High mountains and desert make for extremes of climate.
Many roads are barely passable.
The current civil war has pitted the Taleban militia, which controls the southern two-thirds of the country, against an alliance of opposition forces in the north. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul is closed indefinitely due to security conditions, and no country represents the United States in Afghanistan. Former President Rabbani claims to be the head of the Government and controls most of the country's embassies abroad and retains Afghanistan's UN seat after the U.N. General Assembly deferred a decision on Afghanistan's credentials. Afghanistan in 1997 continued to experience civil war and political instability. There was no central government.