Aryana Encyclopedia

Prime minister Daoud

2011-05-22T04:14:00.001-07:00

By Dr. Walid Majid, Institute for Afghan Studies

Prime minister Daoud's relationship with Washington
(1953-1963)

Abstract:

Mohammad Daoud took over as Prime Minister of Afghanistan in 1953. His economic policy and his goal to modernize the Afghan economy and military in conjunction with his vigorous pursuit of the Pushtunistan issue had profound impacts on the relations of Afghanistan with the world's two super powers. While the USSR took advantage of the situation, Afghan-U.S. relations suffered by mistakes, misunderstandings and a lack of appreciation for the interests of the two parties by both sides.

In 1953 Mohammad Daoud, first cousin and brother-in-law of the Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah, took over the reign of the government and became the prime minister of Afghanistan. He was well known among the Afghans and had a reputation for his drive and energy. His policies were aimed to achieve three goals:

Economic modernization and development of Afghanistan
Aggressive pursuit of the Pushtunistan policy
Strengthening and modernization of the Afghan armed forces.

To achieve his ambitious goals, Prime Minister Daoud understood the need and reliance for greater foreign aid. He adopted a policy whereby the Afghan government moved closer to the Soviet Union attracting large sums of Eastern bloc aid. At the same time he hoped that the American government with the onset of the Cold War would also increase their aid to Afghanistan, fostering Soviet-American competition in the country.

U.S Reaction

The U.S. administration, which at the time had very good relations with the previous prime ministers (uncles of Daoud Khan), was not sure how to interpret Daoud Khan's policy changes. While some among the administration thought that the Afghans had gone over to the Soviet bloc and should be abandoned, others understood that to guarantee the nonalignment of Afghanistan the U.S. would have to increase its aid to Kabul.

Washington, D.C., 1958: Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles sign a cultural exchange agreement. Ambassador Mohammed Maiwandwal on right.[*]

With the tension between Kabul and Washington on the increase, suspicion and an atmosphere of fear clouded the judgments of both sides. The U.S. ambassador in Kabul, Angus Ward, who had close personal relations with Daoud Khan's uncles, was very suspicious of the Prime Minister. Prof. Poullada, who was at the time stationed as the Economic Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul writes: ("Afghanistan and United States: The Crucial Years", The Middle East Journal 35 (Spring 1981), p.178)

Among the principle advocates of the "get tough" policy was the American ambassador in Kabul, Angus Ward. He had been a hostage of the Chinese communists in Mukden, had served in Moscow and was a hard-line anti-Communist. As a man of rare personal integrity and high moral sense, he despised Daoud, whom he considered to be devious, untrustworthy and rash. Daoud fully reciprocated Ward's dislike. Ward's personal feelings were strongly supported by the King's uncles, who had been replaced by Daoud. They assured Ward that Daoud was a disaster for the country. Pakistani officials, alarmed by Daoud's policies, advocated a tough line and wanted to stir up tribal rebellions to overthrow Daoud. They urged their views on Ward with whom they were very friendly. The CIA station chief in Kabul had a strong personal influence on Ward. He was a free-wheeling, hard-drinking, pistol-packing adventurer who fancied himself a Lawrence of Afghanistan. With Pakistani colleagues and royal family dissidents he dreamed up plots to destabilize the Daoud regime.

Poullada further states that none of these maneuvers were either sanctioned or even known in Washington. Daoud Khan, however, was not aware of this and through his intelligence service when he found out about these efforts, he assumed they reflected official U.S. policy towards his regime. It was during this time period when Daoud moved against a number of internal enemies, whom he considered as plotters against his regime. These events certainly played a crucial role in moving Daoud closer to the Soviets who had their own long-term plans.

Military Aid

The question of U.S. military aid was another contentious issue that marred American-Afghan relations. To be sure the Afghans had approached Washington for military aid as early as 1944. The requests which continued from the Afghan side were never taken very seriously by the Americans.

In 1950 the U.S. embassy in Kabul recommended approval of arms sales to Afghanistan in order to "exclude Soviet influence, cement Afghan-American friendship, maintain internal security and promote settlement of differences with Pakistan."[see Poullada] Poullada goes on to write:

This recommendation resulted in a visit to Kabul by Assistant Secretary of State George McGhee on March 12, 1951. He discussed the request with Daoud [then Minister of War]. McGhee suggested a formal request by diplomatic note with a detailed list of desired equipment attached and assured Daoud that it would receive "sympathetic consideration". In American diplomatic parlance this means "we will take a serious look at your request" but Daoud understood it to mean that approval was assured. Afghans had always refused to make an official request unless they knew beforehand that it would be approved, but now a formal note and arms list were in the hands of Ambassador George Merrill on August 13, 1951. On November 27, 1951, Merrill was instructed by Washington to reply to Prime Minister Shah Mahmood that "the arms requested will cost $25 million. They will have to be paid for in cash. Transit through Pakistan will have to be arranged with no help from the United States. The sale will have to be made public, and it would help if the Pushtunistan claim is dropped."[US National Archives: file 890h. 20/7-2048] Shah Mahmood called this "a political refusal" since it could not be accepted by any Afghan government. Daoud's reaction is unrecorded and probably unprintable.

Despite previous disappointments, Daoud tried once again to approach the Americans as soon as he took over as the new Prime Minister. On October 8, 1954, Mohammad Naim, the Afghan Foreign Minister [brother of the Prime Minister and most trusted advisor] met in Washington with John Foster Dulles, the U.S. Secretary of State. Naim once again made an official request for military aid for Afghanistan. A few months later on December 28, Dulles sent a note to the Afghan Ambassador in Washington, Kabir Ludin, stating that "after some careful consideration, extending military aid to Afghanistan would create problems not offset by the strength it would create." [see Poullada] Dulles went on to urge that instead the Pushtunistan issue should be settled. A copy of this note was also sent to the Pakistani ambassador in Washington!

Washington, D.C., 1958: Prime Minister Daoud and Vice President Nixon visit the U.S. Capitol Building.[*]

Naturally the Afghan administration was outraged, not only because their request was once again denied, but more importantly that what was their confidential request was revealed to their regional rival, Pakistan. Further the U.S. had injected the sensitive Pushtunistan issue in its statements and had given the hint that it was siding with the Pakistanis on the long standing and historic dispute.

A month later, in January of 1955, Daoud opened a dialogue with the Soviets regarding their previous offers of military aid, which were until this point ignored by the Afghan governments. That same year the Pushtunistan dispute became hot once again and brought Kabul and Islamabad to the brink of war. An Afghan Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) was convened, which approved accepting Soviet military aid by the Afghan government. At the end of 1955, in December, Bulganin and Khrushchev visited Afghanistan where they offered not only Soviet support for the Afghan position on Pushtunistan, but also promised to help modernize the Afghan armed forces (Hafizullah Emadi, "A Historical Perspective of the Durand Line and the Future of Afghanistan-Pakistan Relations", World Review 29 (1991), pp5-12).

Poullada writes that in early 1956, Ambassador Ward, who was about to depart his post in Kabul, went to warn Daoud of the dangers of Soviet aid:

He cautioned Daoud that Soviet economic aid was laying a logistical infrastructure for a Soviet invasion. The road and bridge tolerances, the spaced fuel and grain depots, the Salang tunnel which breached the great mountain barrier against invasion, were graphic examples. In addition he warned Daoud that training military officers in the USSR could create a fifth column in the heart of the Afghan armed forces.

Daoud, who was frustrated with what he saw as continuing U.S. siding with the Pakistanis, dismissed his concerns and instead complained about the refusal of the U.S. administration for not taking their requests seriously.

Pushtunistan Conflict

The conflict with Pakistan over the issue of Pushtunistan consumed the Daoud regime and had profound impacts on Afghan-U.S as well as Afghan-USSR relations. While the issue is too complex to be tackled in this article, it basically was inherited from previous Afghan governments since the 1890's and dealt with the fate of Pushtuns across the border on the disputed Durand Line. The Durand Line, which was drawn by the British divided Pushtuns tribes between what was British India and Afghanistan, in effect separating Afghan families living in borderland areas.

In 1947 when Pakistan was created, it declared the Durand Line to be its international boundary with Afghanistan. Even the British had not claimed this line to be an internationally accepted boundary, but rather as a line which demarcated British and Afghan spheres of influence. (For a detailed discussion of the Pushtunistan issue see: Louis Dupree, Afghanistan, Princeton University Press, 1980, pp.425-429) The Afghan government took a strong stand against the newly formed government of Pakistan and ever since then the relations between the two nations worsened through continuing propaganda wars, Pakistani blocking of transit goods to landlocked Afghanistan and provocation of tribal sentiments against the Pakistanis by the Afghans and vice versa. (see Emadi)

Daoud, who was always an advocate of the Pushtunistan issue, made the issue one of the major goals of his administration. The USSR encouraged and masterly maneuvered the Daoud regime to go after the Pakistanis over this issue by open support of the Afghan stand and by pouring in military and economic aid as well as opening up of new transit routes for Afghan goods to avoid Pakistani measures. The Americans on the other hand took the side of Pakistan over this issue and embarrassed the Afghans, who were not asking for American support over this contentious issue, but merely for their neutral stand and an objective mediator. In 1953, then Vice President Nixon on his visit to Kabul, lectured Daoud on the Afghan stand over Pushtunistan. Poullada who interviewed Mohammad Naim, who was present during the meeting, states that according to Naim, "Nixon was patronizing, dogmatic and offensive, strongly implying that the Afghan case was just nonsense." [see Poullada] On the next leg of his trip, Nixon went to Pakistan and publicly chastised Afghanistan's policy over the issue of Pushtunistan. Finally the U.S. in 1956 at the SEATO meeting formally recognized the Durand Line as the international boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan, putting an end to any Afghan hope of an objective U.S. policy over this issue.

Economic Aid

Poullada states, however, that the situation started to improve beginning in 1956 with the arrival of Armin Meyer as Deputy Chief of Mission and Sheldon Mills replacing Angus Ward. The U.S. then put forth a new plan of economic aid to Afghanistan with three strategic aims: building air and road links to the West, introducing American higher education, and salvaging the Helmand Valley project. Despite the good intentions, none of these projects really succeeded to its full extent. The air and road links to the West was hampered due to the poor relations with Pakistan. The higher education program was somewhat more successful as the Americans helped in improving a number of faculties at Kabul University. The Helmand Valley project, however was a total failure (See the Helmand Valley Project).

While it is hard to pinpoint the reason(s) for these failures, it is generally believed that both sides were ill-prepared to carry out these projects. The Afghan system of government was inefficient and had too few technical experts. The American consultants who surveyed and put together the proposals, did not have a good knowledge of the working conditions and the intricacies of the Afghan society. Further the American diplomacy, specifically with regards to the military aid issue and the Pushtunistan issue, provided a difficult atmosphere for the success of the aid packages.

[1]

Angus Ward

2011-05-22T04:05:00.001-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

Angus Ward, American Ambassador in Afghanistan

Ward, Angus Ivan (1893-1969) — also known as Angus I. Ward — Born in Alvinston, Ontario, July 19, 1893. Served in the U.S. Army during World War I; Foreign Service officer; U.S. Vice Consul in Mukden, 1926; Tientsin, 1927-29; U.S. Consul in Tientsin, 1932; Moscow, 1938; U.S. Consul General in Vladivostok, 1943; Mukden, 1949; U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, 1952-56. Died in 1969. Interment somewhere in Coin, Spain.[*]

*

Ambassador Angus Ward speaks with Afghan education leaders at the USIS Library(Kabul, 1953).

U.S. Ambassador Ward speaks with Abdul Majid, Minister of Education (right), and Mir Amanuddin Ansari, President of the Faculty of Literature at Kabul University (center). Both men were graduates of American universities who had returned to their homeland to assume important positions. They represented the ultimate goal of U.S.-Afghanistan educational exchanges: a new generation of Afghan leaders.[*]

George R. Merrell

2011-05-22T02:21:00.001-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

AKA George Robert Merrell, Jr.

*

George R. Merrell. Diplomat (date of birth: Wednesday, 13 July 1898 — date of death: 1962).

Bibliography: Merrell, George Robert (1898-1962) - also known as George R. Merrell - of St. Louis, Mo. Born in St. Louis, Mo., July 13, 1898. Served in the U.S. Army during World War I; Foreign Service officer; U.S. Vice Consul in Harbin, 1938; U.S. Minister to Ethiopia, 1947-49; U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, 1949; Afghanistan, 1951-52. Died in 1962. Burial location unknown.[*]

*

George Robert Merrell (1898-1962)

Foreign Service officer
State of Residence: Missouri

Chargé d'Affaires ad interim (Haiti)
Appointed: March 1924
Termination of Mission: October 1926
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (Ethiopia)
Appointed: May 15, 1947
Presentation of Credentials: January 1, 1948
Termination of Mission: Promoted to Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Ethiopia)
Appointed: May 21, 1949
Presentation of Credentials: June 28, 1949
Termination of Mission: Left post March 17, 1951
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Afghanistan)
Appointed: April 19, 1951
Presentation of Credentials: June 28, 1951
Termination of Mission: Left post May 3, 1952[*]

Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr.

2011-05-22T02:12:00.000-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

Dreyfus, Louis Goethe, Jr. (1889-1973) — also known as Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr. — of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, Calif. Born in Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, Calif., November 23, 1889. U.S. Consul in Budapest, 1914; Paris, 1919; Palermo, 1920-21; Dresden, 1925; U.S. Vice Consul in Budapest, 1916; U.S. Consul General in Copenhagen, 1932; U.S. Minister to Iran, 1939-44; Afghanistan, 1940-42; Iceland, 1944-46; Sweden, 1946-47; U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, 1949-51. Episcopalian. Died in 1973. Burial location unknown.[*]

The Embassy of Afghanistan, Washington, DC

2011-05-22T01:45:00.000-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

Starred The Embassy of Afghanistan: Afghan Representatives in Washington, DC from 1943 to the Present Abdul Hussain Aziz, Afghan Minister (1943-1948) Mohammed Naim Khan, Charge d'Affaires (1948-1950) Abdul Hamid Aziz, Charge d'Affaires (1950-1951).

History: Afghanistan and United States of America share a common destiny in fighting terror and tyranny and a deep rooted history of friendship and partnership. The first contact between Afghanistan and the United States of America ocured in the 1830's when a Pennsylvania adventurer, Josiah Harlan, traveled throughout the region, meeting Afghan both Shuja Shah and Dost Mahommed Khan. Shortly after Afghanistan regained her independence from Britain in 1919, King Amanullah, the reformist monarch of Afghanistan, dispatched General Wali Khan as the first Afghan envoy to Washington.

Full diplomatic relations between the Afghanistan and the United States began in 1934. Shortly after the end of World War II, His Majesty King Zahir Shah dispatched Abdul Hussein Aziz as the first Afghan Ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Aziz leased a historic building from an outgoing Supreme Court Chief Justice (The building was later purchased by Ambassador Abdullah Malikyar). That building continues to house the Embassy more than half a century later. President Roosevelt appointed William Hornibrook as the first U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, on November 14, 1935.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower made history when he became the first U.S. President to visit Afghanistan on December 9, 1959. It is reported that seeing Afghanistan had long been a dream of President Eisenhower. Reflecting on his trip, President Eisenhower noted that he found the Afghan people to be "the most determined lot I have ever encountered.” The first U.S. visit by an Afghan Head of State took place in September 1963, when His Majesty King Zahir Shah on the invitation of President John F. Kennedy. Throughout the successive decades, the U.S.-Afghanistan partnership continued to grow, including the contribution of a dedicated group of Peace Corps volunteers between 1962 and 1979.

Sadly, the Embassy was not immune from the conflict that raged over the ocean within Afghanistan. After the Taliban seized control of Kabul, representatives from competing factions feuded over control of the Embassy building. Although the Taliban was not recognized by the United States, their representative in Washington occupied the Embassy building until the summer of 1997, whereupon the State Department officially closed the Embassy.

In January 2002, after the establishment of the Interim Afghan Administration, bilateral relations were restored between Afghanistan and the United States. In an emotional ceremony, the Afghan flag was once again raised outside the Embassy in the presence of then Chairman Hamid Karzai and U.S. officials. The Embassy building, which had been neglected and lay in disrepair, was renovated and reopened in June of 2002. The Embassy is now under the leadership of Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad and has been lauded by numerous U.S. officials as being one of the most hard-working missions in all of Washington, DC. Ambassador Jawad is also non-resident envoy to: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Uruguay.

