Kabul

Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan.

Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan

## History

### Antiquity

The word "*Kubhā*" is mentioned in the Rigveda (circa 1500–1200 BCE), one of the four canonical sacred texts (śruti) of Hinduism, and the Avesta, the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, refers to the Kabul River.[9] The Rigveda praises it as an ideal city, a vision of paradise set in the mountains.[10] The area in which the Kabul valley sits was ruled by the Medes before falling to the Achaemenids. There is a reference to a settlement called *Kabura* by the rulers of the Achaemenid Empire.[*citation needed*][9] It became a center of Zoroastrianism followed by Buddhism and Hinduism.[*citation needed*] Alexander the Great explored the Kabul valley after his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC but no record has been made of Kabul, which may have been only a small town and not worth writing about.[5] The region became part of the Seleucid Empire but was later given to the Indian Maurya Empire.

The Greco-Bactrians captured Kabul from the Mauryans in the early 2nd century BC, then lost the city to their subordinates in the Indo-Greek Kingdom around the mid-2nd century BC. Indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BC, but lost the city to the Kushan Empire about 100 years later.[11]

Some historians ascribe Kabul the Sanskrit name of Kamboja (*Kamboj*).[12][13] It is mentioned as *Kophes* or *Kophene* in some classical writings. Hsuan Tsang refers to the name as *Kaofu*[14] in the 7th century AD, which is the appellation of one of the five tribes of the Yuezhiwho had migrated from across the Hindu Kush into the Kabul valley around the beginning of the Christian era.[15] It was conquered by Kushan Emperor Kujula Kadphises in about 45 AD and remained Kushan territory until at least the 3rd century AD.[16][17] The Kushans were Indo-European-speaking Tocharians from the Tarim Basin.[18]

Around 230 AD, the Kushans were defeated by the Sassanid Empire and replaced by Sassanid vassals known as the Indo-Sassanids. During the Sassanian period, the city was referred to as "Kapul" in Pahlavi scripts.[9] In 420 AD the Indo-Sassanids were driven out of Afghanistan by the Xionite tribe known as the Kidarites, who were then replaced in the 460s by the Hephthalites. It became part of the surviving Turk Shahi Kingdom of Kapisa, also known as *Kabul-Shahan*.[19] According to *Táríkhu-l Hind* by Al-Biruni, Kabul was governed by princes of Turkic lineage whose rule lasted for about 60 generations.

The Kabul rulers built a long defensive wall around the city to protect it from enemy raids. This historical wall has survived until today. It was briefly held by Tibetan Empire between 801 and 815.

#### Islamization and Mongol invasion

The Islamic conquest reached modern-day Afghanistan in 642 AD, at a time when Kabul was independent.[20] A number of failed expeditions were made to Islamize the region. In one of them, Abdur Rahman bin Samana arrived to Kabul from Zaranj in the late 600s and managed to convert 12,000 local inhabitants to Islam before abandoning the city. Muslims were a minority until Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar of Zaranj conquered Kabul in 870 and established the first Islamic dynasty in the region. It was reported that the rulers of Kabul were Muslims with non-Muslims living close by.

Over the following centuries, the city was successively controlled by the Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Khwarazmshahs, Qarlughids, and Khiljis. In the 13th century, the Mongol horde passed through and massively destroyed the area. Report of a massacre in the close by Bamiyanis recorded around this period, where the entire population of the valley was annihilated by the Mongol troops as a revenge for the death of Genghis Khan's grandson. During the Mongol invasion, many natives of Afghanistan fled to India where some established dynasties in Delhi. It was also ruled by Chagatai Khanate and Kartids, were vassals of Ilkhanate till dissolution of latter in 1335.

#### Timurid and Mughal era

In the 14th century, Kabul became a major trading center under the kingdom of Timur (*Tamerlane*). In 1504, the city fell to Babur from the north and made into his headquarters, which became one of the principal cities of his later Mughal Empire.

Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, a poet from Hindustan who visited at the time wrote: *"Dine and drink in Kabul: it is mountain, desert, city, river and all else."* It was from here that Babur began his 1526 conquest of Hindustan, which was ruled by the Afghan Lodi dynasty and began east of the Indus River in what is present-day Pakistan. Babur loved Kabul due to the fact that he lived in it for 20 years and the people were loyal to him, including its weather that he was used to. His wish to be buried in Kabul was finally granted. The inscription on his tomb contains the famous Persian couplet, which states: اگرفردوس روی زمین است همین است و همین است و همین است (If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this!)[24]

#### Durrani Empire

Nine years after Nader Shah and his forces invaded and occupied the city as part of the more easternmost parts of his Empire, he was assassinated by his own officers, causing the rapid disintegration of it. Ahmad Shah Durrani, commander of 4,000 Abdali Afghans, asserted Pashtun rule in 1747 and further expanded his new Afghan Empire. His ascension to power marked the beginning of Afghanistan. His son Timur Shah Durrani, after inheriting power, transferred the capital of Afghanistan from Kandahar to Kabul in 1776,[25] and used Peshawar in what is today Pakistan as the winter capital. Timur Shah died in 1793 and was succeeded by his son Zaman Shah Durrani. Kabul's first visitor from Europe was Englishman George Forster, who described 18th-century Kabul as "the best and cleanest city in South Asia".[10]

In 1826, the kingdom was claimed by Dost Mohammad Khan but in 1839 Shujah Shah Durrani was re-installed with the help of British Indiaduring the First Anglo-Afghan War. In 1841 a local uprising resulted in the killing of the British resident and loss of mission in Kabul and the 1842 retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad. In 1842 the British returned to Kabul, plundering Bala Hissar in revenge before fleeing back to British India (now Pakistan). Akbar Khan took to the throne from 1842 to 1845 and was followed by Dost Mohammad Khan.

The British-led Indian forces invaded in 1879 when Kabul was under Sher Ali Khan's rule, as the Afghan king initially refused to accept British diplomatic mission and later the British residents were again massacred. The British partially destroyed Bala Hissar fortress before retreating to British India.

#### 20th century Kabul

In the early 20th century King Amanullah Khan rose to power. His reforms included electricity for the city and schooling for girls.[*citation needed*] He drove a Rolls-Royce, and lived in the famous Darul Aman Palace. In 1919, after the Third Anglo-Afghan War, Amanullah announced Afghanistan's independence from foreign affairs at Eidgah Mosque. In 1929 King Ammanullah left Kabul due to a local uprising orchestrated by Habibullah Kalakani. After nine months rule, Kalakani was imprisoned and executed by King Nader Khan. Three years later, in 1933, the new king was assassinated by a Hazara student Abdul Khaliq during an award ceremony inside a school in Kabul. The throne was left to his 19-year-old son, Zahir Shah, who became the last King of Afghanistan.

During the inter-war period France and Germany worked to help develop the country and maintained high schools and lycees in the capital, providing education for the children of the city's elite families.[26] Kabul University opened in 1932 and by the 1960s western educated Afghans made up the majority of teachers.[27] By the 1960s the majority of instructors at the university had degrees from Western universities.[27]

When Zahir Shah took power in 1933 Kabul had the only 10 kilometers (6 miles) of rail in the country and the country had few internal telegraphs, phone lines or roads. Zahir turned to the Japanese, Germans and Italians for help developing a modern transportation and communication network.[28] A radio tower built by the Germans in 1937 in Kabul allowing instant communication with outlying villages.[29] A national bank and state cartels were organized to allow for economic modernization.[30] Textile mills, power plants, carpet and furniture factories were also built in Kabul, providing much needed manufacturing and infrastructure.[30]

In 1955, the Soviet Union forwarded $100 million in credit to Afghanistan, which financed public transportation, airports, a cement factory, mechanized bakery, a five-lane highway from Kabul to the Soviet border and dams.[31]

In the 1960s the first Marks & Spencer store in Central Asia was built in the city. Kabul Zoo was inaugurated in 1967, which was maintained with the help of visiting German zoologists. Many foreigners began flocking to Kabul and the nation's tourism industry was starting to pick up speed. Kabul experimented with liberalization, dropping laws requiring women to wear burkas, restrictions on speech and assembly were loosened which led to student politics in the capital.[32] Socialist, Maoist and liberal factions demonstrated daily in Kabul while more traditional Islamic leaders spoke out against the failure to aid the Afghan countryside.[32] From the 1960s until the late 1970s, Kabul was a major stop on the famous Hippie trail.[33]

