1,157,877,321 visitors served.

Afghanistan

Mountainous, landlocked country in south-central Asia, bounded north by Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, west by Iran, and south and east by Pakistan, India, and China.

Government

Under the 2004 constitution, Afghanistan has a popularly elected executive president and a two-chamber legislature. There is an elected lower chamber, the House of the People (Wolesi Jirga), which comprises 250 members elected for five years by proportional representation at provincial level. There is also an upper chamber, the House of Elders (Meshrano Jirga), a third of whose members are elected by elected provincial councils (for four years), a third by district councils (for three years) and a third by the president (for five years). At least a quarter (two from each of the 32 provinces) of members of the lower chamber must be women and the president appoints two representatives of the Kuchi nomad community and two representatives of the physically disabled. The president, who must be Afghan, a Muslim and at least 40 years old, is directly elected for a five year term and can be elected no more than twice. The president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and appoints members of the cabinet, provincial governors and justices (for 10-year terms) of the 9-member Supreme Court, with the approval of the House of the People, which makes and ratifies laws, budgets and treaties, and can remove ministers. Subsequent approval is required from the House of Elders. Under the constitution, Islam is the state religion and citizens are guaranteed rights of peaceful assembly and free speech.

History

Afghanistan (which literally means ‘land of the Afghans’) has been the crossing-point for European and Asian civilizations and has been invaded by a host of peoples, from the Indo-European speaking Aryans before 1200 BC to in more recent times the Russians; but rarely have the invaders been able to fully control the mountainous region. Part of the ancient Persian Empire, in the 6th century BC, The region was used by Darius I and Alexander the Great, in 330 BC, as a path to India. Islamic Arab conquerors arrived in the 7th century, then the Mongol leaders Genghis Khan and Tamerlane in the 13th and 14th centuries respectively. In the 16th century, Babur, an Uzbek-born descendant of Tamerlane, established a Mogul Empire, with its capital initially in Kabul, which expanded to control large parts of what is today Pakistan and northern India. By the mid-17th century, the Safavids of Persia established control over the region. In 1747 Afghanistan first became an independent emirate under the Pathan tribesman Ahmed Shah Durrani. He established the Durrani Empire which lasted for nearly a century and covered all of Afghanistan as well as parts of Iran, Pakistan and Kashmir. During the 19th century two Afghan Wars were fought (1839-42 and 1878-80), arising out of imperial Britain's concern to prevent Russia from extending its influence in the direction of British-controlled India. In the process Britain gained considerable influence over Afghanistan. The Anglo-Russian treaty of 1907 gave autonomy to Afghanistan.

Independence as a monarchy: 1919-73

Following the third Afghan War in 1919, it achieved independence under the Treaty of Rawalpindi (1919), as a neutral monarchy under King Amanullah. In 1929, Muhammad Nadir Shah, who had played a prominent role in the 1919 Afghan War, became king (with British diplomatic support) but he was assassinated in 1933 after his modernising reforms had alienated influential Muslim clergy.

During the 1950s, Lt-Gen Sardar Muhammad Daud Khan, the brother-in-law of King Muhammad Zahir Shah (ruled 1933-73), governed as Prime minister and introduced a programme of social and economic modernization with financial aid from the communist Soviet Union. Opposition to his authoritarian rule forced Daud's resignation in 1963; the king was made a constitutional monarch, but political parties were outlawed.

Republic and Soviet influence: 1973-79

After a famine in 1972, Daud overthrew the monarchy in a Soviet-backed military coup in 1973. The king fled to exile in Rome, Italy, and a republic was declared. President Daud, after steering a centrist course and seeking to reduce the country's dependence on the Soviet Union, faced a challenge in 1977 from Islamic insurgents and in 1978, was assassinated (along with other family members) in a military coup, known as the Great Saur Revolution. Nur Muhammad Taraki, the imprisoned leader of the radical Khalq (masses) faction of the banned communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), took charge as president of a revolutionary council. A one-party constitution was adopted, a Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Defence signed with the Soviet Union, and major land and social reforms introduced. Conservative Muslims opposed these initiatives, there was a major uprising in the Herat region, and 5 million refugees fled to Pakistan and Iran. Following an internal power-struggle within the PDPA, Taraki was ousted and murdered in September 1979 and replaced as president by the prime minister, Hafizullah Amin.

