Kandahār is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southern part of the country, sharing a border with Balochistan, Pakistan to the south. It is surrounded by Helmand in the west, Uruzgan in the north and Zabul Province in the east. Its capital is the city of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city, which is located on the Arghandab River. The greater region surrounding the province is called Loy Kandahar.
Spin Boldak is a border town and the headquarters of Spin Boldak District in the southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan, next to the border with Pakistan. It is linked by a highway with the city of Kandahar to the north, and with Chaman and Quetta in Pakistan to the south. Spin Boldak has the second major port of entry between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Wesh-Chaman border crossing. It is also a major transporting, shipping and receiving site between the two neighboring countries.
Spin Boldak is a district in the eastern part of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. It borders Daman District to the west, Arghistan District to the north, Qila Abdullah District of Pakistan to the east and Shorabak District to the south. The population was estimated at 100,400 in 2006. The district center is the town of Spin Boldak, located in the western part of the district on the road to Pakistan.
The Taliban insurgency began after the group's fall from power during the 2001 War in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces fought against the Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, and later by President Ashraf Ghani, and against a US-led coalition of forces that has included all members of NATO; the 2021 Taliban offensive resulted in the collapse of the government of Ashraf Ghani.
This article covers the part of contemporary Afghan history between 28 April 1992, the day that a new interim Afghan government was supposed to replace the Republic of Afghanistan of President Mohammad Najibullah, and the Taliban's conquest of Kabul establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996.
Mullah Abdur Razzaq Akhundzada, an ethnic Pashtun, is a former interior minister in the Afghan government who is believed to be a member of the Taliban leadership. He is rumoured to belong to the Achakzai tribe, from a family of Jalaludin village, Spin Boldak District, Kandahar Province; it is also claimed that he is in fact not an Afghan, but is a Pakistani national.
Torghundi, also spelled Turghundi or Towrgondi, is a border town in northern Herat province of Afghanistan. It is the second border crossing between Afghanistan and neighboring Turkmenistan. The town of Serhetabat in Turkmenistan is located just a short drive from the border crossing. Torghundi is about 100 km from the city of Herat.
Shērkhān Bandar is an Afghan border town and dry port situated at the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It is located in the Kunduz Province of Afghanistan, next to the Panj River, near the border with Tajikistan. The dry port links Kunduz and Kabul in Afghanistan with Dushanbe in Tajikistan. Its old name was Qezel Qal'eh. It was renamed after Sher Khan Nashir, Khan of the Kharoti Nasher clan.
The 2008 Kandahar bombing of February 17, 2008 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, was an attack targeting a crowd of people watching a dog-fighting competition. With more than 100 killed, it was the deadliest attack on Afghan soil since 2001.
The Spin Boldak bombing happened on February 18, 2008 when a car full of explosives detonated near a Canadian military convoy in a market in Spin Boldak, Afghanistan. The attack killed 38 Afghans and injured at least 25 civilians. In addition, four Canadian soldiers were lightly injured.
The War in Afghanistan was a conflict that took place from 2001 to 2021 in Afghanistan, a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. It started with an invasion that led to the United States and its allies toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in order to deny al-Qaeda a safe base of operations in the country. For most of the period, the war was officially fought between allied NATO and Afghan Armed Forces, and opposing Taliban insurgents. The Taliban regained power and re-established the Emirate 19 years and 8 months later. It was the longest war in United States history, surpassing the Vietnam War by roughly five months.
Islām Qala, known historically as Kafir Qala, is a border town in the western Herat province of Afghanistan, near the Afghanistan–Iran border. It is the official entry by land from neighboring Taybad, Iran.
The Wesh–Chaman border crossing is one of the major international border crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Located on the Pak-Afghan border, it leads north from the town of Chaman, Chaman District, Balochistan into Wesh in Spin Boldak District, Kandahar province. More generally, it links the two provincial capitals: Quetta and Kandahar. At least 70 thousand peoples cross this border on the daily basis having businesses in Wesh and return home in the evening. On 14 July 2021, the border crossing was captured by Taliban forces as part of the 2021 Taliban offensive.
The following lists events that happened in 2013 in Afghanistan.
Hafiz Abdur Rahim was a Taliban leader.
Operation Mongoose was an American-led two week cave clearing operation in the Adi Ghar Mountains near the town of Spin Boldak in Kandahar Province. Launched on the 28 January 2003, over 350 US and coalition soldiers along with Afghan militia fighters, assisted by Apache helicopters and Norwegian F-16 fighter jets participated with the objective of searching through and destroying caves used by Hezb-e Islami, Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives. By the end of the operation, over 75 caves had been cleared.
2021 (MMXXI) is the current year, and is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2021st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 21st year of the 3rd millennium, the 21st year of the 21st century, and the 2nd year of the 2020s decade.
The 2021 Taliban offensive was a major offensive by the Taliban and allied militant groups against the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and its allies that began on 1 May 2021, coinciding with the post-April-2021 phase of the withdrawal of most United States and allied troops from Afghanistan, and resulted in the de facto takeover of the country and the reinstatement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The offensive included a continuation of the bottom-up succession of negotiated or paid surrenders to the Taliban from village level upwards that started following the February 2020 U.S.–Taliban deal. Factors prior to May 2021 included the Taliban's effective use of online social media, its strategical choice of attacking northern provinces, and the Taliban's freedom of movement on the main Afghan highways that resulted from the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) following the US-recommended strategy of sacrificing rural areas in favour of defending key urban centres.
War crimes by the Taliban since the Taliban's emergence in the 1990s include extrajudicial killings of civilians during its period running the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, systematic killings of civilians and wartime sexual violence during the 2010s, and executions of civilians during the 2021 Taliban offensive.
The Battle of Kandahar began on 9 July 2021, as Taliban insurgents assaulted the city to capture it from the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). After heavy fighting for weeks the city's defenses had started to dissolve in August. This allowed the Taliban to enter and overrun most of the city on 12 August 2021, including the Sarposa prison, which included the release of over 1,000 prisoners, and ultimately the capture of the city. However, the siege for the nearby airport continued, where government loyalists held out until being evacuated on 16 August.
Taliban (suspected)