Afghan Representatives in Washington, D.C. from 1943 to the Present

American Ambassadors to Afghanistan from 1935 to the Present

From 1979 – 2001, the United States did not have an Ambassador posted in Afghanistan, although U.S. interests in Afghanistan were represented by a number of charge d'affaires. From 1981 to 2002, there was no official U.S. embassy in Kabul

James F. Dobbins (2001) - Special US Ambassador to oversee reopening of embassy, not official ambassador

Ryan C. Crocker (2001-2002) - charge d'affaires before official ambassador could be chosen

Palmer, Ely Eliot

2011-05-22T00:01:00.001-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

Palmer, Ely Eliot (1887-1977) - also known as Ely E. Palmer - of Providence, Providence County, R.I. Born in Providence, Providence County, R.I., November 29, 1887. Son of George Frederick Palmer and Martha Josephine (Hunt) Palmer; married, June 19, 1913, to Eno Ham. Foreign Service officer; U.S. Vice Consul in Paris, 1913-15; U.S. Consul in Madrid, 1916-21; Bucharest, 1921-26; U.S. Consul General in Bucharest, 1926-29; Vancouver, 1929-33; Jerusalem, 1933-35; Ottawa, 1935-38; Beirut, 1938-41; Sydney, 1941-44; U.S. Minister to Afghanistan, 1945-48; U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, 1948-49. Baptist. Member, Zeta Psi. Died in 1977. Burial location unknown.[*]

US Ambassador to Afghanistan

2011-05-21T03:16:00.001-07:00

04-May-1935	16-Mar-1936	William H. Hornibrook
19-May-1941	25-Jul-1942	Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr.
02-Jul-1942	17-Aug-1945	Cornelius Van H. Engert
06-Dec-1945	18-Nov-1948	Ely E. Palmer
16-Aug-1949	19-Jan-1951	Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr.
28-Jun-1951	03-May-1952	George R. Merrell
08-Nov-1952	03-Mar-1956	Angus Ward
06-May-1956	03-Feb-1959	Sheldon T. Mills
21-Mar-1959	19-Jan-1962	Henry A. Byroade
20-Mar-1962	21-Jul-1966	John M. Steeves
19-Feb-1967	10-Sep-1973	Robert G. Neumann
21-Nov-1973	14-Jun-1978	Theodore L. Eliot, Jr.
12-Jul-1978	14-Feb-1979	Adolph Dubs (Assassinated)
Feb-1979	Feb-1980	J. Bruce Amstutz (Interim)
Feb-1980	Jan-1982	Hawthorne Q. Mills (Interim)
Jan-1982	May-1983	Charles F. Dunbar (Interim)
Jun-1983	Mar-1986	Edward Hurwitz (Interim)
Mar-1986	Sep-1987	James M. Ealum (Interim)
Sep-1987	Jan-1989	John D. Glassman (Interim)
Embassy in Kabul closed 30-Jan-1989
Liaison Office in Kabul reopened 17-Dec-2001
02-Jan-2002	Apr-2002	Ryan C. Crocker (Interim)
03-Apr-2002	01-Aug-2003	Robert Finn
28-Nov-2003	20-Jun-2005	Zalmay Khalilzad
01-Aug-2005	02-Mar-2007	Ronald E. Neumann
16-Apr-2007	03-Apr-2009	William B. Wood
29-Apr-2009		present Karl W. Eikenberry[*]

Dreyfus, Louis Goethe, Jr.

2011-05-21T02:41:00.001-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

Dreyfus, Louis Goethe, Jr. (1889-1973) - also known as Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr. - of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, Calif. Born in Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, Calif., November 23, 1889. U.S. Consul in Budapest, 1914; Paris, 1919; Palermo, 1920-21; Dresden, 1925; U.S. Vice Consul in Budapest, 1916; U.S. Consul General in Copenhagen, 1932; U.S. Minister to Iran, 1939-44; Afghanistan, 1940-42; Iceland, 1944-46; Sweden, 1946-47; U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, 1949-51. Episcopalian. Died in 1973. Burial location unknown.[*]

Hornibrook, William Harrison

2011-05-21T00:55:00.001-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

Hornibrook, William Harrison (1884-1946) — also known as William H. Hornibrook — of Condon, Gilliam County, Ore.; Twin Falls, Twin Falls County, Idaho; Vancouver, Clark County, Wash.; Utah. Born in Cherokee, Cherokee County, Iowa, July 6, 1884. Son of Dr. Edward Hornibrook and Rosina Hornibrook; married, November 23, 1906, to Yolande Wilson. Democrat. Lawyer; newspaper publisher; member of Idaho state senate, 1910-12; member of Oregon Democratic State Central Committee, 1913-15; U.S. Minister to Siam, 1915-16; Persia, 1933-36; Afghanistan, 1935-36; Costa Rica, 1937-41; member of Democratic National Committee from Oregon, 1918-19. Episcopalian. Died in 1946. Burial location unknown.[*]

Coins

2011-04-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

A silver tetradrachm coin - issued in 323 B.C., the year Alexander the Great died - shows the head of the Hercules on the front. The back of the coin depicts Zues enthroned. The Greek lettering translates as "Alexander the Great". James H. Marrinan

The profile of the Parthian king Martradates II appears on this silver coin. The back of the coin shows the king on his throne, with inscription in Greek letters around the rim. He ruled northern and western parts of Afghanistan. James H. Marrinan

This is one of the many Bactrian metalwork from the 1st century found in most regions of Afghanistan. Freer Gallery of Art

This coin, a silver decadrachma, shows a Macedonian king wearing a helmet. Coins like this circulated the Afghan region from Alexander's day on, and have frequently been founded in archaelogical digs in eastern and northwestern part of the country in places like Herat, Farah, Ghazni, Khandahar, Kabul and Balkh.
(Charles Kieffer in Jeannine Auboyer, The Art of Afghanistan, Hamlyn House: Felham, Middlesex, Enlgand, 1968.)

This precious miniature was found in Afghanistan, left from the glory of the Persian Empire.This tiny golden model of a Persian chariot is part of the "Oxus treasure" found in Afghanistan.[*]

Coins of ancient Afghanistan

2011-04-22T01:28:00.001-07:00

From Aryana Encyclopedia

These ten silver Greco-Bactrian coins are part of the nearly 2,000 silver and gold coins recovered in a National Geographic project. The coins are among the many Afghan museum artifacts saved from 25 years of war and political upheaval.
From the famous Kunduz hoard in northern Afghanistan, the coins make up a virtual portrait gallery of the kings, starting with rulers in the fifth century B.C.

Coin of Euthydemus I, Greco-Bactrian ruler (c. 223 BCE - c.200 BCE), ruler of Bactria, Sogdiana, Ferghana, Arachosia.

Coin of Euthydemus II, Greco-Bactrian ruler (c. 223 BCE - c.200 BCE) and (c.180 BCE), ruler of Bactria

Coin of Antimachus I, Greco-Bactrian ruler (c.185 BCE - c. 170 BCE), ruler of Bactria, Paropamisadae, Arachosia

Coin of Eucratides I, The most powerful of the Greco-Bactrian rulers (c.170 BCE - c. 145 BCE), ruler of Bactria, Sogdiana, Paropamisadae, Arachosia and Gandhara

Coin of Eucratides I, Greco-Bactrian ruler (c.170 BCE - c. 145 BCE), ruler of Bactria, Sogdiana, Paropamisadae, Arachosia and Gandhara

Coin of Plato, Greco-Bactrian ruler (c. 166 BCE), ruler of of Bactria and Sogdiana

Coin of Eucratides II, Greco-Bactrian ruler (c.145 BCE - c. 140 BCE), ruler of Bactria and Sogdiana

Coin of Heliocles I, Greco-Bactrian ruler (c.145 BCE - c. 130 BCE), ruler of of Bactria and Sogdiana

Coin of Agathocles, Indo-Greek ruler (c.190 BCE - c. 180 BCE), ruler of Paropamisadae

Coin of Apollodotus I, Indo-Greek ruler (c.180 BCE - c. 160 BCE), ruler of Paropamisadae, Arachosia and Gandhara

Coin of Menander I, Indo-Greek ruler (c.155 BCE - c. 130 BCE), ruler of Paropamisadae, Arachosia and Gandhara

Coin of Zoilos I, Indo-Greek ruler (c.130 BCE - c. 120 BCE), ruler of Paropamisadae and Arachosia

Coin of Agathokleia, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 130 BC - c. 120 BC), ruler of Gandhara

Coin of Lysias, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 120 BC - c. 110 BC), ruler of Paropamisadae and Arachosia

Coin of Antialcidas, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 110 BC - c. 100 BC), ruler of Paropamisadae and Arachosia

Coin of Demetrius III, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 100 BC), ruler of Gandhara

Coin of Philoxenus, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 100 BC - c. 95 BC), ruler of Paropamisadae, Arachosia and Gandhara

Coin of Theophilos, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 90 BC), ruler of Paropamisadae

Coin of Menander II, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 90 BC - c. 85 BC), ruler of Arachosia and Gandhara

Coin of Hermaeus, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 90 BC - c. 70 BC), ruler of Paropamisadae

Coin of Archebios, Indo-Greek ruler (c. 90 BC - c. 70 BC), ruler of Arachosia and Gandhara

Silver tetradrachm of Maues, Indo-Scythian ruler (c. 85 BC - c. 60 BC)

Silver tetradrachm of Vonones, Indo-Scythian ruler (c. 75 BC - c. 65 BC)

Silver tetradrachm of Azes I, Indo-Scythian ruler (c. 57 BC - c. 35 BC)

Silver tetradrachm of Azilises, Indo-Scythian ruler (c. 57 BC - c. 35 BC)

Roman coin of Tiberius - Tillya Tepe, Tomb III, A.D. 14-37, Gold
Diam. 1.9 cm, National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul

Roman coin of Tiberius - Tillya Tepe, Tomb III, A.D. 14-37, Gold, Diam. 1.9 cm, National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul

coin of Gondophares, founder of Indo-Parthian kingdom, Indo-Parthian ruler (20-50 AD CE)

coin of Abdagases I, Indo-Parthian ruler, ruled during the first decades of the first century AD

Silver tetradrachm of Heraios, clan chief of the Kushans, one of the five constituent tribes of the Yuezhi confederacy in Bactria in the early first century CE, Kushan ruler (c. 1-30 CE)

coin of Kujula Kadphises, Kushan ruler (c. 30-80 CE)

coin of Vima Taktu, Kushan ruler (c. 80-105 CE), bronze

coin of Vima Kadphises, Kushan ruler (c. 105-127 CE), gold

coin of Kanishka I, Kushan ruler (c. 127-147 CE), gold

coin of Vasudeva I, Kushan ruler (c. 191 - c. 230 CE), gold

coin of Hormozd I (Great) Kushānshāhānshāh (meaning king of kings), Indo-Sassanid ruler (circa 265 - 295)

coin of Hormozd I (Great) Kushānshāhānshāh, Indo-Sassanid ruler (circa 265 - 295)

coin of Varhran, Kidarite ruler (c. 425-? CE)

coin of Malka, Hephtalite ruler (c. 475-576)

Coin of Samanta Deva, Shahi Kings of Kabul & Gandhara (circa AD 850-1000),
Obv: Rider bearing lance on caparisoned horse facing right.Devnagari Legends: 'bhi '?.
Rev:Recumbent bull facing left, trishula on bull's rump, Devnagari Legends: Sri Samanta Deva.

Ustad Farida Mahwash

2011-04-08T10:36:00.001-07:00

Born in 1947, Farida Mahwash is considered Afghanistan’s greatest contemporary woman singer. Her exceptional voice and classical training has brought her the country’s ultimate title of “ustad”, or master musician. Despite her forced exile in the United States, Mahwash has prolonged a long and rich career as the permanent guest of the Radio Kabul Ensemble.[*]

By: Daniel Brown

No one denies the soothing role music has played during these decades of bloodshed and war this country has known. The latest illustration is in the remarkable book by Afghan exile Khaled Hosseini, “The Kite Runner”. The rivetting story of friendship and exile is accompanied by musical references to martyrs of the nation’s tragedy, such as singer Ahmad Zahir. Written from his adopted home of California, Hosseini describes the enduring link with his homeland with a wedding song called “ahesta boro”:

“Make morning into a key and throw it into the well
Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.
Let the morning sun forget to rise in the east,
Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.”

Fellow artist and Californian exile Farida Mahwash has had many occasions to sing this verse both at home and abroad. She was born into a highly respectable Kabul family and started working at Radio Afghanistan as a secretary. But her vocal talents were discovered by the radio’s director of music who propelled her into a professional singing career that made her Afghanistan’s most popular woman vocalist. Another key figure in Mahwash’s early career was Ustad Mohammed Hashem. The master tabla player guided his young protégée through the first steps of this male-dominated profession. He composed one of her greatest successes “O bacheb” (Oh boy). It combines several tunes into one extended song cycle that pays homage to the diversity of Afghanistan’s regional styles.

Hashem also instilled the rigours of classical Indian singing into Mahwash’s repertoire. The richness of her singing led to the government elevating her to “Ustad” in 1977, an honorific title normally reserved for men. However, the Taraki coup a year later cut short this golden era in Afghan music and severely truncated Mahwash’s career. In 1991, she lost her brother-in-law in the violence and was forced to flee, first to Pakistan and then to the United States.

Shortly after, Mahwash re-united with Asif, Yusef and Arif Hashem. The three brothers of her teacher Mohammed recreated the exceptional tabla accompaniment for Mahwash to sing the songs from her glory days. At the same time, her friend Hossein Arman invited her to join the Radio Kabul Ensemble. This was composed of fellow-refugees and it opened the doors to countless concerts and the award-winning 2003 album “Radio Kaboul”, on the Accords Croisés label.

At 58 years old, Mahwash still has a glittering career ahead of her. Her powerful and reedy vocal range has been awarded a “Golden voice” prize in Europe, as well as the coveted “Janis Joplin” trophy. In November 2005 she embarked on a month-long US tour with a new repertoire intitled “Afghan Ghazal”.[*]

Dr Amanullah Jayhoon

2011-04-06T15:23:00.001-07:00

From: Embassy of Afghanistan

Dr Amanullah Jayhoon was born in 1963 in Takhar province of Afghanistan. Following his primary and secondary education in Afghanistan, he was admitted to the International Islamic University of Islamabad - Pakistan in 1984. He completed his B.A with majors in comparative religion and Arabic studies in 1987. Dr Jayhoon went on to pursue post-graduate studies in Political Science & International Relations at the University of Technology in Peshawar - Pakistan from 1988-1989.

In the pursuit of further academic enquiry Dr Jayhoon received a scholarship from the University of Nebraska in 1990 where he earned his MA (Ed) in Education Administration in 1991.

He received his Phd in Political Science from the International Islamic University of Malaysia in 2009.

Dr Jayhoon was appointed Ambassador to Australia & New Zealand in 2007. He presented his credentials as Ambassador to Australia to the Australian Governor General Michael Jeffrey on 31 May 2007.

Prior to this appointment Dr Jayhoon headed the First Political Division (Asia Pacific) of Afghanistan ’s Foreign Ministry from 2005-2007.

From 2002-2005 Dr Jayhoon headed the Afghan embassy in Malaysia . He served as Minister-Counsellor and Head of Mission, Embassy of Afghanistan in Berlin from 1999-2002 and Vice Consul General at the Consulate General of Afghanistan in Berlin from 1997 to 1999.

Dr Jayhoon was posted to Vienna, Austria in 1996 as First Secretary & Charge D’Affairs and had previously served as First Secretary to the Afghan mission in Ankara, Turkey from 1993 to 1995.

Ambassador Jayhoon is married and has four children.

Ustad Rahim Kushnawaz

2011-04-05T15:05:00.001-07:00

By: John Baily

Ustad Rahim Kushnawaz (born in about 1943) is one of the most important contemporary players of the Afghan rubab. He is from a family of professional musicians in the city of Herat, in western Afghanistan. His father, Amir Jan-e Khushnawaz, received a training in the art music of Kabul in the 1930s, and from his father Rahim learned much of the classical repertory for his instrument. Two of Ustad Rahim's brothers and his son are also professional musicians.

The rubab is the quintessential Afghan instrument. It is a short-necked wasted lute, the lower chamber having a parchment sound-table. It has three melody strings and sets of drone and sympathetic strings, the latter giving the instrument its very characteristic resonant sound (as though it had a built-in reverberation chamber). The performance technique relies on a heavy down stroke with the plectrum, such that the right hand holding the plectrum often has a percussive impact on the parchment sound-table. The shortest sympathetic string is raised by a protuberance on the bridge so that it can be struck in isolation. In this way it serves as a high drone, used in a special technique (called parandkari) in which the performer provides seemingly endless patterns of rhythmic variations. Analysis shows that these patterns have characteristics in common with the geometrical with which Islamic art is so strongly associated.

Ustad Rahim is fully conversant with the art music of Kabul, which has close connections with North Indian classical music. He plays two types of instrumental piece with tabla drum accompaniment, the naghma-ye klasik ("classical instrumental piece") and naghma-ye Kashal ("extended instrumental piece"). The first is a simplified form of Indian alap and gat, while the latter is indigenous to Afghanistan. In these genres he displays great virtuosity in using the parandkari technique. He is also a masterful rubab accompanist for the singing of ghazals in the Kabuli style, a vocal art music genre that frequently uses texts from the great tradition of Persian classical poetry, often of a mystical nature. In this capacity he worked for many years in the ensemble of the celebrated Kabuli singer Ustad Amir Mohammad, who spent much of his life in the 1970s working in Heart.

The city of Herat is close to the border with Iran, and traditional Herati music has close connections with Persian music, particularly in terms of intervals. Kushnawaz has made a speciality of adapting this music to the rubab, and has added certain extra frets to the instrument in order to enable it to play the neutral seconds of Persian music. It is his wonderful artistry in rendering the traditional music of Heart that really distinguishes his virtuosity.

