, in effect, a country ruled by militia leaders and warlords
who exacted road taxes and transit fees from trucks engaged in cross-border
trading and promoted extortion in most other areas of normal life. Kidnappings,
whether for sadism or profit, were not uncommon, and the people generally fell
into a state of despair.
Partly in response to this situation, the Taliban (Persian: “Students”) emerged in
the fall of 1994. The movement’s spiritual and political leader was a former
mujahideen fighter, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was best known for his
displays of piety and participation in the fight against the Soviet occupation.
Drawing its recruits from madrasah (religious school) students in Pakistan and
the southern province of Kandahār, the Taliban gained international attention
when it was able to defeat those groups preying on the transit trade and when it
succeeded in ridding Kandahār of its predatory and corrupt governors. The
Taliban’s eventual success in extending its territorial control is largely attributable
to the war-weariness of the Afghan people. In a short time others joined the
students, including fighters formerly associated with the communists and a
number of mujahideen defectors—many of whom were induced to switch sides
by generous payments funded by the government of Saudi Arabia, then a major
Taliban supporter.
The Taliban also won the early backing of senior Pakistani officials—including
members of Pakistan’s ISI—who, along with companies involved in cross-border
trading, were anxious to secure a road route through Afghanistan to markets
in Central Asia. These same officials felt that the development of lucrative gas
and oil pipelines from Central Asian fields to a Pakistani terminus would also be
realized sooner were the Taliban to wrest full control of the country from other
factions. Importantly, Taliban rule promised for Pakistan a pliant, friendly regime
in Kabul, which contrasted with previous Afghan governments that often deflected
Pakistani influence in Afghanistan’s domestic affairs through political overtures
to India, Pakistan’s archrival. Despite the Taliban’s mostly Pashtun membership,
the absence from their agenda of the familiar irredentist Pashtun claims against
Pashtun regions of Pakistan—the Pashtunistan issue—made the Taliban a
seemingly safe choice.
However, the Taliban’s initial appeal counted heavily on uniting those Pashtuns
deeply resentful of the Rabbani government, which was dominated by ethnic
Tajiks. Not until the Taliban ventured into areas of the country populated largely
by non-Pashtuns could its wider popular acceptance be tested. Minority-
dominated Herāt, Afghanistan’s third largest city, fell to Taliban fighters in
September 1995, and a year later the Taliban captured multiethnic Kabul, setting
to flight both antigovernment troops and those of Rabbani. The northern city
of Mazār-e Sharīf, populated by many ethnic Uzbeks, fell in August 1998. By
2001 the Taliban’s power extended over more than nine-tenths of the country,
and in most areas under its control the militia succeeded in disarming the local
inhabitants. A loose coalition of mujahideen militias known as the Northern
Alliance maintained control of a small section of northern Afghanistan. Fighters
for the Northern Alliance, particularly those under the command of Ahmad Shah
Massoud, remained the only major obstacle to a final Taliban victory.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates gave formal recognition to
the Taliban government after the fall of Kabul, but the movement was denied
Afghanistan’s seat at the UN and came under vigorous international criticism for
its extreme views—with regard to women in particular—and its human
rights record. Refusal by the Taliban to extradite Osama bin Laden, an Islamic
extremist accused by the United States of planning violent acts and organizing a
global terrorist network, led to UN sanctions against the regime in November
1999 and again in January 2001. The Taliban was also accused of harbouring
and training militants—many of whom were holdovers from the war against the
Soviets—planning insurgencies in the Central Asian republics
and China. Iran objected to the treatment of the Shīʿite Muslim population and to
the Taliban’s alleged association with groups that smuggled narcotics across the
Iranian frontier. Pakistani authorities, although concerned about the possible
ramifications of Islamic radicalism on their own society, continued to assist the
Taliban economically and were given varying degrees of credit for aiding the
Taliban in its military successes.
Fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance continued, and the
international community made little headway toward inducing the combatants to
observe a cease-fire or in convincing the Taliban to share power in a broadly
representative national government. Though foreign humanitarian assistance to
the Afghans continued, large-scale reconstruction was not addressed. Just as the
commitment of international agencies and donors was uncertain, the capacity of
Taliban leaders to manage a rebuilding effort remained questionable. The
transition from a heavily criminalized domestic and regional economy—based on
smuggling weapons and narcotics and the uncontrolled exploitation of
Afghanistan’s natural resources—remained indispensable for the country’s
rehabilitation and for a sustainable peace.

Struggle for democracy

Conditions continued to deteriorate in late 2001. Blame for the terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center in New York City and a simultaneous attack on
the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., on September 11 quickly centred on
members of a Muslim extremist group, al-Qaeda, based in Afghanistan and
headed by bin Laden. (See September 11 attacks.) The Taliban refused
repeated U.S. demands to extradite bin Laden and his associates and to
dismantle terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan. Within weeks of the attacks,
the United States and Britain launched an intensive bombing campaign against
the Taliban and provided significant logistical support to Northern Alliance forces
in an attempt to force the regime to yield to its demands. Devastated by the U.S.
bombardment, Taliban forces folded within days of a well-coordinated ground
offensive launched in mid-November by Northern Alliance troops and U.S.
special forces. On December 7 the Taliban surrendered Kandahār, the militia’s
base of power and the last city under its control. At nearly the same time,
representatives of several anti-Taliban groups met in Bonn, Germany, and, with
the help of the international community, named an interim administration, which
was installed two weeks later. This administration held power until June 2002
when a Loya Jirga was convened that selected a transitional government to rule
the country until national elections could be held and a new constitution drafted.



