Afghanistan

**Afghanistan**, officially the **Islamic Republic of Afghanistan**, was a landlocked state in South Asia and Central Asia. It shared land borders with Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China.

## History

### Twentieth Century

After the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919, King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community and, following a 1927–28 tour of Europe and Turkey, introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution, which made elementary education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in 1923.

Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah Khan was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to rebel forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed Kalakani in November 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernisation but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq, a Hazara school student.

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946, Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud Khan sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports, and other vital infrastructure. In 1973, while King Zahir Shah was on an official overseas visit, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan. In the meantime, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto got neighboring Pakistan involved in Afghanistan. Some experts suggest that Bhutto paved the way for the April 1978 Saur Revolution.

### Revolution and Soviet War

In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in the Saur Revolution. Within months, opponents of the communist government launched an uprising in eastern Afghanistan that quickly expanded into a civil war waged by guerrilla mujahideen against government forces countrywide. The Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, while the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA government. The United States has been supporting anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen and foreign "Afghan Arab" fighters, including Osama bin Laden, through Pakistan's ISI as early as mid-1979. Billions in cash and weapons, which included over two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, were provided by the United States and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan. Faced with mounting international pressure and numerous casualties, the Soviets withdrew in 1989 but continued to support Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah until 1992.

### Civil War

From 1989 until 1992, Najibullah's government tried to solve the ongoing civil war with economic and military aid, but without Soviet troops on the ground. Najibullah tried to build support for his government by portraying his government as Islamic, and in the 1990 constitution the country officially became an Islamic state and all references of communism were removed. Nevertheless, Najibullah did not win any significant support, and with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, he was left without foreign aid. This, coupled with the internal collapse of his government, led to his ousting from power in April 1992. After the fall of Najibullah's government in 1992, the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement under which all the Afghan parties were united in April 1992, except for the Pakistani supported Hezb-e Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Saudi Arabia and Iran supported different Afghan militias and instability quickly developed. The conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-scale war. Southern and eastern Afghanistan were under the control of local commanders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and others. In 1994, the Taliban also developed in Afghanistan as a political-religious force. The Taliban first took control of southern Afghanistan in 1994 and forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders. In late 1994, forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud held on to Kabul. Rabbani's government took steps to reopen courts, restore law and order, and initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections. Massoud invited Taliban leaders to join the process but they refused.

In September 1996, as the Taliban, with military support from Pakistan and financial support from Saudi Arabia, prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul. The Taliban seized Kabul in the same month and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed a strict form of Sharia, similar to that found in Saudi Arabia. After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Massoud and Dostum formed the Northern Alliance. The Taliban defeated Dostum's forces during the Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif (1997–98). Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf, began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance.

### Foreign War in Afghanistan

*See Full Article: Afghanistan War*

From 1996 to 2001, the Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri was also operating inside Afghanistan. On 9 September 2001, Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir province of Afghanistan. Two days later, the September 11 attacks were carried out in the United States. The US government suspected Osama bin Laden as the perpetrator of the attacks, and demanded that the Taliban hand him over. After refusing to comply, the October 2001 Operation Enduring Freedom was launched. During the initial invasion, US and UK forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps. The United States began working with the Northern Alliance to remove the Taliban from power.

In December 2001, after the Taliban government was toppled and the new Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai was formed, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the United Nations Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security. Taliban forces also began regrouping inside Pakistan, while more coalition troops entered Afghanistan and began rebuilding the war-torn country. Shortly after their fall from power, the Taliban began an insurgency to regain control of Afghanistan. Over the next decade, ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them.

By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form in parts of the country. In 2010, President Karzai attempted to hold peace negotiations with the Taliban leaders, but the rebel group refused to attend until mid 2015 when Taliban supreme leader finally decided to back the peace talks. After the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, many prominent Afghan figures were assassinated. Afghanistan–Pakistan border skirmishes intensified and many large scale attacks by the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network also took place across Afghanistan. The United States blamed rogue elements within the Pakistani government for the increased attacks.

