History of Afghanistan

From Wikipedia

Afghanistan exists at a unique nexus-point where numerous Eurasian civilizations have interacted and often fought and was an important site of early historical activity. Through the ages, the region today known as Afghanistan has been invaded by a host of peoples, including the Aryans, Ancient Iranian peoples, Indo-Aryans, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Mauryans, Kushans, Hepthalites, Sassanians, Arabs, Turks, British, Soviets and most recently the United States. Rarely, though, have these groups managed to exert complete control over the region. On other occasions, native Afghan entities have invaded surrounding regions to form empires of their own.

Buddhas of Bamiyan, dating back to 1st century pre-Islamic Afghanistan, were the largest Buddha statues in the world. They were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 calling them "Un-Islamic". Photo by Hadi ZaheerBetween 2000 and 1200 BCE, waves of Indo-European-speaking Aryans are thought to have flooded into modern-day Afghanistan, setting up a nation that became known as Aryānām Xšaθra, or "Land of the Aryans." Zoroastrianism is speculated to have possibly originated in Afghanistan between 1800 to 800 BCE. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages such as Avestan may have been spoken in Afghanistan around a similar time-line with the rise of Zoroastrianism. In the eastern area, the early Indo-Aryan Vedic civilization may have had some prominence, although this has yet to be conclusively proven. By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Persian Empire supplanted the Medes and incorporated Aryana within its boundaries; and by 330 BCE, Alexander the Great had invaded the region. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the Hellenistic successor states of the Seleucids and Bactrians controlled the area, while the Mauryas from India annexed the southeast for a time and introduced Buddhism to the region until the area returned to the Bactrian rule.

During the 1st century CE, the Tocharian Kushans occupied the region. Thereafter, Aryana fell to a number of Eurasian tribes — including Parthians, Scythians, and Huns, as well as the Sassanian Persians and local rulers such as the Hindu Shahis in Kabul — until the 7th century CE, when Muslim Arab armies invaded the region.

The Arabs initially annexed parts of western Afghanistan in 652 and then conquered most of the rest of Afghanistan between 706-709 CE and administered the region as Khorasan, and over time much of the local population converted to Islam. Afghanistan became the center of various important empires, including the Ghaznavid Empire (962-1151), founded by a local Turkic ruler from Ghazni named Yamin ul-Dawlah Mahmud. This empire was replaced by the Ghorid Empire (1151-1219), founded by another local ruler, this time of Tajik extraction, Muhammad Ghori, whose domains laid the foundations for the Delhi Sultanate in India.

In 1219, the region was overrun by the Mongols under Genghis Khan, who devastated the land. Their rule continued with the Ilkhanates, and was extended further following the invasion of Tamerlane (Timur Leng), a ruler from Central Asia. The Uzbek-born Babur, a descendant of both Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, established the Mughal Empire with its capital at Kabul by 1504. Later, the Safavids of Persia challenged Mughal rule with the Persians acquiring the area by the mid-17th century.

Ghilzai Pashtun tribesmen under the Ghaznavid Khan Nasher successfully overthrew Safavid rule, and under the Hotaki dynasty, which briefly controlled Afghanistan and Persia itself from 1719-1729. Nadir Shah of Persia defeated the Afghans in the Battle of Damghan, 1729. He had driven out the Afghans, who were still occupying Persia, by 1730. In 1738, Nadir Shah conquered Kandahar, In the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore. One of Nadir Shah's high-ranking military officers, Ahmad Shah Abdali, himself a Pashtun tribesman of the Abdali clan, called for a loya jirga following Nadir Shah's assassination (for which many implicate Abdali) in 1747. The Afghans/Pashtuns came together at Kandahar in 1747 and chose Ahmad Shah, who changed his last name to Durrani (meaning 'pearl of pearls' in Persian), to be king. The Afghanistan nation-state as it is known today came into existence in 1747 as the Durrani Empire which was centered in Afghanistan. The Durrani Empire lasted for nearly a century until internecine conflicts and wars with the Persians and Sikhs diminished their empire by the early 19th century. However, the current borders of Afghanistan would not be determined until the coming of the British.

Lord Nasher after defeating the British colonial forcesDuring the 19th century, following the Anglo-Afghan wars (fought in 1839-1842, 1878-1880, and lastly in 1919) and the ascension of the Barakzai dynasty, Afghanistan saw much of its territory and autonomy ceded to the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom exercised a great deal of influence, and it was not until King Amanullah Shah acceded to the throne in 1919 (see "The Great Game") that Afghanistan regained complete independence. During the period of British intervention in Afghanistan, ethnic Pashtun territories were divided by the Durand Line, and this would lead to strained relations between Afghanistan and British India, and later the new state of Pakistan, over what came to be known as the Pashtunistan debate.