Kushnawaz's career as a musician has been severely disrupted by the political events in Afghanistan following the Russian invasion in 1979. For long periods of time he has lived in exile in Mashad, Iran. As a result, only a few of his recordings have been published in the West.[National Geographic]

The Jews of Afghanistan

2011-04-02T01:42:00.000-07:00

By: DENNIS WASKO

Jews have lived in Afghanistan for at least 2000 years. According to Afghan tradition, it is highly likely that Jews have inhabited this area of the world since the Babylonian Exile in 586 B.C.E. and the subsequent Persian conquest.

It is a little known fact, especially in the West, that many of the countries that are today predominantly Muslim once had very large Jewish populations. We hear so much about Afghanistan, but we never hear about the plight of its Jews, and the horrible persecution that led to the destruction and scattering of the Afghan Jewish Community. We never hear about how the Jewish population went from 80,000 in the 12th century to just 1 Jew today. The lone Jew of Afghanistan is named Zebulon Simentov. He is the caretaker of the last, rundown synagogue in Kabul who refuses to leave the country as he sees it his duty to be the last member of the Jewish faith to reside in Afghanistan.

It wasn’t just radical militant Islam that the Jews of Afghanistan had to worry about. They also had to deal with the oppressive Soviet Communists. Long before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970’s, Afghan culture and politics were being influenced by the Soviet Union. Communism was slowly introduced in the 1950’s and 1960’s by the Soviet education of Afghan school children. Before long, a once tolerant government began to turn against the Jewish Community as it was influenced more and more by Moscow. Those who were lucky emigrated to Israel, New York, and Pakistan.

After the defeat of the Soviet Army by the Mujahidin in the 1980’s, life for the remaining Jews worsened as the country erupted into civil war and the Taliban eventually came into power. More Jews left the country, joining their compatriots in Israel and New York. By 1996 there were only 10 Jews left in Afghanistan. For those who stayed, life was uncertain and filled with strife. The Taliban confiscated the last Torah in Zebulon Simentov’s dilapidated synagogue. Thus ends 2,500 years of Jewish History in Afghanistan.

Today, more than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent live in Eretz Yisrael, and over 200 Afghani Jewish families live in New York City. They are a very tight, close-knit community.

The jews of Afghanistan

2011-04-01T15:59:00.001-07:00

History

The Jews of Afghanistan have a history of 2,500 years in this country. They arrived in this area after the Babylonian Exile and the Persian conquest. The first traces concerning the Jewish population of Afghanistan are dated from the seventh century. They concern the Jews living the town of Ghor. The discovery of a Jewish cemetery in this city in 1946 testifies to the existence of a large and flourishing Jewish community. The earliest tombstones date from 752-753 and the latest date from 1012-1249. The inscriptions on the tombstones are in Hebrew, Aramaic and Judeo-Persian, a language with elements of medieval Persian and containing Hebrew-Aramaic components, written in Hebrew script, and spoken by the members of the local Jewish community.

In 1222, after the invasion of Genghis Khan, the Jewish communities were reduced to isolated pockets. The most important groups were located in Kabul, Herat, Ghazni and Balkh.

The arrival of Jews coming from Iran at the 19th century, then of Central Asia at the 20th century (to initially flee Russian repression, and a few decades after communist threat) allowed the increase of the Jewish population in Afghanistan (about 40,000 persons). By 1948, about 5,000 Jews were left, and after they were allowed to emigrate in Palestine, most of them moved there or in India, for economic reasons. In the seventies, some 300 remained, and most of them left after the Soviet invasion of 1979.

Traditions:

The traditional Jewish clothing was similar to that of the Islamic population. The Jews of Afghanistan used Hebrew for liturgy and religious studies, while Judeo-Persian was the main language for day to day usage.

Another fact is that the Pashtuns have a legend of being descended from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and they claim that the name Afghanistan is derived from Afghana; a grandson of King Saul.

Comments of an American young woman having Afghan origins:

"I want my children to remember that their ancestors came from Kabul, Afghanistan. My mom and her family left Afghanistan to come to America in 1964. They left Afghanistan along with many other Jews. They had good living conditions but simple ones. The life they were living there wasn't anything fancy. They lived in middle class homes. My grandfather and great grandfather were in the textile business.

King Zaher Shah who took over in 1935 (in fact 1933) liked the Jews and protected them. The Jews had a certain degree of religious freedom. They attended shuls and were observant Jews. My mom's family and most afghan Jews left because they wanted to have a better life and education for their children."[*]

Diplomatic relations between the Afghanistan and the United States of America

2009-10-26T01:55:00.001-07:00

History

Afghanistan and United States of America share a common destiny in fighting terror and tyranny and a deep rooted history of friendship and partnership. The first contact between Afghanistan and the United States of America ocured in the 1830's when a Pennsylvania adventurer, Josiah Harlan, traveled throughout the region, meeting Afghan both Shuja Shah and Dost Mahommed Khan. Shortly after Afghanistan regained her independence from Britain in 1919, King Amanullah, the reformist monarch of Afghanistan, dispatched General Wali Khan as the first Afghan envoy to Washington.

Full diplomatic relations between the Afghanistan and the United States began in 1934. Shortly after the end of World War II, His Majesty King Zahir Shah dispatched Abdul Hussein Aziz as the first Afghan Ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Aziz leased a historic building from an outgoing Supreme Court Chief Justice (The building was later purchased by Ambassador Abdullah Malikyar). That building continues to house the Embassy more than half a century later. President Roosevelt appointed William Hornibrook as the first U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, on November 14, 1935.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower made history when he became the first U.S. President to visit Afghanistan on December 9, 1959. It is reported that seeing Afghanistan had long been a dream of President Eisenhower. Reflecting on his trip, President Eisenhower noted that he found the Afghan people to be "the most determined lot I have ever encountered.” The first U.S. visit by an Afghan Head of State took place in September 1963, when His Majesty King Zahir Shah on the invitation of President John F. Kennedy. Throughout the successive decades, the U.S.-Afghanistan partnership continued to grow, including the contribution of a dedicated group of Peace Corps volunteers between 1962 and 1979.

Sadly, the Embassy was not immune from the conflict that raged over the ocean within Afghanistan. After the Taliban seized control of Kabul, representatives from competing factions feuded over control of the Embassy building. Although the Taliban was not recognized by the United States, their representative in Washington occupied the Embassy building until the summer of 1997, whereupon the State Department officially closed the Embassy.

In January 2002, after the establishment of the Interim Afghan Administration, bilateral relations were restored between Afghanistan and the United States. In an emotional ceremony, the Afghan flag was once again raised outside the Embassy in the presence of then Chairman Hamid Karzai and U.S. officials. The Embassy building, which had been neglected and lay in disrepair, was renovated and reopened in June of 2002. The Embassy is now under the leadership of Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad and has been lauded by numerous U.S. officials as being one of the most hard-working missions in all of Washington, DC. Ambassador Jawad is also non-resident envoy to: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Uruguay.

Afghan Representatives in Washington, D.C. from 1943 to the Present

Abdul Hussain Aziz, Afghan Minister (1943-1948)

Mohammed Naim Khan, Charge d'Affaires (1948-1950)

Abdul Hamid Aziz, Charge d'Affaires (1950-1951)

Mohammed Kabir Ludin, Ambassador (1953-1956)

Dr. Najibullah Torwayana, Ambassador (1956-1958)

Mohammed Hashim Maiwandwal, Ambassador (1958-1963)

Dr. Abdul Majid, Ambassador (1963-1967)

Abdullah Malikyar, Ambassador (1967-1978)

Dr. Abdul Waheed Karim, Ambassador (1978-80)

Noor Ahmad Noor, Ambassador (1980-1981)

Dr. Mohed Salem Spartak, charge d'affaires (1982-1984)

Mohammad Haidar Rafiq, charge d'affaires (1984-1985)

Mohammad Ashraf Samimi, charge d'affaires (1985-1986)

Mr. Rouhullah Erfaqi (1986-1987)

Mia Gul, charge d'affaires (1988-1990)

Abdul Ghafoor Jawshan, charge d'affaires (1990-1992)

Abdul Rahim, charge d'affaires (1992-1994)

Yar Mohammad Mohabat, charge d'affaires (1994-1995)

Haroun Amin, charge d'affaires (2002)

Isaq Sharhyar, Ambassador (2002-2003)

Said T. Jawad, Ambassador (2003-Present)

American Ambassadors to Afghanistan from 1935 to the Present

William H. Hornibrook (1935 - 1936) - Minister Plenipotentiary

Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr. (1940 - 1942) - Minister Plenipotentiary

Cornelius Van Hemert Engert (1942 - 1945) - Minister Plenipotentiary

Ely E. Palmer (1945 - 1948) - Minister Plenipotentiary

Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr. (1949 - 1951) - First formal ambassador

George Robert Merrell (1951 - 1952)

Angus I. Ward (1952 - 1956)

Sheldon T. Mills (1956 - 1959)

Henry A. Byroade (1959 - 1962)

John M. Steeves (1962 - 1966)

Robert G. Neumann (1966 - 1973)

Theodore L. Eliot, Jr. (1973 - 1978)

Adolph Dubs (1978 - 1979)

From 1979 – 2001, the United States did not have an Ambassador posted in Afghanistan, although U.S. interests in Afghanistan were represented by a number of charge d'affaires. From 1981 to 2002, there was no official U.S. embassy in Kabul

James F. Dobbins (2001) - Special US Ambassador to oversee reopening of embassy, not official ambassador

Ryan C. Crocker (2001-2002) - charge d'affaires before official ambassador could be chosen

Robert Finn (2002 - 2003)

Zalmay Khalilzad (2003 - 2005)

Ronald E. Neumann (2005 - 2007)

William B. Wood (2007 - 2009)

Karl Eikenberry (2009 - Present)

Dardic languages

2009-06-26T09:58:00.001-07:00

Dardic languages

also called Dard, Pisaca, or Pisacha Languages,

Main

group of closely related Indo-Iranian languages spoken in Pakistan, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. They are often divided into three subgroups: Kafiri, or Western; Khowari, or Central (spoken in the Chitrāl district of northwestern

Pakistan); and the Eastern group, which includes Shina and Kashmiri. (Some scholars use the term Dardic to refer only to the Eastern subgroup of languages and use the name Pisaca to refer to the group as a whole.)

The exact position of the Dardic languages within the Indo-Iranian language family has been a matter of dispute among scholars. Some scholars believe the languages to stem from an undifferentiated stage of Indo-Iranian; others believe the Eastern and Khowari groups to be Indo-Aryan, with the Kafiri subgroup being separate.

Kashmiri is the only Dardic language that has been used extensively for literary purposes. Except for Shina, the languages of the Eastern subgroup have been radically changed by the influence of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken farther south. The Dardic languages differ from the other Indo-Iranian languages in their sound systems and in the preservation of a number of words lost in India and Iran after the time of Vedic Sanskrit.[+]

Language Family Trees

Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Northwestern zone, Dardic

Indo-European (449)

Assorted References

classification and characteristics (in Indo-Aryan languages: Phonology)
Dardic occupies a special position. The sibilant sounds did not all merge here. For example, Kashmiri, a Dardic tongue, has šurah “16” with š rather than s, as in most other Indo-Aryan languages, and sat “7” with s. Further, voiced aspirated stops merged with unaspirated stops in Dardic; e.g., Kashmiri gur...
distribution (in Afghanistan: Languages)

Other Indo-European languages, spoken by smaller groups, include Western Dardic (Nuristani or Kafiri), Balochi, and a number of Indic and Pamiri languages spoken principally in isolated valleys in the northeast. Turkic languages, a subfamily of the Altaic languages, are spoken by the Uzbek and Turkmen peoples, the most recent settlers, who...[+]

[+]

Ghobar, Mir Gholam Mohamad

2009-01-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

Short Biography of Mir Gholam Mohamad Ghobar

Mir Gholam M. Ghobar, son of Mirza Mir Mahbub was born in 1899 in Kabul. He received a private education with most of his studies in the fields of history, literature, philosophy, and social sciences. His youth coincided with the beginning of a social change in Afghanistan when Kabul witnessed publication of opposition intellectual circles. Subsequently, a political revolution and a vigorous social change emerged. As a result, Afghanistan gained victory in hits third war against Britain. These events created a favorable atmosphere for social changes by the young generation even though it did not last more than a decade.

His Occupations during the Amanollah Regime:

Editor of the weekly Stara-e-Afghan (Afghan Star) (1919-1920) (this publication, containing critical and reformist articles, was published in two pages in Jabal Seraj and Charikar.)
President of a public security department (1920-1921)
Member of Heart Tanzimiya (provincial administration) in 1921
Deputy assistant of the Amania Company and its trade representative in a Moscow exhibition in 1924
Secretary of Afghanistan’s Embassy in Paris in 1925
Director of customs in Qataghan-Badakhshan province (1927)
Elected representative of Kabul in the Paghman Loye Jirga in 1928

His Occupations during the Rule of the Nadir Shah Family:

First secretary of Afghan Embassy to Berlin in 1930 (later he resigned from this position and returned to Afghanistan to directly participate in the campaign against the tyranny of Nadir Shah)
Member of Kabul Literary Association in 1931-1932

Political Imprisonment (1933-1935) He was imprisoned because of the assassination s of three staffs of the British Embassy by Mohammad Azim.

He was banished to Farah and Kandahar because of the same incident (1935-1942)
Member of the History Association in Kabul (1943-1948)
Representative of Kabul citizens for the Seventh Parliament (1949-1951)
Founder and secretary of Watan Party, as well as founder and chief editor of the Watan Party publication organ (1951- 1952) (The Watan Newspaper, a critical paper, published in four pages, was banned by the government in 1951. The government in 1951. The government also suspended the party in 1952 and officially dissolved it in 1956.)

Political Imprisonment (1952-1956) He and a number of his party colleagues, was imprisoned on charges of leading an election demonstration.

For the next 20 years (1946-1978), Ghobar – liberal political activist and patriot, writer and journalist, and historian – who was under pressure and surveillance of the ruling family, had to confine to his residence his political and scholarly activities. He was widely known as an active national liberationist, journalist, writer, and historian. During this period, he wrote Afghanistan in the course of History. During this period, the government banned the publication of his articles and books, including the publication of the first volume of Afghanistan in the Course of History. The government also prevented him from being elected in the Parliament during the second period of the so-called “State Democracy.”

Death (February 5, 1978)

Ghobar went to West Berlin for stomach treatment. On February 5, 1978, he died in a hospital in Berlin. He died a few months before the coup of the Soviet- installed regime in Kabul. He was buried in his ancestral Shohadaye Salehin cemetery in Kabul.

Before his death, he had stated in his will that several hundred rare books of his private library be given to a public library. The books were granted to Kabul Public Library after his death.

He had also stated in his will these words: “I wish my children to have the bless of faith in unity of God, and success in service and compassion for the poor and humankind, which will bring them peace of mind and conscience, with optimism in life and death.”

Ghobar was deeply affected by human suffering, particularly the suffering of the oppressed. As a small child, I (Hashmat Gobar) remember one cold snowing winter day when I was walking with my father on Walayet Street in Kabul. He was holding my hand. We came across an old man sitting in a corner, shivering. His dignified look was full of sadness and pain. He was wearing a frayed shirt and trousers. My father took off his coat and gave it to the old man. He spent the rest of the winter without a coat because he had no other extra coat and could not afford to buy one. That day under heavy snowing, I witnessed his profound humanitarian feeling.

He advised his children to help the poor, as he was committed to serving them. He dedicated his life to this cause, never succumbing to governments in his campaign against oppression and threat to his life. From his prison and exile, he never wrote any plea to the government. Having failed to break him by chain and captivity, the ruling family desperately resorted through their agents to extensive negative propaganda against him.

During the second period of “democracy,” when the government used violence and conspiracy to block his election to the Parliament, a government agent at a gathering of Kabul residents at Zainab Theater, where Ghobar was making a speech, mentioned that Ghobar’s release from prison indicated his compromise with the government. Ghobar replied, “Tyrannical governments do not refrain from cowardly conspiracies and propaganda against their opponents. With conspiracy, the government, which holds the prison key, can imprison or release anyone it wishes. However, here before a number of government’s agents, I am challenging the government to show whatever evidence it has regarding my compromise or surrender in all my political life so that every body may know. They do not have such an evidence, but I will write the real history of people of Afghanistan, in which I will reveal documents about the oppressive governments and the persons related to them.” He fulfilled his promise by writing Afghanistan in the Course of History.

During the reign of the ruling family, he courageously told the truth, which is vividly manifested in his book Afghanistan in the Course of History. For example, Nadir Shah and later M. Daud, two most autocratic rulers of the country, asked Ghobar to cooperate with their despotic regimes. In rejecting these offers that Ghobar considered against the public interests, he had to accept years of captivity, banishment, and home surveillance. (See the second volume of Afghanistan in the Course of History).