In 1969 a religious uprising at the Pul-e Khishti Mosque protested the Soviet Union's increasing influence over Afghan politics and religion. This protest ended in the arrest of many of its organizers, including Mawlana Faizani, a popular Islamic scholar. In the early 1970s Radio Kabul began to broadcast in other languages besides Pashto which helped to unify those minorities that often felt marginalized.[*citation needed*] However, this was put to a stop after Daoud Khan's revolution in 1973.[34] In July 1973, while King Zahir Shah was visiting Europe, his cousin Daoud Khanwho served as Prime Minister launched a coup d'état and took over power. This was supported by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a pro-Soviet political party. Daoud named himself President and planned to institute reforms.[35] The BBC has described the period before the April 1978 Revolution as an era when different ethnic groups of Afghanistan lived together harmoniously, intermarried and mixed socially.[10]

By 1975, the young Ahmad Shah Massoud and his followers initiated an uprising in Panjshir but were forced to flee to neighboring Pakistan where they received recruitment from Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to create unrest in Afghanistan with the help of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence. It is claimed that Bhutto paved the way for the April 1978 Saur Revolution in Kabul by making Daoud spread his armed forces to the countryside. "To launch this plan, Bhutto recruited and trained a group of Afghans in the Bala-Hesar of Peshawar, in Pakistan's North-west Frontier Province. Among these young men were Massoud, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and other members of Jawanan-e Musulman. Massoud's mission to Bhutto was to create unrest in northern Afghanistan. It served Massoud's interests, which were apparently opposition to the Soviets and independence for Afghanistan. Later, after Massoud and Hekmatyar had a terrible falling-out over Massoud's opposition to terrorist tactics and methods, Massoud overthrew from Jawanan-e Musulman. He joined Rabani's newly created Afghan political party, Jamiat-i-Islami, in exile in Pakistan."[36]

#### Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

On April 28, 1978, President Daoud and his family along with many of his supporters were assassinated in Kabul. Pro-Soviet PDPA under Hafizullah Amin seized power and slowly began to institute reforms.[37] Private businesses were nationalized in the Soviet manner.[38]Education was modified into the Soviet model, with lessons focusing on teaching Russian, Leninism-Marxism and learning of other countries belonging to the Soviet bloc.[38] Foreign-backed rebel groups and army deserters took up arms in the name of Islam.[38]

In February 1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs was murdered after Afghan security forces burst in on his kidnappers. In neighboring Pakistan, President Zulfiqar Bhutto was executed in April 1979. In September 1979 Afghan President Nur Muhammad Taraki was assassinated by a team of Soviet Spetsnaz inside the Tajbeg Palace in Kabul.[39] On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and Kabul was heavily occupied by Soviet Armed Forces. Following this invasion, Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq chaired a meeting in Islamabad and was told by several cabinet members to refrain from interfering in Afghanistan, owing to the vastly superior military power of the Soviet Union.[40] However, Zia-ul-Haq, fearing that the Soviets may be advancing into Pakistan, particularly Balochistan, made no secret about his intentions of aiding the mujahideen rebel groups. During this meeting, Director-General of the ISI Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for the idea of covert operation in Afghanistan by arming the Islamic extremists.[40] General Rahman was heard loudly saying: "*Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!*",[41] and mastered the idea of proxy warin Afghanistan.[40] President Zia-ul-Haq authorised this operation under General Rahman, and it was later merged with Operation Cyclone, a programme funded by the United States.

The Soviets turned the city of Kabul into their command center during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Kabul was considered moderately safe during that period, as fighting was mostly in the countryside and in other major cities. Kabul was still economically active and women made up 40% of the workforce.[42]However the city was not necessarily calm. Political crime, such as assassinations of PDPA party members and guerilla attacks on military and government targets were quite common. The Soviet Embassy, for example, was attacked 4 times with arms fire in the first five years of the war. In 1983, a report from *Izvestia* said that most public places such as hospitals and state banks had "people with guns in their hands", which was not the case before 1979. A Western correspondent revisiting Kabul in December 1983 after a year, said that the city was "converted into a fortress bristling with weapons", suggesting the increasing sight of guns.[43]

But the city's image wasn't negative in everyone's view. American diplomat Charles Dunbar said that the Soviet troops' presence was "surprisingly modest". He said in a July 1983 article that whilst Soviet troops are a common sight, they "do not give the impression of invaders who are enforcing their occupation at the point of a bayonet". Soviet men and women were very common in the city's shopping roads, with the large availability of Western products.[44] An December 1983 article from *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists*, where the author stayed two weeks in the city, said that the Soviet soldiers had a friendly atmosphere in which they would greet friends and have a chat with the population.[45] Most Soviet civilians (numbering between 8,000 and 10,000) lived in the north eastern Makroyan (*microraion*) suburb, in an apartment housing complex. It was surrounded by barbed-wire and armed tanks, for their safety. The residents were often unsafe when walking through the streets, receiving verbal abuse, rude gestures and even kidnappings from anti-PDPA/anti-Soviet Afghan civilians. Life for PDPA politicians and their families were also insecure.[46] The city's population increased from around 500,000 in 1978 to 2 million in 1988,[47] due to rural refugees but also the return of Afghan refugees from neighboring Pakistan and Iran under President Najibullah, who came into power in 1985.

