Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's capital and largest city. Afghanistan's population is about 35 million.
The history of Afghanistan includes the complete history of the modern-day nation of Afghanistan, from prehistory up to the establishment of the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1823 and to the present time. This history is largely shared with that of Central Asia, Persia, and the Indian subcontinent.
Jalalabad is the fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 356,274, and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country, about 130 kilometres (80 mi) from the capital Kabul. Jalalabad is located at the junction of the Kabul River and the Kunar River in a plateau to the south of the Hindu Kush mountains. It is linked by the Kabul-Jalalabad Road to the west and Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, to the east through Torkham and the Khyber Pass.
Mohammad Daoud Khan was an Afghan military officer and politician who served as prime minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963 and, as leader of the 1973 Afghan coup d'état which overthrew the monarchy, served as the first president of Afghanistan from 1973 until he himself was deposed in a coup and killed in the Saur Revolution.
Dost Mohammad Khan Barakzai, nicknamed the Amir-i Kabir, was the founder of the Barakzai dynasty and one of the prominent rulers of Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War. With the decline of the Durrani dynasty, he became the Emir of Afghanistan in 1826. An ethnic Pashtun, he belonged to the Barakzai tribe. He was the 11th son of Payinda Khan, chief of the Barakzai Pashtuns, who was killed in 1799 by King Zaman Shah Durrani.
Da Afghanistan Bank is the central bank of Afghanistan. It regulates all banking and monetary transactions in Afghanistan. Established in 1939, the bank is wholly government-owned. It is active in developing policies to promote financial inclusion and a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.
The prime minister of Afghanistan, officially the prime minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is the head of government of Afghanistan.
Jamiat-e-Islami, sometimes shortened to Jamiat, is a predominantly Afghan Tajik political party and former paramilitary organisation in Afghanistan. It is the oldest and largest functioning political party in Afghanistan, and was originally formed as a student political society at Kabul University. It has a communitarian ideology based on Islamic law. During the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent First Afghan Civil War against the communist government, Jamiat-e Islami was one of the most powerful of the Afghan mujahideen groups. Burhanuddin Rabbani led the party from 1968 to 2011, and served as President of the Islamic State of Afghanistan from 1992 to 2001, in exile from 1996.
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a military alliance of groups that operated between early 1992 and 2001 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At that time, many non-Pashtun Northerners originally with the Republic of Afghanistan led by Mohammad Najibullah became disaffected with Pashtun Khalqist Afghan Army officers holding control over non-Pashtun militias in the North. Defectors such as Rashid Dostum and Abdul Momim allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud and Ali Mazari forming the Northern Alliance. The alliance's capture of Mazar-i-Sharif and more importantly the supplies kept there crippled the Afghan military and began the end of Najibullah's government. Following the collapse of Najibullah's government the Alliance would fall with a Second Civil War breaking out however following the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan's (Taliban) takeover of Kabul, The United Front was reassembled.
Abdul Haq was an Afghan mujahideen commander who fought against the Soviet-backed People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the de facto Afghan government in the 1980s. He was killed by the Taliban in October 2001 while trying to create a popular uprising against the Taliban in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
Alakozai is a Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan. They are one of the four tribes of the Zirak tribal confederacy of Durrani Pashtuns.
The following lists events that happened during 1997 in Afghanistan.
The Barakzai dynasty, also known as the Muhammadzai dynasty, ruled what is now Afghanistan from 1823 to 1978, when the monarchy ended de jure under Musahiban Mohammad Zahir Shah and de facto under his cousin Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan. The Barakzai dynasty was established by Dost Mohammad Khan after the Durrani dynasty of Ahmad Shah Durrani was removed from power. As the Pahlavi era in Iran, the Muhammadzai era was known for its progressivist modernity, practice of Sufism, peaceful security and neutrality, in which Afghanistan was referred to as the "Switzerland of Asia".
The Afghan Interim Administration (AIA), also known as the Afghan Interim Authority, was the first administration of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime and was the highest authority of the country from 22 December 2001 until 13 July 2002.
The Ministry of Finance of Afghanistan is responsible for the implementation and execution of the budget, collection of taxes, organization, and control of public expenses in Afghanistan; it also controls the management of the Custom Affairs. The Ministry of Finance provides a quarterly report to inform the public and the executive cabinet of advancements in Afghanistan's financial sector. The current Finance Minister is Nasir Akhund.
Mohammad Nadir Shah was King of Afghanistan from 15 October 1929 until his assassination in November 1933. He became the king after his victory in the Afghan Civil War of 1928–29. Previously, he served as Minister of War, Afghan Ambassador to France, and as a general in the Royal Afghan Army. He and his son Mohammad Zahir Shah, who succeeded him, are part of the Musahiban.
Sultan Mohammad Khan, also known as Ghazi Sardar Sultan Mohammad Talaei, and known by his epithet, Sultan Mohammad Khan the Golden was an Afghan chief minister and regent. He was a powerful half-brother of Emir Dost Mohammad Khan, the eventual ruler of Afghanistan who seized control of Kabul from him. Prior to and during the reign of Dost Mohammad Khan, Sultan Muhammad Khan Telai was chief minister and governor of various regions of Afghanistan, including Kabul, Peshawar and Kohat. He was the first of the Musahiban, a Mohammadzai dynasty that began with him and ruled Afghanistan for more than 150 years, in various forms such as emir, king or president from 1823 to 1978.
The politics of Afghanistan are based on a totalitarian emirate within the Islamic theocracy in which the Taliban Movement holds a monopoly on power. Dissent is not permitted, and politics are mostly limited to internal Taliban policy debates and power struggles. As the government is provisional, there is no constitution or other basis for the rule of law. The structure is autocratic, with all power concentrated in the hands of the supreme leader and his clerical advisors. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices Afghanistan was as of 2023 the 4th least electoral democratic country in the world.
Afghanistanportal 
