The Amu Darya could be said to be a river with a watershed almost in reverse , for long reputed to be sourced by a powerful glacier-fed stream high in the Pamir Knot at the eastern end of Afghanistan 's Wakhan Corridor , and ending not at the sea but spreading out into the sands of Turkmenistan 's Kyzyl Kum desert , well short of its historic terminus of the inland Aral Sea .
It gets its water from a powerful glacier fed stream high in the Pamir Knot at the eastern end of Afghanistan 's Wakhan Corridor , and does not end at the sea but spreads out into the sands of Turkmenistan 's Kyzyl Kum desert instead of the inland Aral Sea as it did in former times .