In preparation for the 2004 elections, an Afghan woman obtains her voter registration card in Kabul. Morenatti—
AP/REX/Shutterstock.com
U.S. Special Forces working with members of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, November 12, 2001. U.S.
Department of Defense

In December 2003 another Loya Jirga was convened to consider a draft

constitution that had been released in November. In January 2004, after three
weeks of debate, the Loya Jirga approved the constitution, which called for a
directly elected president and a two-chamber legislature. It was then signed into
law by Hamid Karzai, leader of the transitional government. Democratic elections,
in which women were granted the right to vote, were held in October 2004,
and Karzai was elected president, winning 55 percent of the vote.
In March 2005 Karzai announced that legislative elections would be held later
that year. Although al-Qaeda and Taliban elements had threatened to disrupt the
elections, they took place on Sept. 18, 2005—the first time in more than 30 years
that such elections were held—and in December the newly elected National
Assembly convened its first session. Ongoing violence throughout 2005
increased steeply at year’s end and worsened considerably the following year as
instability and warfare spread. Attacks and violent exchanges between the U.S.-
led coalition and the Taliban forces became more frequent, particularly in the
eastern and southern provinces, and casualties increased. In July 2006, North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops replaced the U.S.-led coalition at the
head of military operations in the south, and in October they also took command
of the eastern provinces, thus assuming control of international military
operations across the entire country. Fighting between NATO and Taliban forces
continued, and civilian casualties remained numerous; in 2008 they reached their
highest levels since the start of the war. In keeping with campaign statements
that the war in Afghanistan would require greater attention and commitment on
the part of the United States, newly elected U.S. Pres. Barack Obama announced
in February 2009 that some 17,000 additional U.S. troops would be sent to
Afghanistan in the spring and early summer of that year.
Karzai’s term as president was due to expire in May 2009, and at that time he
was constitutionally obligated to step down. Because of logistical and security
reasons, however, the approaching presidential election—in which Karzai would
be a candidate—was postponed from May to August of that year. Karzai asserted
that for reasons of security he should remain in office until the election took place.
Critics were concerned that maintaining his position would give Karzai an undue
electoral advantage, and they urged him to step down as mandated by the
constitution and turn power over to an interim government. In March 2009 the
Supreme Court ruled that Karzai could legally retain his position until the election
in August. Discontent with Karzai’s leadership produced a number of presidential
hopefuls, though Karzai was deftly able to neutralize or secure the backing of
most of those who might have challenged him.
The presidential election was held on Aug. 20, 2009, and was followed by weeks
of political turmoil. In September a preliminary count awarded Karzai almost 55
percent of the vote, thus indicating that he had won an outright victory over his
closest challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. With more than
2,000 complaints of fraud and intimidation, however, the United Nations-backed
Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) ordered an audit of suspect polling
stations, including those that registered a turnout exceeding 100 percent, and
began an investigation into fraud allegations. In mid-October the ECC ruled that
the fraudulent activity was pervasive enough to invalidate votes from more than
200 polling stations. As a result of the ruling, almost one-third of Karzai’s votes
were invalidated, and his proportion of the vote slipped to 49.7 percent, just
below the majority he had claimed and low enough to warrant a second round of
elections. Although Karzai initially resisted the call for a runoff, on October 20 he
conceded to a second round of polling between himself and Abdullah, which was
scheduled for November 7. Shortly thereafter, however, Abdullah withdrew from
the race, a decision he cited as being in the country’s best interest. The runoff
election was canceled, and shortly thereafter Karzai was inaugurated as
president for a second term.
Opium production reached record levels within a few years of the ouster of the
Taliban government: it was estimated that Afghanistan produced more than nine-
tenths of the world’s opiates. Complicating government efforts to curtail
production was the fact that many segments of the population, including the
Taliban and supporters of the central government, profited from opium
production. Indeed, the Taliban derived a substantial income from the industry,
using the proceeds to fund their insurgency.