Soviet invasion and control: 1979-89

Internal unrest continued, and the Soviet Union organized a further coup in December 1979. Amin was executed and Babrak Karmal, the exiled leader of the gradualist Parcham (banner) faction of the PDPA, was installed as leader, after 40,000 Soviet troops invaded the country. The USA and United Nations condemned this invasion. By 1985 the numbers of Soviet forces in Afghanistan had grown to over 120,000 but faced mounting guerrilla resistance from the Mujahedin (‘holy warriors’), a loose coalition of seven Islamic tribal, ideological, and warlord groups which opposed the atheism of the Soviet-backed regime, and which received secret financial and logistic support from the USA, as part of its Cold War strategy, and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate. A war of attrition developed, with the Soviet Union failing to gain control of rural areas. Faced with more than 10,000 troop casualties and a drain on economic resources, the new reform-minded Soviet administration of Mikhail Gorbachev moved towards a compromise settlement in 1986. Karmal was replaced as PDPA leader in May 1986 by Najibullah Ahmadzai, a Pathan former secret-police chief, and several non-communist politicians joined the new government. In 1987 the Afghan government announced a unilateral ceasefire and a new multiparty Islamic constitution was ratified in an attempt to promote ‘national reconciliation’. From October 1986, the Soviet Union began a phased withdrawal of its troops. On its completion in February 1989, the Najibullah government imposed a state of emergency because it faced a mounting military onslaught from the Mujahedin, who rejected the idea of power-sharing.

Battle for control over Afghanistan: 1989-92

From 1990 the civil war intensified and by March 1991, the Mujahedin guerrillas were gaining the upper hand, controlling 90% of the mountainous Afghan countryside and capturing the garrison of Khost, near the Pakistan border. However, the Najibullah regime still controlled Afghanistan's other significant urban centres. In May 1991, the Mujahedin rejected a United Nations (UN) peace plan, which the Najibullah government had accepted, From January 1992, Pakistan, the USA, and Russia halted all weapon supplies to the contending parties, which seriously weakened Najibullah.

The Mujahedin in power: 1992-96

The Najibullah regime collapsed in April 1992 when government troops defected to the Mujahedin forces of the Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and Kabul fell to the Mujahedin; Najibullah was placed under UN protection. An interim government under the moderate Sibghatullah Mojadidi failed to restore order to Kabul and power was transferred in June 2002 to the Mujahedin guerrilla leader Burhanuddin Rabbani, with Massoud as defence minister and Abdul Sabur Farid, representative of the Islamic fundamentalist Hezb-i-Islami, as prime minister. Rabbani, a member of Afghanistan's northern-based Tajik minority, abolished all laws contrary to Shari'a (Islamic law) and sought unity between the country's warring guerrillas, but failed. The country descended into chaotic warlordism and the poppy-based drugs trade began to boom. Tensions between the northern-based government and Hezb-i-Islami fundamentalists, led by the Hezb-i-Islami guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose support came from the traditionally dominant Pathan south, ignited into a new civil war and led in August 1992 to heavy bombardment of the city by Hekmatyar. Rabbani counterattacked by banning Hezb-i-Islami from all government activity. In December 1992 Rabbani was elected president for a two-year term by the country's constituent assembly and an interim parliament was appointed.

In March 1993, President Rabbani signed a peace agreement with Hekmatyar, who became prime minister, but in January 1994 Kabul came under renewed bombardment after Hekmatyar formed an alliance with ex-communist Mujahedin leader, Gen Abdul Rashid Dostam, who commanded a 70,000-strong Uzbek militia, in an effort to oust Rabbani. This was unsuccessful. By June 1994, government troops had driven the rebel forces from Kabul, and in November 1994 Hekmatyar was replaced as prime minister. But the factional fighting around Kabul claimed 10,000 lives in 1994. The chaos was exploited from 1995 by a new group of more extreme Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas, the Taliban, who originated as Islamic theology students trained in refugee camps in western Pakistan and who enjoyed initial backing from the Pakistan ISI and also included Arab extremist groups. Its base was in the Pathan south and it sought to establish a united and patriarchal Islamic state. In September 1995, having already defeated Hekmatyar, the Taliban captured Herat, the country's second-largest city. Controlling only a minority of the country's 30 provinces, in May 1996, President Rabbani concluded a peace agreement with Hekmatyar, who returned to Kabul and resumed his office as prime minister. But Taliban rocket attacks on the city increased and in August 1996 Kabul fell and the Taliban seized power.