#### Civil war and Taliban regime

After the fall of Najibullah's[36] Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in April 1992, leaders of the different mujahideen factions were unable to form a government. Despite the 1992 Peshawar Accords, fighting started as Hekmatyar's party refused to sign the accords and started shelling the city for power. This marked the start of a dark period of the city, in which over 50,000[*citation needed*] civilians were killed. About 80 percent of the city was devastated and destroyed by 1996.[48][49]

The city suffered heavily under a bombardment campaign between rival militias. Its geographic location in a narrow valley made it an easy target from rockets fired by militias who based themselves in the surrounding mountains. Initially the factions in the city aligned to fight off Hekmatyar's forces, but diplomacy inside the capital quickly broke down.[50] For the following two years in particular, much of Kabul would be laid to waste, the majority of infrastructure destroyed, and a massive exodus of the population leaving to the countryside or abroad. In December 1992, the last of the 86 city trolley buses in Kabul came to a halt because of the conflict. A system of 800 public buses continued to provide transportation services to the city. By 1993 electricity and water in the city was completely out.

Additionally to the bombardment campaign conducted by Hekmatyar and Dostum, tension between the Shi'a Hazara forces of Abdul Ali Mazari and the Wahabi Ittihad-i Islami of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf soon escalated into a second violent conflict. The fighting between the two factions quickly took on aspects of "ethnic cleansing".[51] One such example was the Afshar Operation in 1993, in which many ethnic Hazara and Pashtun civilians were murdered.

In January 1994, Dostum joined an alliance with Hekmatyar and conducted bombardment of Kabul during that period, but were eventually repelled by Massoud's forces who also bombarded the city to gain control.[52] In late 1994, bombardment of the capital came to a temporary halt.[53][54][55] These forces took steps to restore law and order. Courts started to work again, convicting individuals inside government troops who had committed crimes.[56] Massoud tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections, also inviting the Taliban to join the process but the idea was rejected by them.[57] By 1995 the university opened its doors once again.

The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were repelled at first by Massoud's forces.[54] Amnesty International, referring to the Taliban offensive, wrote in a 1995 report that "This is the first time in several months that Kabul civilians have become the targets of rocket attacks and shelling aimed at residential areas in the city."[54]

On September 26, 1996, as the Taliban prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul and fled north.[58] The next day the Taliban seized Kabul and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed a strict form of Sharia (Islamic law), restricting women from work and education.[59] They also conducted amputations against common thieves. Their hit-squads from the infamous "Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" watched the streets conducting public beatings of people.[59]

The al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a state within the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with bin Laden controlling Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad.[60]

During the hardline Taliban regime, Kabul became a ruined city, with most infrastructure already been destroyed, many residents had long left, poverty levels were high, there was little to no education or public services, and its strict laws meant there were no entertainment or other media allowed. The regime's lack of interest in development meant that the city remained barren for years. On a positive note the Taliban's rule, which would last for five years, made the city calm after years of war between different warlords.

#### 21st century

In November 2001, the Northern Alliance captured Kabul after the Taliban had abandoned it. A month later a new government under President Hamid Karzai began to assemble. In the meantime, a NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was deployed in Afghanistan. The war-torn city began to see some positive development as many expatriate Afghans returned to the country. The city's population grew from about 500,000 in 2001 to over 3 million in recent years. Many foreign embassies re-opened.

As of 2014, the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have been in charge of security in and around the city. Kabul is periodically the scene of deadly suicide bombings carried out by the Haqqani network, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province, the Taliban's Quetta Shura, Hezbi Islami, al-Qaeda, and other anti-state groups.[61][62][63][64] Government employees, soldiers and ordinary civilians have all been targets of attacks.[65][66][67][68][69] The Afghan government called the actions of the terrorists war crimes.