Following the 2014 presidential election President Karzai left power and Ashraf Ghani became President in September 2014. The US war in Afghanistan (America's longest war) officially ended on December 28, 2014. However, thousands of US-led NATO troops have remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces. In 2015, the Islamic State, which had gained prominence in Iraq, Syria and Libya also began to take control in Afghanistan and Pakistan, winning the support of the Taliban. In March 2016, Kandahar was recaptured by the Taliban, leading to Afghanistan requiring increased support from Iran and Russia as NATO forces were unable to halt Taliban-IS advances.

In September 2016, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard crossed the border into Afghanistan to support the government, while the Russian air force conducted airstrikes in support of their Iranian allies. Throughout 2017, the Iranian and Afghani forces regained control of Afghanistan. In June 2017, Tajikistan invaded Afghanistan but quickly withdrew as tensions with other Central Asian countries escalated. In July 2017, fearing that Afghanistan would become a complete fail state, President Ghani requested to ascend to the newly formed United Islamic Republic. Around the same time, NATO withdrew the last of their forces. Afghanistan ceased to be a sovereign country on 21 August 2017.

### Persification

More than half of former Afghanistan's population already spoke Dari or Tajik, dialects of Farsi. Tehran declared Dari and Tajiks close dialects of Farsi in 2019 making most Afghans de facto Persians. Many identified with the larger nation of the UIR or a great Iranian identity rather than the defunct Afghan nation making former Afghanistan an eastward extension of Iran proper after 2017 for all practical purposes. The Pashtuns received autonomy in the south of former Afghanistan as part of deal to persuade former Taliban to cooperate with Tehran. The Pashtun autonomous zone also included portions of the also defunct nation of Pakistan to the south, erasing the former border between Afghanistan and Pakistan within the UIR and redrawing regional boundaries based on ethnicity.

## Government and Politics

Afghanistan was an Islamic republic consisting of three branches, the executive, legislative, and judicial. The President served as both the head of state and head of government. The National Assembly was the legislature, a bicameral body having two chambers, the House of the People and the House of Elders.

### Administrative Divisions

Afghanistan was administratively divided into 34 provinces, with each province having its own capital and a provincial administration. The provinces were further divided into about 398 smaller provincial districts, each of which normally covered a city or a number of villages. Each district was represented by a district governor.

### Foreign Relations

Afghanistan enjoyed strong economic relations with a number of NATO and allied states, particularly the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Turkey. In 2012, the United States designated Afghanistan as a Major Non-NATO Ally and created the U.S.–Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement. Afghanistan also had mostly friendly diplomatic relations with neighboring Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China, and with regional states such as India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Russia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Japan, and South Korea. It continued to develop diplomatic relations with other countries around the world until its integration into the UIR.

## Economy

Afghanistan was an impoverished least developed country, one of the world's poorest because of decades of war and lack of foreign investment. The country's exports totaled $2.7 billion in 2012. Its unemployment rate was reported in 2008 at about 35%. According to a 2009 report, about 42% of the population lived on less than $1 a day.

The Afghan economy grew about 10% per year between 2000 and 2017, which was due to the infusion of over $50 billion in international aid and remittances from Afghan expats. It was also due to improvements made to the transportation system and agricultural production, which became the backbone of the nation's economy. The country was known for producing some of the finest pomegranates, grapes, apricots, melons, and several other fresh and dry fruits, including nuts. Many sources indicated that as much as 11% or more of Afghanistan's economy was derived from the cultivation and sale of opium, and Afghanistan was widely considered the world's largest producer of opium despite Afghan government and international efforts to eradicate the crop.

## Military

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) was established in 2002 under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1401 in order to help the country recover from decades of war. A number of NATO member states deployed about 38,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Its main purpose was to train the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). The Afghan Armed Forces were under the Ministry of Defense, which included the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan Air Force (AAF). The ANA was divided into 7 major Corps, with the 201st Selab ("Flood") in Kabul followed by the 203rd in Gardez, 205th Atul ("Hero") in Kandahar, 207th in Herat, 209th in Mazar-i-Sharif, and the 215th in Lashkar Gah. The ANA also had a commando brigade, which was established in 2007. The Afghan Defense University (ADU) housed various educational establishments for the Afghan Armed Forces, including the National Military Academy of Afghanistan.