However, others, not being able to resist the threats of the oppressors, capitulated out of fear. (For example, Mir M. Sadiq Ferhang, threatened by Daud, changed his line. Within a few years, he gradually fell into the bosom of the ruling family by accepting such posts as deputy minister and ambassador to Yugoslavia. Later, when Babrak Karmal, with the Soviet tanks and artillery was installed as the head of the Soviet puppet regime in Kabul, Ferhang served as official advisor to Karmal during that dark and bloody period in Afghanistan). Because of personal interests, positions, material privileges, and for attracting the attention of oppressive rulers and foreign invaders, these individuals deviated from the path of the people and truth. Later, to justify their deeds, they and their relatives leveled accusations against patriotic dissidents.

During the reign of the ruling family, servants of the oppressors flattered, and distorted the history of the country. After the fall of the ruling family, suddenly they changed course, writing “borrowed” history and distorted “memoirs,” with lies from start to end. They distorted the episodes of their services to the oppressors. (For example, Seyyid Qassem Reshtiya, who had held ministerial and ambassadorial posts during the reign of the ruling family, had become so accustomed to them, that he tried to gain another post in the new Soviet puppet regime of Nur Mohammad Taraki in Kabul, without having the slightest regard for Afghanistan’s national interests. Therefore, he set out to please the regime. In a televised meeting held by the puppet regime against the former ruling family, Reshtiya severely attacked his old benefactors and called them “the Al-Yahya Family traitors,” whom he had addressed in the past as “His Majesty and His Highness” for a half century and had distorted the history of Afghanistan to please them. In the same way, he wrote several articles in the newspapers. After the collapse of the communists, Reshtiya changed course again. To please the former king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, he included in his memoirs the photo of the king standing with him and his brother, Mir M. Sadiq Ferhang.) When Ghobar lived in captivity, exile, and under house surveillance and harassment, these gentlemen were ministers, ambassadors, and advisors, living a life of comfort and pleasure inside and abroad.

I remember a day when a covert agent of the ruling family visited our house on the Walayet Street. In a casual conversation with my father, he tried to discover the real writer of an article about Reshtiya titled “Yesterday’s Thief, Today’s President and Minister of Tomorrow.” Of course, he failed to identify the author. Later, however, he disclosed the purpose of his visit by imparting to Ghobar the hidden threat of the ruling family in apparent “good-will” and “friendly” language. For example, he asked Ghobar: “What would become of his three daughters in the future, if Ghobar went to prison again because of his political activities? Ghobar asked this person, “What is the population of Afghanistan?” he said, “About 12 or 15 million people.” Ghobar replied, “Half of this figure, about 8 million, are women. How can I quit my struggle in defending the rights of 8 million daughters and mothers of this nation because of my three daughters?”

Ghobar left behind his wife, Lady Saleha, with seven children: Maria Ghobar, Rona Ghobar, Donia Ghobar, Asad Hassan Ghobar, Ashraf Shahab Ghobar, Ibrahim Adham Ghobar, and Hashmat Khalil Ghobar. In his diary, he wrote these words about his wife: “Lady Saleha is a literate and industrious woman, a companion of my life, a partner in all my distressing and dangerous adventures, a woman of patience and courage, who has raised virtuous children and endured a great deal of hardship.”

Ghobar’s Works

It is worth saying that until 70 years ago the history of Afghanistan, with all of its richness, remained obscure and confused in the folds of the historical works of others who wrote abut Afghanistan. Even in the Afghan schools of the time, the teaching of Afghanistan’s history covered Afghanistan since the 18th century and approach that terribly harmed the culture, the history, the national honor and unity of the country. As it appears, Ghobar was the first person that sensed this serious flaw and corrected it by being a pioneer in writing the history of Afghanistan, opening the path for new historians to follow. By writing Afghanistan in the Course of History, forty years later, Ghobar introduced an advanced form of analytical historiography.

The first volume of Afghanistan in the Course of History, in 840 pages, was first printed in 3000 copies by Kabul Public Printing House in 1967. The government banned the book before its publication. More than 15,000 copies of the book were printed outside the country. This is the first scholarly written history of Afghanistan, which starts from the beginning of the historical period to the early second quarter of the 20th century.

Details abut the First Edition of Afghanistan in the Course of History

The Book Publishing Institution signed an official contract with Ghobar to print the first volume of the Afghanistan in the Course of History in 3000 copies, of which the author was to receive 300 copies. (The institution was part of the Ministry of Information, headed by Abdol Rauf Binawa, and Hashem Maiwandwal was the then prime minister.) However, after its last page came out of the print, the ruling family immediately banned the book without any official announcement. Later, the new Prime Minister, Nur Ahmad Etamadi, a grandson of Sardar Sultan Mohammad Talayi, officially announced the banning of the book at a hearing session of the Parliament without the ruling of a legal court.

Mohammad Anas (a grandson of Amir Dost Mohammad), the new minister of information, officially summoned Ghobar at the ministry to seize abut forty copies of the book he had already obtained. (Hashmat Khalil Ghobar had already taken out the books from the printing house on the contract basis.) With threatening words, he told Ghobar: “You have passed most of your life in prison. Therefore, any imprisonment threat will not affect me at all. I considered writing the real history of the Afghan people as my duty. The legal way for you is to lift the ban on the history I wrote and then the government, with all its facility, can assign some of its hired writers, who in the past distorted events in the country’s history, to write against it.”

As long as the ruling family was in power, the first volume of Afghanistan in the Course of History was banned. A few months after Ghobar passed away, a communist coup overthrew the government and a Soviet-installed regime came to power in 1978. Only one month after it took power, the new regime lifted the ban and allowed the book to be published, hoping to win the public support. However, the regime, decided to stop the distribution of the book three days after it noticed that it had a strong national spirit against foreign aggression, but during the first three days, about 3000 copies had sold out, with nothing left to be banned.

The first volume of Afghanistan in the Course of History was printed seven more times outside Afghanistan, selling more than 50,000 copies. Some rumors spread by one or two politically or materially biased individuals that the original copy had been tampered with in the later editions published outside the country, are completely false. All of the subsequently publications of the book have been from the original copy without any change.

The second volume of Afghanistan in the Course of History was written in 1973 in Kabul, but it was not possible to publish it because of M. Daud’s suppressive regime. In his will, Ghobar had entrusted his son (Hashamat Ghobar) to preserve the manuscript of the second volume and print it in an appropriate time. The successive oppressive regimes and then the foreign aggression in Afghanistan blocked and delayed its publication. Providing funds for the publication was another delaying factor. Finally, the original Persian text, without the slightest change, was printed in 285 pages by Speedy Printing in June 1999 in Virginia, USA. And now the English translation of the second volume is published. The book covers the eventful years of the second quarter of the 20th century.

Afghanistan and a View of Its History is about the geographical history of Afghanistan. It was published in 190 pages in the first-year’s issues of Majallah-e Kabul (from the second issue to the 12th issue) by Kabul General Printing in 1931.

Afghanistan in India, in 95 pages, is the history of the expansion of Afghanistan’s political influence in India. It was published in the first nine issues of Majallah-e Kabul (Kabul Magazine, 1932).

Brief History of Afghanistan, in 68 illustrated pages, covers Afghanistan from the ancient time of Avesta to the 20th century. It was published in the first edition of Kabul Salnameh (Year Book) in 1932 with an appendix of the ancient names of Afghanistan and its provinces.

Ahmad Shah Baba, printed in Kabul in 1943, 352 pages, covers the historical events of Afghanistan in the 18th century. Before publishing this book, Ghobar had made available a portion of its manuscript to Abdol Hay Habibi, who often visited Ghobar during his exile in Kandahar. Later, Habibi went to Kabul, where he wrote a detailed introduction to Ahmad Shah’s Divan (book of poetry) and published it. He used a portion of Ghobar’s manuscript in writing about the birth date, the birthplace, coronation, works, the administration, and other aspects of Ahmad Shah’s reign in his introduction, which he printed in 1940. Habibi did not acknowledge the source of the introduction, but he also, as the deputy director of the Press and Information Department, in a written statement called the publication of Ghobar’s book against the national interests of the country. After returning to Kabul after his banishment, Ghobar mentioned this issue in the introduction of his work.

Resala-e Khorason (Essay on Khorasan as the old name of Afghanistan for a thousand years. Based on reliable historical and geographical documents, this essay was published in 100 pages in 1947 in Kabul.

Essay on Local Afghan Rulers was published in 58 pages in Ariana Magazine (issues 11-12 in 1933 and issues 3-7 in 1934)

Emergence of Islam and Arab Influence in Afghanistan, in 112 pages, was published in the third volume of Afghanistan’s History in 1947 in Kabul.

History of First Centuries, in 226 pages, was published as a high school textbook, with the cooperation of Dost Mohammad, a history teacher, in Kabul in 1947.

Afghanistan in a Glance, in 284 pages, was published in 1947 in Kabul. The ruling family did not like the sheet related to the Mohammadzai period, therefore, it assigned Najibollah Khan, the minister of education, who was related to the family, to replace the sheet after the first print, by a sheet of his own writing without the permission of Ghobar.

Literature in the Mohammadzai Period (the fifth section of Afghanistan’s Literary History), in 81 pages, was published in Kabul in 1952.

A series of historical, social and political essays, biographies of noted Afghan figures, and introduction to a number of manuscripts on the history of Afghanistan were published in Kabul periodicals and Encyclopedia of Afghanistan, some of which appeared in various issues of Ariana Magazine in 1943-49.

Ghobar’s famous article titled “Our Economy” was published in Islah on October 9, 1946.
The article was critical of the economic approach and a number of top capitalists and merchants, led by Abdol Majid Zaboli, the minister of economy. They had formed a partnership with the ruling family and by gaining massive profits were increasing poverty to the poor and destroying the economy of the city and rural middle class, small merchants and businessmen. The article, caused a great deal of commotion, and the government threatened Ghobar in person in a Cabinet meeting and punished the editor of the Islah newspaper. Mohammad Akbar Etamadi and Ebrahim Afifi tried to defend Zaboli by writing against the article.

Ghobar was also the editor of the weekly-Stara-e Afghan (Afghan Star) paper, which was published in two pages from Jabal Seraj and then Charikar in 1919-1920. The purpose of publishing the paper was to keep alive the spirit of jihad against British imperialism and the threshold of the Afghan war of independence. In his later articles in the paper, Ghobar adopted a critical view with regard to the government management.

Ghobar was also the founder and chief editor of the weekly Watan Newspaper (1950-51), which was the organ of the Watan Party in Kabul and was banned by the government.

The Literary History of Afghanistan from the early historical period to the 20 the century (not published).

Ghobar’s Notes (not published)

It should be remembered that Ghobar wrote most of his works under the iron heel of tyranny, therefore, some distortions were imposed by the state censorship such as deletion or addition or change of words, sentences, or even pages of a book. However, the first and second volumes of Afghanistan in the Course of History, which are the first scholarly and analytical history of the country, remained intact and did not suffer any distortion by the government censorship because the despotic government banned the first volume totally and the second volume was never given to them. Later the first volume was printed abroad several times and the second volume, which could not be published during the tyrannical regime of the time, is now available in print abroad, both in original Persian and in English translation.

Ariana Afghan Airlines

2008-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

History of Ariana Afghan Airlines

Ariana Afghan Airlines was established in January 1955. An American commercial pilot relocated several war-surplus Dakota Aircraft to Afghanistan which he had been operating as a private air service in India after the end of World War ll. Prior to that there had been no air service for passengers within Afghanistan, even though the Royal Afghan Air Force had been in existence for some years. The utility of air travel was soon recognized by the Afghan Government, and the airlines was incorporated more formally as "Ariana Afghan Airlines".

An interesting footnote to that event was that the Shah of Afghanistan personally designed the logo for the new airline, the very same logo which is still proudly retained. The design represents the Afghan Swallow whose graceful fight has always delighted Afghans throughout the ages, and the blue field was inspired by precious stone lapis lazuli, found uniquely in the high mountains of Afghanistan.

In 1957 an agreement was negotiated between the Royal Afghan Government and the United States International Co-Operation Administration (ICA) to create a partnership with a leading American airline company. Ariana was reincorporated as a limited Liability Company with 51% of the shares owned by various entitles of the Afghan Government, and the remaining 49% acquired by Pan American World Airways. PanAm's management contract featured technical assistance as well as the controlling management role. Two DC-4 type aircraft were purchased with the assistance of ICA to augment the four Dakotas which Ariana was still operating.

Some thirty PanAm technicians and managers were assigned in a full-time basis to the joint venture. Services expanded as Afghan personal were trained and more facilities became available. During those early years, the airline's operational and maintenance headquarters was located in Kandahar, the second city of Afghanistan located in the southern plains and well suited to airline operations because of the lack of adjacent mountain ranges. Initial operations were from a sandy runway, and maintenance work was done in the open with only minimum shelter.

Concurrent with the development of Ariana as the national carrier, air facilities in Afghanistan were being developed with assistance from the U.S Federal Aeronautics Administration (FAA) and continued funding from ICA. A modern airport and air traffic plan was developed for Kandahar, featuring advances terminal and hangar facilities. Meantime, assistance was granted by the Soviet Union to develop the airport at Kabul, and in 1965 the operational headquarters of Ariana moved to Kabul to share modern office facilities with the Afghan Air Authority.

The Joint Venture Misssion

The PanAm partnership with Ariana had two objectives, being to operate the airline profitably, and to train Afghan nationals to eventually assume all operational and management roles. This meant years of training and development, and to a major extent, both objectives were accomplished.

Initially Ariana was staffed with foreign pilots and mechanics primarily Indians. as Afghan professionals gained their their qualifications, they assumed responsible positions. Initial flight training was conducted in Kandahar with three small aircraft with the best trainees then sent to the United Sates to acquire FAA commercial successes with Instrument Ratings. During the 1970s and 80s, 26 Afghan pilots completed this intensive training program, eleven qualified as captains with FAA Air Transport Ratings, the highest license rating obtainable Flight Engineer Licenses and were placed on Ariana flight duty.

A considerable number of nationals were trained for specialized airline professions, such as dispatchers communicators, engineers, flight attendants, logistics, flight

Service specialists, as well as management staff for accounting traffic, sales and so on. By the time that the PanAm partnership was terminated in 1985, Ariana employed about 650 people, over 630 of whom were Afghan.

Fleet and Routes of the Early Years

The airline's fleet expanded steadily. Two DC-6A/Bs and a Convair 340/440 were purchased during the early 1960s. The first Boeing 727-100C was acquired in 1968, and a second Boeing 727-C was added in June, 1971. Ariana was proud to be the first regional airline to operate jet aircraft, as well as to be ranked during the 70s in the top ten globally in terms of airline safety.

Ariana started operations with only domestic routes. In 1971 the internal routes were taken over by a government owned domestic airline. That service was eventually reintegrated once again with the national carrier more than a decade later.

By the peak period of operations at the end of the 70s, Ariana's Boeing fleet flew internationally twice a week to Istanbul, Frankfurt, London, Paris, and Amsterdam, and thrice weekly to New Delhi, Lahore and Amritsar. In addition to this regular schedule, each year Ariana served large numbers of Afghans on their way to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the annual Haj Pilgrimage.

Ariana is proud that it has operated successfully in Afghanistan for more than fifty years, from a mountainous terrain which has some of the most challenging operating conditions that can be found anywhere in the world Home base is Kabul International Airport, which is 6,000 feet high surrounded by mountains, with high temperatures in the summer and frigid conditions in the winter. Added to this mix are summer dust storms rising over 20,000 feet on the northern plateau, as well as send storms in the Kandahar area.

Ariana progresses well in the technical realm during the PanAm partnership. The advent of jet operations at Ariana meant as extensive program of training in Afghanistan as well as at Boeing and Pratt & Whitney engine plants, for pilots, engineers, mechanics, and operations personnel. The commitment to training has continued though the years, with Ariana technicians constantly being exposed to further training to keep their technical skills current.

In 1979 Ariana purchased a wide-body DC 10 to operate on its Asian and European routes. After some years of service, that aircraft was sold to make room for two Topolov TU 154 from Russia. In 1993, Ariana purchased three Boeing 727-200 from Air France, with the pilots trained by the Royal Jordanian Air Academy in Amman.

During the Taliban regime Ariana operated two Boeing 727-100 and one Boeing 727-200 for International routes, and five AN 24 for domestic routes. Eventually international sanctions against the fundamentalist regime curtailed all Ariana International flights as the world community signalled its disapproval of the repressive character of the regime and its acquiescence to terrorist cliques.

Disaster and a new beginning

After the tragedy of the September 11 attacks on the United States, an international coalition quickly coalesced to ally with the Afghan resistance to depose what had become a criminal rouge regime. In the course of the rapid and decisive onslaught, Ariana lost six of its eight remaining planes during the bombing of air fields around Afghanistan.

Peace once again graces our nation. With the generous assistance of the international community, Afghanistan is making a new start again after 23 disastrous years of conflict. An interim regime has been established under the leadership of President Hamid Karzai, and the Traditional Islamic State of Afghanistan is asserting its control over the whole country. Roads and schools are being rebuilt, a more stable currency has been introduced, and a hopefully long-lasting partnership has been forged between the world community and Afghanistan.