The longest period of stability in Afghanistan was between 1933 and 1973, when the country was under the rule of King Zahir Shah. However, in 1973, Zahir's brother-in-law, Sardar Mohammed Daoud launched a bloodless coup. Daoud and his entire family were murdered in 1978 when the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan launched a coup known as the Great Saur Revolution and took over the government.

Opposition against, and conflict within, the series of communist governments that followed, was considerable. As part of a Cold War strategy, the United States government began to covertly fund and train anti-government Mujahideen forces through the Pakistani secret service agency known as Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which were derived from discontented Muslims in the country who opposed the official atheism of the Marxist regime, in 1978. In order to bolster the local Communist forces the Soviet Union - citing the 1978 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighborliness that had been signed between the two countries in 1978 - intervened on December 24, 1979. The Soviet occupation resulted in a mass exodus of over 5 million Afghans who moved into refugee camps in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. More than 3 million alone settled in Pakistan. Faced with mounting international pressure and the loss of approximately 15,000 Soviet soldiers as a result of Mujahideen opposition forces trained by the United States, Pakistan, and other foreign governments, the Soviets withdrew ten years later, in 1989. For more details, see Soviet war in Afghanistan.

The Soviet withdrawal was seen as an ideological victory in the U.S., which ostensibly had backed the Mujahideen in order to counter Soviet influence in the vicinity of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Following the removal of the Soviet forces in 1989, the U.S. and its allies lost interest in Afghanistan and did little to help rebuild the war-ravaged country. The USSR continued to support the regime of Dr. Najibullah (formerly the head of the secret service, Khad) until its downfall in 1992. However, the absence of the Soviet forces resulted in the downfall of the government as it steadily lost ground to the guerrilla forces.

As the vast majority of the elites and intellectuals had either been systematically eliminated by the Communists, or escaped to take refuge abroad, a dangerous leadership vacuum came into existence. Fighting continued among the various Mujahidin factions, eventually giving rise to a state of warlordism. The chaos and corruption that dominated post-Soviet Afghanistan in turn spawned the rise of the Taliban in response to the growing chaos. The most serious fighting during this growing civil conflict occurred in 1994, when 10,000 people were killed during factional fighting in Kabul.

Exploiting the chaotic situation in Afghanistan, a few regional bedfellows including fundamentalist Afghans trained in refugee camps in western Pakistan, the Pakistani ISI, the regional Mafia (well-established network that smuggled mainly Japanese electronics and tyres before the Russian invasion, now involved in drug smuggling) and Arab extremist groups (that were looking for a safe operational hub) joined forces and helped to create the Taliban movement.[2] Backed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, America and other strategic allies who claim that they have come to help Afghans rebuild there country nowadays, the Taliban developed as a politico-religious force, and eventually seized power in 1996. The Taliban were able to capture 90% of the country, aside from the Afghan Northern Alliance strongholds primarily found in the northeast in the Panjshir Valley. The Taliban sought to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law and gave safe haven and assistance to individuals and organizations that were implicated as terrorists, most notably Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Massive bombing and invasion of the country by the United States and its allies following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks helped opposition factions and forced the Taliban's downfall. In late 2001, major leaders from the Afghan opposition groups and diaspora met in Bonn, and agreed on a plan for the formulation of a new government structure that resulted in the inauguration of Hamid Karzai as Chairman of the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) on December 2001. After a nationwide Loya Jirga in 2002, Karzai was elected President.

As the country continues to rebuild and recover, as of late 2005, it was still struggling against widespread poverty, continued warlordism, a virtually non-existent infrastructure, possibly the largest concentration of land mines on earth and other unexploded ordinance, as well as a sizable illegal poppy and heroin trade. Afghanistan also remains subject to occasionally violent political jockeying, and the nation's first elections were successfully held in 2004 as women parliamentarians were selected in record numbers. Parliamentary elections in 2005 helped to further stabilize the country politically, in spite of the numerous problems it faced, including inadequate international assistance. The landmine problem continues to be a problem; in 2002, the Red Cross recorded 1286 landmine deaths in Afghanistan, one of the highest mine tolls anywhere on Earth. The country continues to grapple with occasional acts of violence from a few remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban and the instability caused by warlords.