Afghan policemen destroying opium poppies during an eradication sweep in Orūzgān province, 2007. AP Images
Collecting resin from opium poppies in a field in Afghanistan, 2008.AP

Insurgent attacks increased in 2009. By the middle of the year, U.S. commanders
had become convinced that troop levels in Afghanistan were too low
to implement their counterinsurgency strategy, which called for international
forces to focus on protecting the population and securing areas for reconstruction
projects, rather than simply killing large numbers of insurgents. After some
debate within the Obama administration, Obama announced in December 2009
that the U.S. would temporarily increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by
30,000. This increase in troop strength would be tied to an accelerated timetable
for the training of Afghan security forces and the transfer of security
responsibilities from NATO to the Afghan government.
The number of NATO troops in Afghanistan peaked in 2010 at nearly 150,000.
The increase in troops delivered mixed results; although NATO troops were able
to sweep the Taliban out of areas that it had previously controlled, militants
continued to launch devastating surprise attacks against military, government,
and civilian targets. Two factors that allowed the Taliban to remain resilient in
spite of NATO’s territorial gains were the widespread unpopularity of the Afghan
central government and NATO among Afghans and the presence of a safe haven
for Taliban fighters across the eastern border in Pakistan.
With a military resolution to the conflict seeming increasingly unlikely, and public
support for the war declining in both Europe and the U.S., NATO members
agreed in November 2010 to withdraw combat troops by 2014. The apparent
stalemate between international troops and the Taliban also made U.S. and
NATO leaders more willing to explore prospects for a negotiated political
settlement with the Taliban. However, diplomatic contact between the U.S. and
the Taliban in 2011 and 2012 was intermittent and failed to make progress
toward an agreement. The gradual transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan
forces began in 2011 and was accompanied by a significant reduction in the
number of NATO troops.
Meanwhile, the situation of the Afghan central government remained precarious.
Afghans’ confidence in governing institutions was low, in large part because of
rampant corruption at the local, provincial, and national levels. Parliamentary
elections in 2010 were marred by low turnout in areas where Taliban threats kept
voters away from the polls, while last-minute changes to electoral law and new
allegations of vote rigging further damaged the credibility of the electoral process.

In 2014 Afghanistan held a presidential election to pick a successor to Karzai,

who was constitutionally barred from seeking another term in office. As was
widely expected, the start of the presidential campaign in February was met with
an upsurge of insurgent violence, but the first round of voting was held on
schedule in April. A runoff between the two leading candidates, Abdullah
Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, followed in June. A preliminary count placed Ghani
ahead, but Abdullah demanded a recount, charging that as many as two million
of the ballots for Ghani were fraudulent. With both candidates claiming victory, a
period of deadlock followed. In July, under pressure from the United States, both
sides agreed in principle to accept the results of an internationally supervised
audit of the vote and to form a national unity government in which the winner
would take the position of president and the losing side would nominate someone
to occupy a newly created office with powers similar to those of a prime minister.
The situation, however, remained delicate; disagreements between the two sides
threatened to derail the process before a final agreement could be reached.
On September 21 Ghani and Abdullah signed an agreement under which Ghani
would become president and Abdullah or a nominee from his party would take
the new, prime minister-like position of chief executive officer. Abdullah ultimately
took the post. The position had more of an advisory role; constitutionally, its
authority derived from the power of the president to delegate some presidential
duties to other government members. The Loya Jirga would have to amend the
constitution to formalize the post or grant it powers independent of the president.
Ghani’s presidency faced a new set of issues. The end of NATO’s combat
mission was in December 2014, only months into his presidency. U.S. troops
remained, however, to focus on training Afghan forces and assist in
counterterrorism operations. At the same time, a resurgent Taliban continued to
present a challenge for the central government in asserting control over
Afghanistan. In an effort to stabilize the country, Ghani’s administration began
pursuing peace negotiations with the Taliban and other militant groups in 2015.
The first formal meeting between the central government and the Taliban was
held in July. In 2016 Hizb-i Islami, the largest militant group after the Taliban,
agreed to accept the country’s constitution and renounce violence in a peace
deal with the central government. Many observers hoped the deal would pave the
way for an agreement with the Taliban down the road. In 2017 the United States
increased its troop presence from 8,400 to 14,000 at the request of its top
commander in Afghanistan, boosting support to the central government against
the Taliban and other insurgents.
As the 2018 parliamentary elections approached, the Taliban sought to
undermine the legitimacy of the elections. They called on Afghans to boycott the
elections and threatened violence at the polls. Two days before the elections set
for October 20, the Taliban killed the police chief of Kandahār. The elections in
Kandahār were delayed by a week, but the rest of the country held elections on
time, despite attacks on polling places and on Afghans heading to them. In the
weeks that followed, the country’s election commission released the results
slowly. On December 6 an election complaints committee declared votes
in Kabul to be invalid, citing fraud and mismanagement, but the election
commission rejected the invalidation. With about one-fourth of all votes
nationwide cast in Kabul, the dispute over Kabul’s vote endangered the
legitimacy of the poll altogether.

In mid-December, still in the midst of the electoral count, the United States, Saudi
Arabia, and Pakistan met with the Taliban in Abu Dhabi to discuss how to
advance the peace process. Just days later, the United States announced it
would withdraw half its troops from Afghanistan, a move interpreted by many as
signaling the United States’ seriousness in reaching a peace deal and ending the
war. Afghanistan’s central government had not been informed of the decision
before it was announced, however, and Afghan officials expressed shock at the
United States’ lack of coordination with the government but noted that Afghan
forces already handled most security operations anyway.