Ariana Afghan Airlines is also already well on its way to recovery. The Boeing fleet has been expanded, and the Government of India has generously granted several Airbus passenger planes to expand our fleet. Routes are rapidly being extended once again. By the third quarter of 2002 the Ariana network has expanded from neighbouring nations to the Arab Gulf states, to India, Turkey and Germany. Plans are in process for more routes to match once again the peak of Ariana operations and, sooner rather than later, to surpass that mark.

Ariana is very proud to be spreading our wings again. We offer our passengers a well-maintained air fleet, convenient routes, attractive prices, and the best of traditional Afghan hospitality. Let us invite you to fly with us to visit the new Afghanistan.[*]

The History of Afghanistan

2008-09-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

Prehistory

Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) peoples probably roamed Afghanistan as early as 100,000 years ago. The earliest definite evidence of human occupation was found in the cave of Darra-i-Kur in Badakhshān, where a transitional Neanderthal skull fragment in association with Mousterian-type tools was discovered; the remains are of the Middle Paleolithic Period, dating to about 30,000 years ago. Caves near Āq Kupruk yielded evidence of an early Neolithic culture (c. 9000–6000 bc) based on domesticated animals. Archaeological research since World War II has revealed Bronze Age sites, dating both before and after the Indus civilization of the 3rd to the 2nd millennium bc. There was trade with Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Egypt, and the main export from the Afghan area was lapis lazuli from the mines of Badakhshān. In addition, a site with definite links to the Indus civilization has been excavated at Shortughai near the Amu Darya, northeast of Kondoz.

Historical beginnings

In the 6th century bc the Achaemenian ruler Cyrus II (the Great) established his authority over the area. Darius I (the Great) consolidated Achaemenian rule of the region through the provinces, or satrapies, of Aria (in the region of modern Herāt), Bactria (Balkh), Sattagydia (modern Ghaznī to the Indus River), Arachosia (Kandahār), and Drangiana (Sīstān).

Alexander the Great overthrew the Achaemenids and conquered most of the Afghan satrapies before he left for India in 327 bc. Ruins of an outpost Greek city founded about 325 bc were discovered at Ay Khānom, at the confluence of the Amu Darya and Kowkcheh River. Excavations there produced inscriptions and transcriptions of Delphic precepts written in a script influenced by cursive Greek. Greek decorative elements dominate the architecture, including an immense administrative centre, a theatre, and a gymnasium. A nomadic raid about 130 bc ended the Greek era at Ay Khānom.

After Alexander’s death in 323 bc, the eastern satrapies passed to the Seleucid dynasty, which ruled from Babylon. About 304 bc the territory south of the Hindu Kush was ceded to the Maurya dynasty of northern India. Bilingual rock inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic (the official language of the Achaemenids) found at Kandahār and Laghmān (in eastern Afghanistan) date from the reign of Ashoka (Aśoka; c. 265–238 bc, or c. 273–232 bc), the Maurya dynasty’s most renowned emperor. Diodotus, a local Greco-Bactrian governor, declared the Afghan plain of the Amu Darya independent about 250 bc; Greco-Bactrian conquerors moved south about 180 bc and established their rule at Kabul and in the Punjab. The Parthians of eastern Iran also broke away from the Seleucids, establishing control over Sīstān and Kandahār in the south.

About 135 bc a loose confederation of five Central Asian nomadic tribes known as the Yuezhi wrested Bactria from the Bactrian Greeks. These tribes united under the banner of the Kushān (Kuṣāṇa), one of the five tribes, and conquered the Afghan area. The zenith of Kushān power was reached in the 2nd century ad under King Kaniṣka (c. ad 78–144), whose empire stretched from Mathura in north-central India beyond Bactria as far as the frontiers of China in Central Asia.

The Kushāns were patrons of the arts and of religion. A major branch of the Silk Road—which carried luxury goods and facilitated the exchange of ideas between Rome, India, and China—passed through Afghanistan, where a transshipment centre existed at Balkh. Indian pilgrims traveling the Silk Road introduced Buddhism to China during the early centuries ad, and Buddhist Gandhāra art flourished during this period. The world’s largest Buddha figures (175 feet [53 metres] and 120 feet [about 40 metres] tall) were carved into a cliff at Bāmīān in the central mountains of Afghanistan during the 4th and 5th centuries ad; the statues were destroyed in 2001 by the country’s ruling Taliban. Further evidence of the trade and cultural achievement of the period has been recovered at the Kushān summer capital of Bagrām, north of Kabul; it includes painted glass from Alexandria; plaster matrices, bronzes, porphyries, and alabasters from Rome; carved ivories from India; and lacquers from China. A massive Kushān city at Delbarjin, north of Balkh, and a major gold hoard of superb artistry near Sheberghān, west of Balkh, also have been excavated.

The Kushān empire did not long survive Kaniṣka, though for centuries Kushān princes continued to rule in various provinces. Persian Sāsānids established control over parts of Afghanistan, including Bagrām, in ad 241. In 400 a new wave of Central Asian nomads under the Hephthalites took control, only to be defeated in 565 by a coalition of Sāsānids and Western Turks. From the 5th through the 7th century many Chinese Buddhist pilgrims continued to travel through Afghanistan. The pilgrim Xüanzang wrote an important account of his travels, and several of the religious centres he visited, including Hadda, Ghazna (Ghaznī), Kondoz, Bāmīān, Shotorak, and Bagrām, have been excavated.

Under the Hephthalites and Sāsānids, many of the Afghan princedoms were influenced by Hinduism. The Hindu kings of the Shāhī family were concentrated in the Kabul and Ghaznī areas. Excavated sites of the period include a major Hindu Shāhī temple north of Kabul and a chapel in Ghaznī that contains both Buddhist and Hindu statuary, indicating that there was a mingling of these two religions.

The first Muslim dynasties

Islamic armies defeated the Sāsānids in 642 at the Battle of Nahāvand (near modern Hamadān, Iran) and advanced into the Afghan area, but they were unable to hold the territory; cities submitted, only to rise in revolt, and the hastily converted returned to their old beliefs once the armies had passed. The 9th and 10th centuries witnessed the rise of numerous local Islamic dynasties. One of the earliest was the Ṭāhirids of Khorāsān, whose kingdom included Balkh and Herāt; they established virtual independence from the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in 820. The Ṭāhirids were succeeded in 867–869 by a native dynasty from Sīstān, the Ṣaffārids. Local princes in the north soon became feudatories of the powerful Sāmānids, who ruled from Bukhara. From 872 to 999 Bukhara, Samarkand, and Balkh enjoyed a golden age under Sāmānid rule.

□ Louis Dupree
□ Nancy Hatch Dupree

In the middle of the 10th century a former Turkish slave named Alptigin seized Ghazna. He was succeeded by another former slave, Subüktigin, who extended the conquests to Kabul and the Indus. His son was the great Maḥmūd of Ghazna, who came to the throne in 998. Maḥmūd conquered the Punjab and Multan and carried his raids into the heart of India. The hitherto obscure town of Ghazna became a splendid city, as did the second capital at Bust (Lashkar Gāh).

Maḥmūd’s descendants continued to rule over a gradually diminishing empire until 1150, when ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ḥusayn of Ghūr, a mountain-locked region in central Afghanistan, sacked Ghazna and drove the last Ghaznavid into India. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s nephew, Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad, known as Muḥammad of Ghūr, first invaded India in 1175. After his death in 1206, his general, Quṭb al-Dīn Aybak, became the sultan of Delhi.

Shortly after Muḥammad of Ghūr’s death, the Ghurīd empire fell apart, and Afghanistan was occupied by Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad, the Khwārezm-Shah. The territories of the Khwārezm-Shah dynasty extended from Chinese Turkistan in the east to the borders of Iraq in the west.

□ Frank Raymond Allchin

The Mongol invasion

Genghis Khan invaded the eastern part of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s empire in 1219. Avoiding a battle, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn retreated to a small island in the Caspian Sea, where he died in 1220. Soon after ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s death, his energetic son Jalāl al-Dīn Mingburnu rallied the Afghan highlanders at Parwan (modern Jabal os Sarāj), near Kabul, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Mongols under Kutikonian. Genghis Khan, who was then at Herāt, hastened to avenge the defeat and laid siege to Bāmīān. There Ṃutugen, the khan’s grandson, was killed, an event so infuriating to Genghis Khan that when he captured the citadel he ordered that no living being be spared. Bāmīān was utterly destroyed. Advancing on Ghazna, Genghis won a great victory over Jalāl al-Dīn, who then fell back toward the Indus (1221), where he made a final but unsuccessful stand.

After Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, his vast empire fell to pieces. In Afghanistan some local chiefs succeeded in establishing independent principalities, and others acknowledged Mongol princes as suzerains. This state of affairs continued until the end of the 14th century, when Timur (Tamerlane) conquered a large part of the country.

Timur’s successors, the Timurids (1405–1507), were great patrons of learning and the arts who enriched their capital city of Herāt with fine buildings. Under their rule Afghanistan enjoyed peace and prosperity.

Early in the 16th century the Turkic Uzbeks rose to power in Central Asia under Muḥammad Shaybānī, who took Herāt in 1507. In late 1510 the Ṣafavid shah Ismāʿīl I besieged Shaybānī in Merv and killed him. Bābur, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, had made Kabul the capital of an independent principality in 1504. He captured Kandahār in 1522, and in 1526 he marched on Delhi. He defeated Ibrāhīm, the last of the Lodī Afghan kings of India, and established the Mughal Empire, which lasted until the middle of the 19th century and included all of eastern Afghanistan south of the Hindu Kush. The capital was at Agra. Nine years after his death in 1530, the body of Bābur was taken to Kabul for burial.

During the next 200 years Afghanistan was parceled between the Mughals of India and the Ṣafavids of Persia—the former holding Kabul north to the southern foothills of the Hindu Kush and the latter, Herāt and Farāh. Kandahār was in dispute for many years.

Last Afghan empire

Periodic attempts were made to gain independence. In 1709 Mīr Vays Khan, a leader of the Hotaki Ghilzay tribe, led a successful rising against Gorgīn Khan, the Persian governor of Kandahār.

● The Hotakis:

Mīr Vays Khan governed Kandahār until his death in 1715. In 1716 the Abdālīs (Durrānī) of Herāt, encouraged by his example, took up arms against the Persians and under their leader, Asad Allāh Khan, succeeded in liberating their province. Maḥmūd, Mīr Vays’s young son and successor, was not content with holding Kandahār, and in 1722 he led some 20,000 men against Eṣfahān; the Ṣafavid government surrendered after a six-month siege.

Maḥmūd died in 1725 and was succeeded by Ashraf, who had to contend with Russian pressure from the north and Ottoman Turk advances from the west. Shah Ashraf halted both the Russian and Turkish onslaughts, but a brigand chief, Nādr Qolī Beg, defeated the Afghans at Dāmghān in October 1729 and drove them from Persia. During the retreat Ashraf was murdered, probably on orders from his cousin, who was then holding Kandahār.

● Nādir Shah:

Nādr Qolī Beg took Herāt in 1732 after a desperate siege. Nādr was impressed by the courage of the Herātis and recruited many of them to serve in his army. He had himself elected shah of Persia, with the name Nādir Shah, in 1736.

In 1738, after a year’s siege, the city of Kandahār fell to Nādir Shah’s army of 80,000 men. Nādir Shah seized Ghazna and Kabul and occupied the Mughal capital at Delhi in 1739. His booty included the Koh-i-noor diamond and the Peacock Throne. He was assassinated at Fatḥābād, Iran, in 1747, which led to the disintegration of his empire and the rise of the last great Afghan empire. [1]

● The Durrānī dynasty:

The commander of Nādir Shah’s 4,000-man Afghan bodyguard was Aḥmad Khan Abdālī, who returned to Kandahār and was elected shah by a tribal council. He adopted the title Durr-i Durrān (“Pearl of Pearls”). Supported by most tribal leaders, Aḥmad Shah Durrānī extended Afghan control from Meshed to Kashmir and Delhi, from the Amu Darya to the Arabian Sea. The Durrānī was the second greatest Muslim empire in the second half of the 18th century, surpassed in size only by the Ottoman.

Aḥmad Shah died in 1772 and was succeeded by his son, Tīmūr Shah, who received but nominal homage from the tribal chieftains. Much of his reign was spent in quelling their rebellions. Because of this opposition, Tīmūr shifted his capital from Kandahār to Kabul in 1776.

● Zamān Shah (1793–1800):

After the death of Tīmūr in 1793, his fifth son, Zamān, seized the throne with the help of Sardār Pāyenda Khan, a chief of the Bārakzay. Zamān then turned to India with the object of repeating the exploits of Aḥmad Shah. This alarmed the British, who induced Fatḥ ʿAlī Shah of Persia to bring pressure on the Afghan king and divert his attention from India. The shah went a step further by helping Maḥmūd, governor of Herāt and a brother of Zamān, with men and money and encouraging him to advance on Kandahār. Maḥmūd, assisted by his vizier, Fatḥ Khan Bārakzay, eldest son of Sardār Pāyenda Khan, and by Fatḥ ʿAlī Shah, took Kandahār and advanced on Kabul. Zamān, in India, hurried back to Afghanistan. There he was handed over to Maḥmūd, blinded, and imprisoned (1800). The Durrānī empire had begun to disintegrate after 1798, when Zamān Shah appointed a Sikh, Ranjit Singh, as governor of Lahore.

● Shah Maḥmūd (1800–03; 1809–18):

Shah Maḥmūd left affairs of state to Fatḥ Khan. Some of the chiefs who had grievances against the king or his ministers joined forces and invited Zamān’s brother Shah Shojāʿ (1803–09; 1839–42) to Kabul. The intrigue was successful. Shah Shojāʿ occupied the capital, and Maḥmūd sued for peace.

The new king, Shah Shojāʿ, ascended the throne in 1803. The chiefs had become powerful and unruly, and the outlying provinces were asserting their independence. The Sikhs of the Punjab were encroaching on Afghan territories from the east, while the Persians were threatening from the west.

Napoleon I, then at the zenith of his power in Europe, proposed to Alexander I of Russia a combined invasion of India. A British mission, headed by Mountstuart Elphinstone, met Shah Shojāʿ at Peshawar to discuss mutual defense against this threat, which never developed. In a treaty of friendship concluded June 7, 1809, the shah promised to oppose the passage of foreign troops through his dominions. Shortly after the mission left Peshawar, news was received that Kabul had been occupied by the forces of Maḥmūd and Fatḥ Khan. The troops of Shah Shojāʿ were routed, and the shah withdrew from Afghanistan and found asylum with the British at Ludhiāna, India, in 1815.

● The rise of the Bārakzay:

The Bārakzay were now dominant. This situation incited the jealousy of Kāmrān, Maḥmūd’s eldest son, who seized and blinded Fatḥ Khan. Later Shah Maḥmūd had him cut to pieces.

● Dūst Moḥammad (1826–39; 1843–63):

Advancing from Kashmir in 1818, Dūst Moḥammad, younger brother of Fatḥ Khan, took Peshawar and Kabul and drove Shah Maḥmūd and Kāmrān from all their possessions except Herāt, where they maintained a precarious footing for a few years. Balkh was seized by the ruler of Bukhara; the trans-Indus Afghan districts were occupied by the Sikhs; and the outlying provinces of Sind and Baluchistan assumed independence.
Ghazna, Kabul, and Jalālābād fell to Dūst Moḥammad.

Dūst Moḥammad established the Bārakzay (or Moḥammadzay) dynasty. His position secure after he assumed the title of emir in 1826 at Kabul, he decided to recover Peshawar from the Sikhs. Declaring a jihad, or Islamic holy war, in 1836, he advanced on Peshawar. The Sikh leader Ranjit Singh, however, sowed dissension in Dūst Moḥammad’s camp, the invading army melted away, and Peshawar was lost to the Afghans.

In November 1837 Moḥammad Shah of Persia laid siege to Herāt, which the British saw as the key to India. The Russians supported the Persians. The British, fearful that Persia was falling completely under Russian influence, entered into alliances with the rulers of Herāt, Kabul, and Kandahār. A British mission to Kabul under Captain (later Sir) Alexander Burnes in 1837 was welcomed by Dūst Moḥammad, who hoped the British would help him recover Peshawar. Burnes could not give him the required assurances; and when a Russian agent appeared in Kabul, the British left for India.

With the failure of Burnes’s mission, the governor-general of India, Lord Auckland, ordered an invasion of Afghanistan, with the object of restoring Shah Shojāʿ to the throne. In April 1839, after suffering great privations, the British army entered Kandahār; Shojāʿ was then crowned shah. Ghazna was captured in the following July, and in August Shah Shojāʿ was installed at Kabul. The Afghans, however, would tolerate neither a foreign occupation nor a king imposed on them by a foreign power, and insurrections broke out. Dūst Moḥammad—who had escaped first to Balkh, then to Bukhara, where he was arrested—escaped from prison and returned to Afghanistan to lead his partisans against the British. In a battle at Parwan on November 2, 1840, Dūst Moḥammad had the upper hand, but the next day he surrendered to the British in Kabul. He was deported to India with the greater part of his family.