The Taliban in power: 1996-2001

The Taliban ruled through a six-member interim council of clerics, headed by Muhammad Rabbani, and imposed strict Islamic law, including the prohibition of the employment and education of females, compulsory beards for men, and a ban on television. The new regime was not recognized by the international community and continued to fight against a Northern Alliance, known from 1997 as the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (UIFSA) and formed by the Tajik-backed Mujahedin warlord Ahmed Shah Masoud and the Uzbek, Iran and Russian backed Gen Abdul Rashid Dostam. UN-sponsored peace talks, from November 1996, between the Taliban and the opposition forces made no real progress and made further military gains in spring 1997 to leave Mazār-e Sharīf, in the far north, as the only major city outside their control. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan officially recognised the Taliban government and in October 1997 the country's official name was changed to The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. A US-brokered temporary ceasefire in April 1998 failed to hold and fighting continued and in August 1998 the Taliban captured Mazār-e Sharīf and slaughtered 6,000 civilians, from the Hazara ethnic minority. Afghanistan became an international pariah state because of the Taliban's treatment of women and ethnic minorities - in March 2001, it destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha in Bamiyan and, in May 2001, Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan were ordered to identify themselves by wearing yellow badges - and the safe haven it gave to sponsors and masterminds of international terrorism, notably Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi, and his al-Qaeda organisation. In March 1998, the UN shut operations in southern Afghanistan, following attacks on UN staff and an edict forcing foreign Muslim women working in Afghanistan to be accompanied by a close male relative. In August 1998, the USA launched Cruise missile strikes against the Afghan base of Osama bin Laden, who was suspected of involvement in the bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. With growing concern in the West, and in the neighbouring states of Central Asia, that Afghanistan had become a dangerous, destabilizing new centre for the export of fundamentalist Islamic revolution, UN sanctions were imposed on Afghanistan from October 1999 for failing to expel Osama bin Laden. The UN tightened its sanctions in December 2000 and withdrew its remaining international aid workers from Kabul. This was despite a worsening economy, as the country's worst drought in 30 years left up to five million facing the threat of starvation in mid-2001. Fighting between the Taliban and its opponents displaced hundreds of thousands and, along with famine, had created over four million refugees, within Afghanistan and in Iran and Pakistan. In November 2000, Pakistan closed its border with Afghanistan to prevent a further influx of refugees. As fighters linked to bin Laden increased their influence over the Taliban regime, it became more extreme and in August 2001, it shut down Shelter Now International, an international aid agency, and arrested eight foreign aid workers for allegedly spreading Christianity.

Overthrow of the Taliban in 2001

Osama bin Laden was named by the USA as the prime suspect in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, and US president George W Bush made it clear that the Taliban would face military action if they did not hand him over. However, the Taliban refused to do so and on 7 October 2001, US and British forces began a military offensive (see War on Terror). This was successful and, by the end of November 2001, the allied forces together with the Northern Alliance had removed the Taliban from power. In late 2001, the leaders of Afghan opposition groups met in Bonn, Germany, and agreed on a new government structure. An interim government was set up on 22 December 2001 with Hamid Karzai, a Pathan, as leader and in June 2002 a Loya Jirga (grand council of elders - an assembly of 1,500 delegates and tribal representatives from across the country) elected him as president.

Rebuilding the country from 2002

In January 2002, the World Bank said that rebuilding Afghanistan after allied military action would cost US$15 billion, with US$100 million needed immediately to keep the administration and essential services going. In Tokyo, Japan, 60 donor countries promised aid worth US$4.5 billion over five years, with US$1.8 billion available in the next 12 months. The political situation remained, however, unstable with continuing deep regional and tribal divisions, the assassination of several government ministers, fundamentalist plots to overthrow the government and allied forces continuing to search for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. However, a new constitution was approved by the Loya Jirga in January 2004 and in October 2004 Hamid Karzai was popularly elected president, wining 55% of the vote and defeating 17 other candidates. Parliamentary elections were originally scheduled for June 2004. Because of the security situation, these elections, the first since 1969, were delayed until September 2005. Turnout, at 50%, was below the 84% turnout for the presidential election and former warlords and Mujahedin parties (Hezb-i-Islami, Jamiat-i-Islami and Ittihad-i-Islami) gained the majority of seats in the lower house and provincial council, but 28% of seats were won by women and only around 20% were radical Islamists. Turnout was highest in the north and lowest (at below 30%) in the Pashto-speaking southeast where the Taliban insurgency was strongest. The country still had acute poverty, a badly damaged infrastructure (with only four hours of electric power available each day in Kabul in 2006), continuing government corruption, dependent on international donations to fund half the government budget, a large illegal poppy and heroin trade (in the south and whose value in 2005 was equivalent to a half of GDP), a massive concentration of unexploded land mines and continuing violence caused by warlords, but political stability and the economy began to improve from 2005. However, the Hamid Karzai regime remained dependent on the military backing of the UN International Security Assistance Force, which included 10,000 NATO troops, who continued to engage in conflicts with Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents.

Natural disasters

The mountainous province of Takhar in northern Afghanistan was struck by a massive earthquake (6.1 on the Richter scale) in early February 1998, claiming 4,000 lives. Further earthquakes in May 1998 killed over 5,000 people. At least 2,000 people were killed in earthquakes in March 2002.

Afghan Wars Afghanistan War Aryana

bin Laden, Osama Dost Muhammad Jamrud

Kandahar Rabbani, Burhanuddin Salang Highway

Tajik Taliban