Outbreaks continued throughout the country, and the British eventually found their position untenable. Terms for their withdrawal were discussed with Akbar Khan, Dūst Moḥammad’s son, but Sir William Hay Macnaghten, the British political agent, was killed during a parlay with the Afghans. On January 6, 1842, some 4,500 British and Indian troops, with 12,000 camp followers, marched out of Kabul. Bands of Afghans swarmed around them, and the retreat ended in a bloodbath. Shah Shojāʿ was killed after the British left Kabul.

Though in the summer of that same year British forces reoccupied Kabul, the new governor-general, Lord Ellenborough, decided on the evacuation of Afghanistan. In 1843 Dūst Moḥammad returned to Kabul. During the next 20 years he consolidated his rule by occupying Kandahār (1855), Balkh and the northern Khanates (1859), and Herāt (1863), the last less than a month before his death in June.

● Shīr ʿAlī (1863–66; 1868–79):

Shīr ʿAlī Khan, Dūst Moḥammad’s third son, then became emir, but his two elder brothers took the throne from him in May 1866. Shīr ʿAlī regained his throne in September 1868. Shīr ʿAlī’s reception of a Russian mission at Kabul and his refusal to receive a British one, on British terms, led directly to the war of 1878–80. Shīr ʿAlī, leaving his son, Yaʿqūb Khan, as his regent in Kabul, sought help from the Russians, but they advised him to make peace. Shīr ʿAlī died in Mazār-e Sharīf in 1879.

● Yaʿqūb Khan (1879):

The Treaty of Gandamak (Gandomak; May 26, 1879) recognized Yaʿqūb Khan as emir, and he subsequently agreed to receive a permanent British embassy at Kabul. In addition, he agreed to conduct his foreign relations with other states in accordance “with the wishes and advice” of the British government. This British triumph, however, was short-lived. On September 3, 1879, the British envoy and his escort were murdered in Kabul. British forces were again dispatched, and before the end of October they occupied Kabul. Yaʿqūb abdicated and was given exile in India, where he died in 1923.

□ Mohammad Ali
□ Louis Dupree
□ Nancy Hatch Dupree

● ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khan (1880–1901):

The British finally withdrew from Kandahār in April 1881. In 1880 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khan, a cousin of Shīr ʿAlī, had returned from exile in Central Asia and proclaimed himself emir of Kabul. During the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the boundaries of modern Afghanistan were drawn by the British and the Russians. The Durand Line of 1893 divided zones of responsibility for the maintenance of law and order between British India and the kingdom of Afghanistan; it was never intended as a de jure international boundary. Afghanistan, therefore, although never dominated by a European imperial government, became a buffer between tsarist Russia and British India.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān exerted his influence, if not actual control, over the various ethnolinguistic groups inside Afghanistan, fighting some 20 small wars to convince them that a strong central government existed in Kabul. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was so successful that, at his death, his designated successor and eldest son, Ḥabībollāh Khan, succeeded to the throne as Ḥabībollāh I without the usual fratricidal fighting. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān can be considered the founder of modern Afghanistan.

Modern Afghanistan

● Ḥabībollāh Khan (1901–19):

The introduction of modern European technology begun by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was furthered by Ḥabībollāh. Western ideals and styles penetrated the Afghan royal court and upper classes. An Afghan nationalist, Maḥmūd Beg Ṭarzī, published (1911–18) the periodical Serāj al-Akbār (“Torch of the News”), which had political influence far beyond the boundaries of Afghanistan.

Ḥabībollāh Khan visited British India in 1907 as guest of the viceroy of India, Gilbert Elliot, 4th earl of Minto. Impressed with British power, Ḥabībollāh resisted pressures from Ṭarzī, Amānollāh (Ḥabībollāh‘s third son, who had married Soraya, a daughter of Ṭarzī), and others to enter World War I on the side of the Central Powers. The peace ending World War I brought death to Ḥabībollāh; he was murdered on February 20, 1919, by persons associated with the anti-British movement, and Amānollāh seized power.

● Amānollāh (1919–29):

Amānollāh launched the inconclusive Third Anglo-Afghan War in May 1919. The month-long war gained the Afghans the conduct of their own foreign affairs. The Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed on August 8, 1919, and amended in 1921. Before signing the final document with the British, the Afghans concluded a treaty of friendship with the new Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union; Afghanistan thereby became one of the first states to recognize the Soviet government, and a “special relationship” evolved between the two governments that lasted until December 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

Amānollāh changed his title from emir to pādshāh (“king”) in 1923 and inaugurated a decade of reforms—including implementing constitutional and administrative changes, allowing women to remove their veils, and establishing coeducational schools—that offended conservative religious and tribal leaders.
Civil war broke out in November 1928, and a Tajik folk hero called Bacheh Saqqāw (Bacheh-ye Saqqā; “Child of a Water Carrier”) occupied Kabul. Amānollāh abdicated in January 1929 in favour of his elder brother, Inayatollāh, but Bacheh Saqqāw proclaimed himself Ḥabībollāh Ghāzī (or Ḥabībollāh II), emir of Afghanistan. Amānollāh failed to retrieve his throne and went into exile in Italy. He died in 1960 in Zürich, Switzerland.

● Moḥammad Nāder Shah (1929–33):

Ḥabībollāh II was driven from the throne by Moḥammad Nāder Khan and his brothers, distant cousins of Amānollāh. On October 10, 1929, Ḥabībollāh II was executed along with 17 of his followers. A tribal assembly elected Nāder Khan as shah, and the opposition was bloodily persecuted.

Nāder Shah produced a new constitution in 1931 that was modeled on Amānollāh’s constitution of 1923 but was more conservatively oriented to appease Islamic religious leaders. The national economy developed in the 1930s under the leadership of several entrepreneurs who began small-scale industrial projects. Nāder Shah was assassinated on November 8, 1933, and the 19-year-old crown prince, Zahir, succeeded his father.

● Mohammad Zahir Shah (1933–73)

The first 20 years of Mohammad Zahir Shah’s reign were characterized by cautious policies of national consolidation, an expansion of foreign relations, and internal development using Afghan funds alone. World War II brought about a slowdown in development processes, but Afghanistan maintained its traditional neutrality. The “Pashtunistan” problem regarding the political status of those Pashtun living on the British (Pakistani) side of the Durand Line developed after the independence of Pakistan in 1947.

Shah Mahmud, prime minister from 1946 to 1953, sanctioned free elections and a relatively free press, and the so-called “liberal parliament” functioned from 1949 to 1952. Conservatives in government, however, encouraged by religious leaders, supported the seizure of power in 1953 by Lieutenant General Mohammad Daud Khan, brother-in-law and first cousin of the king.

Prime Minister Daud Khan (1953–63) took a stronger line on Pashtunistan, and, to the surprise of many, turned to the Soviet Union for economic and military assistance. The Soviets ultimately became Afghanistan’s major aid-and-trade partner. The Afghans refused to take sides in the Cold War, and Afghanistan became an “economic Korea,” testing the Western (particularly U.S.) will and capability to compete with the Soviet bloc in a nonaligned country. Daud Khan successfully introduced several far-reaching educational and social reforms, such as allowing women to wear the veil voluntarily and abolishing purdah (the practice of secluding women from public view), which theoretically increased the labour force by about half. The regime remained politically repressive, however, and tolerated no direct opposition.

The Pashtunistan issue precipitated Daud Khan’s downfall. In retaliation for Afghan agitation, Pakistan closed the border with Afghanistan in August 1961. Its prolonged closure led Afghanistan to depend increasingly on the Soviet Union for trade and in-transit facilities. To reverse the trend, Daud Khan resigned in March 1963, and the border was reopened in May. The Pashtunistan problem still existed, however.

Zahir Shah and his advisers instituted an experiment in constitutional monarchy. In 1964 a Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) approved a new constitution, under which the House of the People was to have 216 elected members and the House of the Elders was to have 84 members, one-third elected by the people, one-third appointed by the king, and one-third elected indirectly by new provincial assemblies.

Elections for both houses of the legislature were held in 1965 and 1969. Several unofficial parties ran candidates with platforms ranging from fundamentalist Islam to the extreme left. One such group was the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the major leftist organization in the country. Founded in 1965, the party soon split into two factions, known as the People’s (Khalq) and Banner (Parcham) parties. Another was a conservative religious organization known as the Islamic Society (Jamʿiyyat-e Eslāmī), which was founded by a number of religiously minded individuals, including members of the University of Kabul faculty of religion, in 1971. The Islamists were highly influenced by the militant ideology of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and were ardently opposed to the power of leftist and secular elements in Afghanistan.

National politics became increasingly polarized, a situation reflected in the appointment by the king of five successive prime ministers between September 1965 and December 1972. The king refused to promulgate several key acts, thereby effectively blocking the institutionalization of the political processes guaranteed in the constitution. Struggles for power developed between the legislative and the executive branches, and an independent Supreme Court, as called for in the 1964 constitution, was never appointed.

Mohammad Daud Khan sensed the stagnation of the constitutional processes and seized power on July 17, 1973, in a virtually bloodless coup. Leftist military officers and civil servants of the Banner Party assisted in the overthrow, and a number of militant Islamists were forced to flee the country. Daud Khan abolished the constitution of 1964 and established the Republic of Afghanistan, with himself as chairman of the Central Committee of the Republic and prime minister.

● The Republic of Afghanistan (1973–78):

During Daud Khan’s second tenure as prime minister, he attempted to introduce socioeconomic reforms, to write a new constitution, and to effect a gradual movement away from the socialist ideals his regime initially espoused. Afghanistan broadened and intensified its relationships with other Muslim countries, trying to move away from its dependency on the Soviet Union and the United States. In addition, Daud Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the prime minister of Pakistan, reached tentative agreement on a solution to the Pashtunistan problem.

Daud Khan received approval in 1977 of his new constitution from a Loya Jirga, which wrote in several new articles and amended others. In March 1977 Daud Khan, then president of Afghanistan, appointed a new cabinet composed of sycophants, friends, sons of friends, and even collateral members of the royal family. The two PDPA organizations, the People’s and Banner parties, then reunited against Daud Khan after a 10-year separation. There followed a series of political assassinations, massive antigovernment demonstrations, and arrests of major leftist leaders. Before his arrest, Hafizullah Amin, a U.S.-educated People’s Party leader, contacted party members in the armed forces and devised a makeshift but successful coup. Daud Khan and most of his family were killed, and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was born on April 27, 1978.

● Civil war, communist phase (1978–92)

Nur Mohammad Taraki was elected president of the Revolutionary Council, prime minister of the country, and secretary-general of the combined PDPA. Babrak Karmal, a Banner leader, and Hafizullah Amin were elected deputy prime ministers. The leaders of the new government insisted that they were not controlled by the Soviet Union and proclaimed their policies to be based on Afghan nationalism, Islamic principles, socioeconomic justice, nonalignment in foreign affairs, and respect for all agreements and treaties signed by previous Afghan governments.

Unity between the People’s and Banner factions rapidly faded as the People’s Party emerged dominant, particularly because its major base of power was in the military. Karmal and other selected Banner leaders were sent abroad as ambassadors, and there were systematic purges of any Banner members or others who might oppose the regime.

The Taraki regime announced its programs, which included eliminating usury, ensuring equal rights for women, instituting land reforms, and making administrative decrees in classic Marxist-Leninist rhetoric. The people in the countryside, familiar with Marxist broadcasts from Soviet Central Asia, assumed that the People’s Party was communist and pro-Soviet. The reform programs—which threatened to undermine basic Afghan cultural patterns—and political repression antagonized large segments of the population, but major violent responses did not occur until the uprising in Nūrestān late in the summer of 1978. Other revolts, largely uncoordinated, spread throughout all of Afghanistan’s provinces, and periodic explosions rocked Kabul and other major cities. On February 14, 1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs was killed, and the elimination of U.S. assistance to Afghanistan was guaranteed.

Hafizullah Amin became prime minister on March 28, although Taraki retained his posts as president of the Revolutionary Council and secretary general of the PDPA. The expanding revolts in the countryside, however, continued, and the Afghan army collapsed. The Amin regime asked for and received more Soviet military aid.

Taraki was overthrown in mid September and, under orders from Amin, was killed three weeks later. In a plot hatched in Moscow, Amin was to have been removed, largely in the belief that he bore major responsibility for sparking the rebellion. But Amin learned of the plan and preempted his would-be assassins. Amin then tried to broaden his internal base of support and again to interest Pakistan and the United States in Afghan security. Despite his efforts, on the night of December 24, 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Amin and many of his followers were killed on December 27.

Babrak Karmal returned to Afghanistan from the Soviet Union and became prime minister, president of the Revolutionary Council, and secretary-general of the PDPA. Opposition to the Soviets and Karmal spread rapidly, urban demonstrations and violence increased, and resistance escalated in all regions. By early 1980 several regional groups, collectively known as mujahideen (from Arabic mujāhidūn, “those who engage in jihad”), had united inside Afghanistan, or across the border in Peshawar, Pakistan, to resist the Soviet invaders and the Soviet-backed Afghan army. Pakistan, along with the United States, China, and several European and Arab states—most notably Saudi Arabia—were soon providing small amounts of financial and military aid to the mujahideen. As this assistance grew, the Pakistani military’s Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate (ISI) assumed primary responsibility for funneling the money and weapons to Afghan resistance groups. Pakistani authorities were determined to exercise tight control over all such groups, and upwards of 40 separate resistance and refugee organizations coalesced, under Pakistani influence, around seven resistance parties. These parties, in turn, came together into two rival alliances, one dominated by traditional Islamic conservatives and the other by Islamic radicals. In 1985, under pressure from Pakistan and outside supporters, as well as from guerrilla commanders inside Afghanistan, these two alliances set aside their differences and formed a single coalition represented by a Supreme Council, which was responsible for making major decisions. Pakistan’s exclusion of secular groups from any role in the struggle fit the ideological temper of the military regime of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq—which played heavily on Islamic symbols for legitimacy—but also suited Pakistan’s determination that no aid would go to Afghan nationalists who might harbour long-standing territorial designs on Pakistan.

Recruits to the mujahideen came in large numbers from young Afghan men living in refugee camps in Pakistan. They were joined throughout the 1980s by thousands of volunteers from across the Muslim world, especially from Arab countries. (A young Saudi Arabian, Osama bin Laden, was among them, and, while he saw little military action, his personal wealth enabled him to fund high-profile mujahideen activities and gain a widely favourable reputation among his colleagues.) The bulk of the fighting was undertaken by small units that crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan and engaged mostly in brief hit-and-run operations. One of the most persistent and often most effective militant groups, however, was under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who instead fought the Soviets from a redoubt in the Panjanshīr River valley (commonly Panjshēr valley) northeast of Kabul. Massoud was among those commanders affiliated with the Islamic Society (one of the most influential mujahideen groups), then headed by an Azhar-trained scholar, Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Among the other Peshawar-based parties were Abd al-Rasul Sayyaf’s militant Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan (Ettiḥād-e Eslāmī Barā-ye Āzād-e Afghānistān), which derived its support largely from foreign Islamic groups, and three parties headed by traditional religious leaders, including the most pragmatic of the mujahideen parties, the National Islamic Front (Maḥāz-e Mellī-ye Eslāmī), led by Ahmad Gailani. But the party receiving the most material support from the ISI was the extremist and virulently anti-American Islamic Party (Ḥezb-e Eslāmī; one of two parties by that name) loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Separate from the Peshawar front of Sunnite parties was an ethnic Shīʿite resistance group among the Ḥazāra, which received strong support from Iran.

Other than the Afghan fighters themselves, few had faith that the mujahideen could prevail in a military conflict with the Soviet Union. The movement’s Western sponsors viewed resistance operations as an opportunity to keep the Soviet army bogged down and to bleed Moscow economically. However, the mujahideen remained convinced that they ultimately would liberate their country from the foreign invaders. After years of bedevilment by the Soviet military’s use of helicopter gunships and jet bombers, the mujahideen’s prospects improved greatly toward the end of 1986 when they began to receive more and better weapons from the outside world—particularly from the United States, the United Kingdom, and China—via Pakistan, the most important of these being shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles. The Soviet and Afghan air forces then began to suffer considerable casualties.

In May 1986 Mohammad Najibullah, former head of the secret police, replaced Karmal as secretary-general of the PDPA, and in November Karmal was relieved of all his government and party posts. Friction among the Banner and People’s parties continued. A national reconciliation campaign approved by the Politburo in September, which included a unilateral six-month cease-fire to begin in January 1987, met with little response inside Afghanistan and was rejected by resistance leaders in Pakistan.

In November 1987 a new constitution changed the name of the country back to the Republic of Afghanistan and allowed other political parties to participate in the government. Najibullah was elected to the newly strengthened post of president. Despite renewals of the official cease-fire, Afghan resistance to the Soviet presence continued, and the effects of the war were felt in neighbouring countries: Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran numbered more than five million. Morale in the Afghan military was low. Draftees deserted at the earliest opportunity, and the Afghan military dropped from its 1978 strength of 105,000 troops to about 20,000–30,000 by 1987. The Soviets attempted new tactics, but the resistance always devised countertactics.

During the 1980s, talks between the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan were held in Geneva under UN auspices, the primary stumbling blocks being the timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the cessation of arms supplies to the mujahideen. Peace accords were finally signed in April 1988. Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev subsequently carried out an earlier promise to begin withdrawing Soviet troops in May of that year; troops began leaving as scheduled, and the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan in February 1989. The civil war continued, however, despite predictions of an early collapse of the Najibullah government following the withdrawal of the Soviets. The mujahideen formed an interim government in Pakistan, steadfastly resisting Najibullah’s reconciliation efforts, and disunity among the mujahideen parties contributed to their inability to dislodge the communist government.

□ Louis Dupree
□ Nancy Hatch Dupree
□ Marvin G. Weinbaum

● Mujahideen-Taliban phase (1992–2001):

Najibullah was finally ousted from power in April 1992, soon after the breakup of the Soviet Union (which had continued to provide military and economic assistance to the Kabul government). A coalition built mainly of the mujahideen parties that had fought the communists set up a fragile interim government, but general peace and stability remained a distant hope. As rival militias vied for influence, interethnic tensions flared, and the economy lay in ruins.

Under an arrangement to provide for the rotation of the executive office between different factions, the presidency passed after two months from interim president Sebghatullah Mujaddedi to Burhanuddin Rabbani. Rabbani, however, refused to relinquish power to his successor after the expiration of his two-year term in office. Over the next three years, rocket attacks by opposition forces—primarily those of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Islamic Party—caused severe damage to large sections of the capital. Delivery of food from international aid organizations and the UN became indispensable.

Outside of Kabul, law and order broke down across much of the country, and Afghanistan became, in effect, a country ruled by militia leaders and warlords who exacted road taxes and transit fees from trucks engaged in cross-border trading and promoted extortion in most other areas of normal life. Kidnappings, whether for sadism or profit, were not uncommon, and the people generally fell into a state of despair.

Partly in response to this situation, the Taliban (Persian: “Students”) emerged in the fall of 1994. The movement’s spiritual and political leader was a former mujahideen fighter, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was best known for his displays of piety and participation in the fight against the Soviet occupation. Drawing its recruits from madrasah (religious school) students in Pakistan and the southern province of Kandahār, the Taliban gained international attention when it was able to defeat those groups preying on the transit trade and when it succeeded in ridding Kandahār of its predatory and corrupt governors. The Taliban’s eventual success in extending its territorial control is largely attributable to the war-weariness of the Afghan people. In a short time others joined the students, including fighters formerly associated with the communists and a number of mujahideen defectors—many of whom were induced to switch sides by generous payments funded by the government of Saudi Arabia, then a major Taliban supporter.

The Taliban also won the early backing of senior Pakistani officials—including members of Pakistan’s ISI—who, along with companies involved in cross-border trading, were anxious to secure a road route through Afghanistan to markets in Central Asia. These same officials felt that the development of lucrative gas and oil pipelines from Central Asian fields to a Pakistani terminus would also be realized sooner were the Taliban to wrest full control of the country from other factions. Importantly, Taliban rule promised for Pakistan a pliant, friendly regime in Kabul, which contrasted with previous Afghan governments that often deflected Pakistani influence in Afghanistan’s domestic affairs through political overtures to India, Pakistan’s archrival. Despite the Taliban’s mostly Pashtun membership, the absence from their agenda of the familiar irredentist Pashtun claims against Pashtun regions of Pakistan—the Pashtunistan issue—made the Taliban a seemingly safe choice.

However, the Taliban’s initial appeal counted heavily on uniting those Pashtuns deeply resentful of the Rabbani government, which was dominated by ethnic Tajiks. Not until the Taliban ventured into areas of the country populated largely by non-Pashtuns could its wider popular acceptance be tested. Minority-dominated Herāt, Afghanistan’s third largest city, fell to Taliban fighters in September 1995, and a year later the Taliban captured multiethnic Kabul, setting to flight both antigovernment troops and those of Rabbani. The northern city of Mazār-e Sharīf, populated by many ethnic Uzbeks, fell in August 1998. By 2001 the Taliban’s power extended over more than nine-tenths of the country, and in most areas under its control the militia succeeded in disarming the local inhabitants. A loose coalition of mujahideen militias known as the Northern Alliance maintained control of a small section of northern Afghanistan. Fighters for the Northern Alliance, particularly those under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud, remained the only major obstacle to a final Taliban victory.

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates gave formal recognition to the Taliban government after the fall of Kabul, but the movement was denied Afghanistan’s seat at the UN and came under vigorous international criticism for its extreme views—with regard to women in particular—and its human rights record. Refusal by the Taliban to extradite Osama bin Laden, an Islamic extremist accused by the United States of planning violent acts and organizing a global terrorist network, led to UN sanctions against the regime in November 1999 and again in January 2001. The Taliban was also accused of harbouring and training militants—many of whom were holdovers from the war against the Soviets—planning insurgencies in the Central Asian republics and China. Iran objected to the treatment of the Shīʿite Muslim population and to the Taliban’s alleged association with groups that smuggled narcotics across the Iranian frontier. Pakistani authorities, although concerned about the possible ramifications of Islamic radicalism on their own society, continued to assist the Taliban economically and were given varying degrees of credit for aiding the Taliban in its military successes.

Fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance continued, and the international community made little headway toward inducing the combatants to observe a cease-fire or in convincing the Taliban to share power in a broadly representative national government. Though foreign humanitarian assistance to the Afghans continued, large-scale reconstruction was not addressed. Just as the commitment of international agencies and donors was uncertain, the capacity of Taliban leaders to manage a rebuilding effort remained questionable. The transition from a heavily criminalized domestic and regional economy—based on smuggling weapons and narcotics and the uncontrolled exploitation of Afghanistan’s natural resources—remained indispensable for the country’s rehabilitation and for a sustainable peace.

● Struggle for democracy:

Conditions continued to deteriorate in late 2001. Blame for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and a simultaneous attack on the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., on September 11 quickly centred on members of a Muslim extremist group, al-Qaeda, based in Afghanistan and headed by bin Laden. (See September 11 attacks.) The Taliban refused repeated U.S. demands to extradite bin Laden and his associates and to dismantle terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan. Within weeks of the attacks, the United States and Britain launched an intensive bombing campaign against the Taliban and provided significant logistical support to Northern Alliance forces in an attempt to force the regime to yield to its demands. Devastated by the U.S. bombardment, Taliban forces folded within days of a well-coordinated ground offensive launched in mid-November by Northern Alliance troops and U.S. special forces. On December 7 the Taliban surrendered Kandahār, the militia’s base of power and the last city under its control. At nearly the same time, representatives of several anti-Taliban groups met in Bonn, Germany, and, with the help of the international community, named an interim administration, which was installed two weeks later. This administration held power until June 2002 when a Loya Jirga was convened that selected a transitional government to rule the country until national elections could be held and a new constitution drafted. Democratic elections, in which women were granted the right to vote, were held in October 2004, and Hamid Karzai, leader of the transitional government, was elected president, winning 55 percent of the vote.

□ Marvin G. Weinbaum

In March 2005 Karzai announced that legislative elections would be held later that year. Although al-Qaeda and Taliban elements had threatened to disrupt the elections, they took place on Sept. 18, 2005—the first time in more than 30 years that such elections were held—and in December the newly elected National Assembly convened its first session. Ongoing violence throughout 2005 increased steeply at year’s end and worsened considerably the following year as instability and warfare spread. Attacks and violent exchanges between the U.S.-led coalition and the Taliban forces became more frequent, particularly in the eastern and southern provinces, and casualties increased. In July 2006, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops replaced the U.S.-led coalition at the head of military operations in the south, and in October they also took command of the eastern provinces, thus assuming control of international military operations across the entire country. Fighting between NATO and Taliban forces continued, and civilian casualties remained high.

Opium production reached record levels within a few years of the ouster of the Taliban government, and by the mid-2000s it was estimated that Afghanistan produced more than nine-tenths of the world’s opiates. Complicating government efforts to curtail production was the fact that many segments of the population, including the Taliban and supporters of the central government, profited from opium production. Indeed, the Taliban derived a substantial income from the industry, using the proceeds to fund their insurgency.[*]

[1]- Modern Afghanistan: Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 Communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan Communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-Communist mujahedin rebels. A series of subsequent civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy. Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, a US, Allied, and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Osama BIN LADIN. The UN-sponsored Bonn Conference in 2001 established a process for political reconstruction that included the adoption of a new constitution, a presidential election in 2004, and National Assembly elections in 2005. In December 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan and the National Assembly was inaugurated the following December. Despite gains toward building a stable central government, a resurgent Taliban and continuing provincial instability - particularly in the south and the east - remain serious challenges for the Afghan Government.[*]

Chronological History of Afghanistan

2008-09-17T06:29:00.001-07:00

50,000 BCE-20,000 BCE
● Archaeologists have identified evidence of stone age technology in Aq Kupruk, and Hazar Sum. Plant remains at the foothill of the Hindu Kush mountains indicate, that North Afghanistan was one of the earliest places to domestic plants and animals.

3000 BCE-2000 BCE
● Bronze might have been invented in ancient Afghanistan around this time.
● First true urban centers rise in two main sites in Afghanistan--Mundigak, and Deh Morasi Ghundai.
● Mundigak (near modern day Kandahar)--had an economic base of wheat, barley, sheep and goats. Also, evidence indicates that Mudigak could have been a provincial capital of the Indus valley civilization.
● Ancient Afghanistan--crossroads between Mesopotamia, and other Civilizations.

2000 BCE- 1500 BCE
● Aryan tribes in Aryana (Ancient Afghanistan)
● The City of Kabul is thought to have been established during this time.
● Rig Veda may have been created in Afghanistan around this time.
● Evidence of early nomadic iron age in Aq Kapruk IV.

600 BCE -- (There is some speculation about this date)
● Zoroaster introduces a new religion in Bactria (Balkh)---(Zoroastrianism--Monotheistic religion)
● (about 522 BC)--Zoroaster dies during nomadic invasion near Balkh.

522 BCE--486 BCE
● Darius the Great expands the Achaemenid (Persian) empire to its peak, when it takes most of Afghanistan., including Aria (Herat), Bactriana (Balk, and present-day Mazar-i-Shariff), Margiana (Merv), Gandhara (Kabul, Jalalabad and Peshawar), Sattagydia (Ghazni to the Indus river), Arachosia (Kandahar, and Quetta), and Drangiana (Sistan).
● The Persian empire was plagued by constant bitter and bloody tribal revolts from Afghans living in Arachosia (Kandahar, and Quetta)

329-326 BCE
● After conquering Persia, Afghanistan is invaded by Alexander the Great. Alexander conquers Afghanistan, but fails to really subdue its people.
● Constant revolts plague Alexander.

323 BCE
● Greeks rule Bactria (Northern Afghanistan)

170 BCE-160 BCE
● Bactria--Parthia

50 AD
● Kushan rule, under King Kanishka
● Graeco-Buddhist Gandharan culture reach its height.

220 AD
● Kushan empire fragments into petty dynasties.

400 AD
● Invasion of the White Huns. They destroy the Buddhist culture, and leave most of the country in ruins.

425--550
● Independent Yaftalee rule in Afghanistan.

550 AD
● Persians reassert control over all of what is now Afghanistan.
● Revolts by various Afghan tribes.

650 AD
● The world's first oil paintings are painted in the Bamiyan caves by Buddhists.

652 AD
● Arabs introduce Islam

962-1030
● Islamic era established with the Ghaznavid Dynasty (962-1140)
Afghanistan becomes the center of Islamic power and civilization.

1030--
● Mahmud Ghazni dies.
Conflicts between various Ghaznavid rulers arise and as a result the empire starts to crumple.

1140--
● Ghorid leaders from central Afghanistan capture and burn Ghazni, then move on to conquer India.

1219-1221 --
● Invasion of Afghanistan by Genghis Khan
Destruction of Irrigation systems by Genghis Khan, which turned fertile soil into permanent deserts.

1273
● Marco Polo crossed Afghan Turkistan

1332-1370
● Descendants of earlier Ghorid rulers reassert control over Afghanistan.

1370-1404
● The rule of Timour-i-Lang (Tamerlane)

1451--
● An Afghan named Buhlul invades Delhi, and seizes the throne. He finds the Lodi dynasty.

1504-1519
● Babur, founder of the Moghul dynasty takes control of Kabul

1520-1579
● Bayazid Roshan (Afghan intellectual) revolts against the power of the Moghul government. Roshan was killed in a battle with the Moghuls in 1579--but his struggle for independence continued.

1613-1689
● Khushhal Khan Khattak (Afghan warrior-poet) initiates a national uprising against the foreign Moghul government.

1708
● Mir Wais (forerunner of Afghan independence) makes Kandahar independent of Safavid Persia that had ruled it since 1622.

1715--
● Mir Wais dies peacefully, and lies in a mausoleum outside of Kandahar.

1722--
● Mir Wais' son, Mir Mahmud, invades Persia and occupies Isfahan. At the same time, the Durranis revolt, and terminate the Persian occupation of Herat.

1725--
● (April 25)--Mir Mahmud is mysteriously killed after going mad.
● Afghans start to lose control of Persia.

1736--
● Nadir Shah (head of Persia) occupies southwest Afghanistan, and southeast Persia.

1738--
● Nadir Shah takes Kandahar.

1747--
● Nadir Shah is assassinated, and the Afghans rise once again. Afghans, under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Abdali retake Kandahar, and establish modern Afghanistan.

1747--1773
● Rule of Ahmad Shah Abdali (Durrani).
● Ahmad Shah consolidates and enlarges Afghanistan. He defeats the Moghuls in the west of the Indus, and he takes Herat away from the Persians. Ahmad Shah Durrani's empire extended from Central Asia to Delhi, from Kashmir to the Arabian sea. It became the greatest Muslim empire in the second half of the 18th century.
● (1750) Khurasan----> Afghanistan.

1773-1793
● Rule of Timur Shah
● Capital of Afghanistan transferred from Kandahar to Kabul because of tribal opposition.
● Constant internal revolts

1793-1801
● Rule of Zaman Shah
● Constant internal revolts
● (1795) Persians invade Khurasan (province)

1801-1803
● Rule of Mahmood
● Constant internal revolts

1803-1809
● Rule of Shah Shujah
● (1805) Persian attack on Herat fails.
● Internal fighting

1809-1818
● Mahmood returns to the throne.
● War with Persia--indecisive victory
● Internal fighting

1819-1826
● Sons of Timur Shah struggle for the throne--Civil War--anarchy--
● Afghans lose Sind permanently

1826--
● Dost Mohammad Khan takes Kabul, and establishes control.

1832--1833
● Persia moves into Khurasan (province), and threatens Herat. Afghans defend Herat successfully.

1834--
● (May)--Afghans lose Peshawar to the Sikhs; later they crushed the Sikhs under the leadership of Akbar Khan who defeated the Sikhs near Jamrud, and killed the great Sikh general Hari Singh. However, they failed to retake Peshawar due to disunity and bad judgment on the part of Dost Mohammad Khan.

1836--
● Dost Mohammad Khan is proclaimed as Amir al-mu' minin (commander of the faithful). He was well on the road toward reunifying the whole of Afghanistan when the British, in collaboration with an ex-king (Shah Shuja), invade Afghanistan.

1839-1842
● First Anglo-Afghan War
● After some resistance, Amir Dost Mohammad Khan surrenders to the British and is deported to India.
● Shah Shuja is installed as a "puppet king" by the British. (1839-1842)
April 1842--Shah Shuja killed by Afghans.
Afghans passionately continue their struggle against the British.
● Akbar Khan--Afghan hero--victorious against the British.
● In January 1842, out of 16,500 soldiers (and 12,000 dependents) only one survivor, of mixed British-Indian garrison, reaches the fort in Jalalabad, on a stumbling pony.

1843
● After the annihilation of British troops, Afghanistan once again becomes independent, and the exiled Amir, Dost Mohammad Khan comes back and occupies the royal throne (1843-1863).

1845--
● Afghan hero, Akbar Khan dies

1855
● Dost Mohammad Khan signs a peace treaty with India.

1859--
● British take Baluchistan, and Afghanistan becomes completely landlocked.

1863-1866
● Sher Ali, Dost Mohammad Khan's son, succeeds to the throne.
● (1865)--Russia takes Bukhara, Tashkent, and Samarkand.

1866-1867
● Mohammad Afzal occupies Kabul and proclaims himself Amir.
● October, 1867--Mohammad Afzal dies.

1867-1868--
● Mohammad Azam succeeds to the throne
● 1868--Mohammad Azam flees to Persia
● Sher Ali reasserts control (1868-1879).

1873
● Russia established a fixed boundary between Afghanistan and it's new territories.
● Russia promises to respect Afghanistan's territorial integrity.

1878
● Start of second Anglo-Afghan War
● The British invade and the Afghans quickly put up a strong resistance.

1879
● Sher Ali dies in Mazar-i-Shariff, and Amir Muhammad Yaqub Khan takes over until October 1879.
● Amir Muhammad Yaqub Khan gives up the following Afghan territories to the British: ● Kurram, Khyber, Michni, Pishin, and Sibi. Afghans lose these territories permanently.

1880
● Battle of Maiwand
● July 1880, Afghan woman named Malalai carries the Afghan flag forward after the soldiers carrying the flag were killed by the British. She becomes a heroine for her show of courage and valour.
● Abdur Rahman takes throne of Afghanistan as Amir.
● The British, shortly after the accession of the new Amir, withdraw from Afghanistan, although they retain the right to handle Afghanistan's foreign relations.
● Abdur Rahman establishes fixed borders and he loses a lot of Afghan land.
Nuristan converted to Islam.

1885--
● The Panjdeh Incident
● Russian forces seize the Panjdeh Oasis, a piece of Afghan territory north of the Oxus River. Afghans tried to retake it, but was finally forced to allow the Russians to keep Panjdeh - Russians promised to honor Afghan territorial integrity in the future.

1893
● The Durand line fixes borders of Afghanistan with British India, splitting Afghan tribal areas, leaving half of these Afghans in what is now Pakistan.

1895
● Afghanistan's northern border is fixed and guaranteed by Russia

1901--
● Abdur Rahman dies, his son Habibullah succeeds him.
● Slows steps toward modernization

1907--
● Russia and Great Britain sign the convention of St. Petersburg, in which Afghanistan is declared outside Russia's sphere of influence.

1918--
● Mahmud Tarzi (Afghan Intellectual) introduces modern Journalism into Afghanistan with the creation of several newspapers.

1919--
● Habibullah is assassinated, and succeeded by his son Amanullah (The reform King)
● The first museum in Afghanistan is instituted at Baghe Bala.

1921--
● Third Anglo-Afghan war
● Once again, the British are defeated, and Afghanistan gains full control of her foreign affairs.
● Amanullah Khan initiates a series of ambitious efforts at social and political modernization.

1923--
● Amanullah Khan changes his title from Amir to Padshah (King).

1929--
● Amanullah Khan is overthrown by Habibullah Kalakani.
● After the fall of Amanullah Khan, Mahmud Tarzi seeks asylum in Turkey.
● The Rise and Fall of Habibullah Kalakani, popularly known as "Bache Saqao"
● Nadir Khan takes the throne; his tribal army loots government buildings and houses of wealthy citizens because the treasury was empty.
● Habibullah Kalakani, along with his supporters, and a few supporters of Amanullah Khan are killed by Nadir Khan. Now Nadir Khan establishes full control.

1930--
● (May) Pro-Amanullah Khan uprising put down by Nadir Khan.
● Nadir Khan abolishes reforms set forth by Amanullah Khan to modernize Afghanistan.

1933--
● Nadir Khan assassinated by a college student, and his son, Zahir, inherits the throne. He rules until 1973.
● Zahir Shah's uncles serve as prime ministers and advisors until 1953.
● Mahmud Tarzi dies in Turkey at the age of 68 with a heart full of sorrow and despair toward his country.

1934--
● The United States of America formally recognizes Afghanistan

1938--
● Da Afghanistan Bank (State Bank of Afghanistan) is incorporated.

1939--
● Minor pro-Amanullah Khan uprising (January 15)
1940--
● Zahir Shah proclaims Afghanistan as neutral during WW2

1947--
● Britain withdraws from India. Pakistan is carved out of Indian and Afghan lands.

1949--
● Afghanistan's Parliament denounces the Durand Treaty and refuses to recognize the Durand line as a legal boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
● Pashtuns in Pashtunistan (Occupied Afghan Land) proclaim an independent Pashtunistan, but their proclamation goes unacknowledged by the world community.

1953--
● Prince Mohammad Daoud becomes Prime Minister.

1954--
● The U.S. rejects Afghanistan's request to buy military equipment to modernize the army.

1955--
● Daoud turns to the Soviet Union (Russia) for military aid.
● The Pashtunistan (occupied Afghan land) issue flares up.

1956--
● Kruschev and Bulgaria agree to help Afghanistan.
● Close ties between Afghanistan and USSR.

1959--
● The Purdah is made optional, women begin to enroll in the University which has become co-educational.
● Women begin to enter the workforce, and the government.

1961--
● Pakistan and Afghanistan come close to war over Pashtunistan.

1963-1964--
● Zahir Shah demands Daoud's resignation. Dr. Mohammad Yusof becomes Prime Minister.

1965--
● The Afghan Communist Party was secretly formed in January. Babrak Karmal is one of the founders.
● In September, first nationwide elections under the new constitution.
● Karmal was elected to the Parliament, later instigates riots.
Zahir and Yussof form second government.

1969--
● Second nationwide elections.
● Babrak and Hafizullah Amin are elected.

1972--
● Mohammad Moussa becomes Prime Minister.

1973--
● July 17th: Zahir Shah is on vacation in Europe, when his government is overthrown in a military coup headed by Daoud Khan and PDPA (Afghan Communist Party).
● Daoud Khan abolishes the monarchy, declares himself President---Republic of Afghanistan is established.

1974--
● UNESCO names Herat as one of the first cities to be designated as a part of the worlds cultural heritage.

1975--1977--
● Daoud Khan presents a new constitution. Women's rights confirmed.
● Daoud starts to oust suspected opponents from his government.

1978--
● Bloody Communist coup: Daoud is killed, Taraki is named President, and Karmal becomes his deputy Prime Minister. Tensions rise.
● Mass arrests, tortures, and arrests takes place.
● Afghan flag is changed.
● Taraki signs treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union.
● June--Afghan guerrilla (Mujahideen) movement is born.

1978--
● Bloody Communist coup: Daoud is killed, Taraki is named President, and Karmal becomes his deputy Prime Minister. Tensions rise.
● Mass arrests, tortures, and arrests takes place.
● Afghan flag is changed.
● Taraki signs treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union.
● June--Afghan guerrilla (Mujahideen) movement is born.

1979--
● Mass killings
● US ambassador killed
● Taraki is killed and Hafizullah Amin takes the Presidency.
● Amin is executed, and he is replaced with Babrak Karmal.
● Soviet Union (Russia) invade in December.

1980--
● Dr. Najibullah is brought back from USSR to run the secret police.

1984--
● UN sends investigators to Afghanistan to examine reported human rights violations.

1986--
● Babrak Karmal is replaced by Dr. Najibullah.
1987--
● Najibullah proposes ceasefire, but the Mujahideen refuse to deal with a "puppet government".
● Mujahideen make great gains, defeat of Soviets eminent.

1988--1989--
● Peace accords signed in Geneva.
● Soviet Union defeated by Afghanistan, total withdrawal by the Soviets occurred on Feb. 15, 1989.
● Experts agree that at least 40,000-50,000 Soviets lost their lives in action, besides the wounded, suicides, and murders.
● Mujahideen continue to fight against Najibullah's regime.
● May--Afghan guerrillas elect Sibhhatullah Mojadidi as head of their government-in-exile.

1992--
● April 15--The Mujahideen take Kabul and liberate Afghanistan, Najibullah is protected by UN.
● The Mujahideen form an Islamic State--Islamic Jihad Council--elections.
● Iranian and Pakistani interference increases--more fighting--
Professor Burhannudin Rabbani is elected President.

1994--
● The Taliban militia are born, and advance rapidly against the Rabbani government.
● Dostum and Hekmatyar continued to clash against Rabbani's government, and as a result Kabul is reduced to rubble.

1995--
● Massive gains by the Taliban.
● Increased Pakistani and Iranian interference.

1996--
● June--Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, head of Hezbi-Islami, having been eliminated as a military power, signs a peace pact with Rabbani, and returns to Kabul to rule as prime minister.
● September 27--Taliban militia force President Rabbani and his government out of Kabul. After the capture of Kabul, the Taliban execute Najibullah.
● Alliance between Government, Hezbi Wahdat, and Dostum
Oppression of women by the Taliban--women must be fully veiled, no longer allowed to work, go out alone or even wear white socks. Men are forced to grow beards. Buzkashi, the Afghan national sport is outlawed.
● Tensions rise as Afghan government accuse Pakistan of aiding the Taliban.
● Massive human rights violations by the Taliban.

1997--
● Mass graves of Taliban soldiers containing between 1,500 and 2,000 bodies are found. The men were believed to have been captured in May by general Abdul Malik during the Taliban's brief takeover of Mazar-i-Sharif.
1998--
● February--Earthquake strikes in northeastern Afghansitan, killing over 4,000 people, destroying villages and leaving thousands of people homeless.
● August--Taliban finally capture Mazar-i-Sharif, and massacre thousands of innocent civilians afterwards, mostly Hazaras.
● August 20th--United States launches cruise missles hitting Afghanistan's Khost region. US states its intent was to destroy so called terrorist bases/training facilities used by Osama bin Laden and his followers. Some Afghan civilians are also killed.
● September--Tensions rise between Iran and the Taliban. Iranians are angry about the killing of their diplomats and a journalist by the Taliban when they captured Mazar-i-Sharif. Soon they deploy 70,000 troops to carry out military exercises near the Afghan border. In the end, no fighting occurs between the Taliban and the Iranian army.

1999--
● February--Earthquake hits eastern Afghanistan, affecting over 30,000 people, and killing at least 60 to 70 people.
● September--The ex-king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, calls for a grand assembly, or Loya Jirga to discuss ways of bringing peace to the country. The United Front soon welcomes the idea, but the Taliban ridicule Mohammad Zahir Shah's attempts at establishing peace.
● October-- UN Security Council Resolution 1267 is adopted; sanctions against the Taliban on grounds that they offered sanctuary to Osama bin Ladin.

2000--
● May--Taliban torture and kill civilians in the Robatak Pass
(on the border between Baghlan and Samangan provinces).
● September--Taloqan finally falls to the Taliban.
● December-- UN Security Council Resolution 1333 is adopted; additional sanctions against the Taliban for their continuing support of terrorism and cultivation of narcotics, etc.

2001--
● January--Taliban torture and kill numerous civilians (Hazaras) in Yakaolang.
● March--Despite pleas and requests from various international diplomats, Islamic scholars, the Taliban destroy ancient historical statues in the Kabul Museum, historical sites in Ghazni, and blow up the giant Bamiyan Buddhas from the 5th century. World expresses outrage and disgust against the Taliban action.
● April--Ahmad Shah Masood visits Europe to gather support against the Taliban.
● April--UN accuses Pakistan of not allowing adequate supply of food and medicines to displaced Afghans, at the Jalozai camp, near Peshawar.
● April-- Mullah Rabbani, the Taliban's second-in-command dies of liver cancer.
● May-- Taliban order religious minorities to wear tags identifying themselves as non-Muslims.
● September 9-- Ahmad Shah Masood is killed by assassins posing as journalists. Two days later (September 11th), suicide attacks on the U.S. kill more than 3,000 people and destroy the two towers of the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon.
● October-- Abdul Haq is killed by the Taliban. The United States and UK working with the forces of the United Front (UNIFSA) launch air strikes against the Taliban. ( The Americans hold Osama bin Laden directly responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center, and the Taliban were targeted for protecting him.)
● November: Taliban lose control of Mazar-i Sharif.
● December 5-- Bonn Agreement. Afghan political groups come together in Bonn, Germany and form an interim government. Hamid Karzai is chosen as Chairman.

2002--
● April-- Former King Mohammad Zahir returns to Afghanistan (April) -- does not claim throne.
● War continues against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
● June-- Loya Jirga elects Hamid Karzai as President of a Transitional Government. Karzai picks members of his administration to serve until elections are held in 2004
July-- Haji Abdul Qadir (brother of Abdul Haq) is killed. US air raid in Uruzgan province kills approximately 48 civilians, many of them members of a wedding party

2003--
● War against Al Qaeda and the Taliban continue -- further weakened.
● August - NATO takes control of security in Kabul.

2004--
● January-- Afghanistan adopts a new constitution. The country is now a republic with 3 branches of government (Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary).
● 2004 October/November - Presidential elections are finally held after being delayed twice. Hamid Karzai is declared the winner, with 55.4% of the votes. He is sworn in December. Karzai's strongest challenger, Yunis Qanuni, came in second with 16.3% of the votes. The elections were not without controversy; allegations of fraud and ballot stuffing were brought up by many of the presidential candidates including Yunis Qanuni. Many felt that Hamid Karzai had an unfair advantage over the other candidates as he had access to financial and logistical resources that many of the other candidates did not have. A panel of international experts was setup to investigate the matter. The panel did find evidence of voting irregularities, however, they said that it was not enough to affect the outcome of the elections.

2005--
● Harsh winter leaves hundreds of people dead.
● Major advances in the disarmament process announced.
● March-- Dostum appointed as the Chief of Staff to the Commander of the Armed Forces. Yunis Qanuni announces new political alliance (March 31st).
● April-- Karzai welcomes the formation of Qanuni's political alliance.[*]

Mehdizadeh Kabuli

2008-09-17T02:33:00.001-07:00

Mohammad Raouf Mehdi (Mehdizadeh Kabuli) was born in 1958 and educated at AIT (Afghan Institute Technology), and Kabul University (Faculty of Engineering).

Afghan

2008-09-17T02:19:00.000-07:00

Afghanistan

2008-09-17T02:14:00.001-07:00

Introduction: Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/[1], officially "the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan", is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia. It is variously designated as geographically located within Central Asia,[2] South Asia,[3] and the Middle East.[4] It has religious, ethno-linguistic, and geographic links with most of its neighboring states. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast. The name Afghanistan means the "Land of Afghans".[5]

History: Chronological History of Afghanistan

Prehistory: Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) peoples probably roamed Afghanistan as early as 100,000 years ago. The earliest definite evidence of human occupation was found in the cave of Darra-i-Kur in Badakhshān, where a transitional Neanderthal skull fragment in association with Mousterian-type tools was discovered; the remains are of the Middle Paleolithic Period, dating to about 30,000 years ago. Caves near Āq Kupruk yielded evidence of an early Neolithic culture (c. 9000–6000 bc) based on domesticated animals. Archaeological research since World War II has revealed Bronze Age sites, dating both before and after the Indus civilization of the 3rd to the 2nd millennium bc. There was trade with Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Egypt, and the main export from the Afghan area was lapis lazuli from the mines of Badakhshān. In addition, a site with definite links to the Indus civilization has been excavated at Shortughai near the Amu Darya, northeast of Kondoz.[6]

Modern Afghanistan: Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 Communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan Communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-Communist mujahedin rebels. A series of subsequent civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy. Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, a US, Allied, and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Osama BIN LADIN. The UN-sponsored Bonn Conference in 2001 established a process for political reconstruction that included the adoption of a new constitution, a presidential election in 2004, and National Assembly elections in 2005. In December 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan and the National Assembly was inaugurated the following December. Despite gains toward building a stable central government, a resurgent Taliban and continuing provincial instability - particularly in the south and the east - remain serious challenges for the Afghan Government.[7]

Flag Description: three equal vertical bands of black (hoist side), red, and green, with the national emblem in white centered on the red band and slightly overlapping the other two bands; the center of the emblem features a mosque with pulpit and flags on either side, below the mosque are numerals for the solar year 1298 (1919 in the Gregorian calendar, the year of Afghan independence from the UK); this central image is circled by a border consisting of sheaves of wheat on the left and right, in the upper-center is an Arabic inscription of the Shahada (Muslim creed) below which are rays of the rising sun over the Takbir (Arabic expression meaning "God is great"), and at bottom center is a scroll bearing the name Afghanistan[8]

References

[1]-
[2]-
[3]-
[4]-
[5]- Afghanistan, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[6]- Afghanistan, The online Britannica
[7]- Afghanistan, The online World Factbook
[8]- Afghanistan, The online World Factbook

Z

2008-09-17T01:45:00.011-07:00

Y

2008-09-17T01:45:00.009-07:00

X

2008-09-17T01:45:00.007-07:00

W

2008-09-17T01:45:00.005-07:00

V

2008-09-17T01:45:00.003-07:00

U

2008-09-17T01:45:00.001-07:00

۩ US Ambassador to Afghanistan

T

2008-09-17T01:44:00.009-07:00

S

2008-09-17T01:44:00.007-07:00

R

2008-09-17T01:44:00.005-07:00

Q

2008-09-17T01:44:00.003-07:00

P

2008-09-17T01:44:00.001-07:00

O

2008-09-17T01:43:00.007-07:00

N

2008-09-17T01:43:00.005-07:00

M

2008-09-17T01:43:00.003-07:00

۩ Mehdizadeh Kabuly

L

2008-09-17T01:43:00.001-07:00

۩ Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr.

K

2008-09-17T01:42:00.008-07:00

J

2008-09-17T01:42:00.007-07:00

۩ Jayhoon, Amanullah
۩ Jews of Afghanistan

I

2008-09-17T01:42:00.005-07:00

H

2008-09-17T01:42:00.003-07:00

۩ History of Afghanistan
۩ Hornibrook, William Harrison

G

2008-09-17T01:42:00.001-07:00

۩ Ghobar, Mir Gholam Mohamad

F

2008-09-17T01:41:00.005-07:00

E

2008-09-17T01:41:00.003-07:00

D

2008-09-17T01:41:00.001-07:00

۩ Dardic languages
۩ Dreyfus, Louis Goethe, Jr.

C

2008-09-17T01:37:00.001-07:00

۩ Chronological History of Afghanistan
۩ Coins of ancient Afghanistan

B

2008-09-17T01:36:00.001-07:00

A

2008-09-17T01:30:00.001-07:00

A

۩ Ariana Afghan Airlines
۩ Afghan
۩ Afghanistan