Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s he led the government's military wing against rival militias and, after the Taliban takeover, was the leading opposition commander against their regime, who he fought against until his assassination in 2001.
Hamid Karzai is an Afghan politician who was the President of Afghanistan from 22 December 2001 to 29 September 2014, originally as an interim leader and then as President for almost ten years, from 7 December 2004 to 2014. He comes from a politically active family; Karzai's father, uncle and grandfather were all active in Afghan politics and government. Karzai and his father before him, Abdul Ahad Karzai, were each head of the Popalzai tribe of the Durrani tribal confederation.
Mullah Mohammed Omar, widely known as Mullah Omar, was an Afghan mujahideen commander who founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996. The Taliban recognized him as the Commander of the Faithful or the Supreme Leader of the Muslims until being succeeded by Mullah Akhtar Mansour in 2015. Some sources described Mullah Omar as "Head of the Supreme Council of Afghanistan". The Supreme Council was initially established at Kandahar in 1994.
This article on the History of Afghanistan since 1992 covers the time period from the fall of the Najibullah government in 1992 to the ongoing international military presence in Afghanistan.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was a militant Islamist group formed in 1998 by the Islamic ideologue Tahir Yuldashev, and former Soviet paratrooper Juma Namangani—both ethnic Uzbeks from the Fergana Valley. Its original objective was to overthrow President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, and to create an Islamic state under Sharia; however, in subsequent years, it reinvented itself as an ally of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In mid-2015 its leadership publicly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and announced that the IMU was part of the group's regional branch. Dissident elements of the IMU retained the group's name and their alliance with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The Afghan Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a united military front that came to formation in late 1996 after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) took over Kabul. The United Front was assembled by key leaders of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, particularly president Burhanuddin Rabbani and former Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud. Initially it included mostly Tajiks but by 2000, leaders of other ethnic groups had joined the Northern Alliance. This included Abdul Rashid Dostum, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Qadir, Asif Mohseni and others.
The United States invasion of Afghanistan occurred after the September 11 attacks in late 2001, supported by close US allies. The conflict is also known as the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Its public aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda, and to deny it a safe base of operations in Afghanistan by removing the Taliban from power. The United Kingdom was a key ally of the United States, offering support for military action from the start of preparations for the invasion. It followed the Afghan Civil War's 1996–2001 phase between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance groups, although the Taliban controlled 90% of the country by 2001. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan became the first phase of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present).
Maulavi or Mullah Dadullah or Dadullah Akhund was the Taliban's senior military commander until he was killed by British and American special forces in Afghanistan in 2007. He was an ethnic Pashtun from the Kakar tribe of Kandahar province. According to the United Nations' list of entities belonging to or associated with the Al-Qaida organization, he had been the Taliban's Minister of Construction.
This article covers the Afghan history between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the U.S. and U.K. invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001: a period that was part of the Afghan civil war that had started in 1989, and also part of the war in Afghanistan that had started in 1978.
Gulan was an anti-Taliban militia leader, prior to the ouster of the Taliban. He was a member of a local anti-Taliban provisional administration that rose to power in Eastern Afghanistan, centred in Jalalabad, Nangarhar, before Hamid Karzai had assembled his nationwide provisional administration.
The following items form a partial timeline of the War in Afghanistan. For events prior to October 7, 2001, see 2001 in Afghanistan
Izzatullah, also spelled Ezzatullah or Ezatullah, is a common masculine muslim given name, formed from the elements Izzat and [[]] of originally [[]] origin and meaning , 'honor' and 'might' of Allah.
Sorubi is a community in the southern corner of Rodat District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.
The War in Afghanistan, code named Operation Enduring Freedom (2001–14) and Operation Freedom's Sentinel (2015–present), followed the United States invasion of Afghanistan of 7 October 2001, when the U.S. and allies successfully drove out the Taliban from power in order to dismantle al-Qaeda and to deny it a safe base of operations in Afghanistan. Since the initial objectives were completed, a coalition of over 40 countries formed a security mission in the country. The war has since mostly involved U.S. and allied Afghan government troops battling Taliban insurgents. The War in Afghanistan is the longest war in U.S. history, having overtaken the U.S. participation in the Vietnam War in 2010.
After Operation Enduring Freedom in which the Taliban government was toppled in Afghanistan, in December 2001, the German city of Bonn hosted a conference of Afghan leaders at Hotel Petersberg, to choose the leader of an Afghan Interim Authority – widely known as the Bonn Conference. The Conference chose Hamid Karzai, who was subsequently elected President in 2004. Karzai subsequently appointed many of the anti-Taliban allies and regional leaders to senior posts within the interim government, or to senior posts in the Provincial governments.
The Quetta Shura is a militant organization which is composed of the leaders of the Afghan Taliban, and believed to be based, since about 2001, within the city of Quetta in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The Shura was formed at a time after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was toppled as part of events occurring during late 2001, the senior leadership at the time, including Mullah Mohammed Omar, proceeding to escape into Pakistan. In February 2010, several of the key members of the Quetta Shura, who were dispersed within a variety of cities and towns of Pakistan, were detained by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Pakistan proceeded to agree to repatriate these individuals to Afghanistan, if they were found to have not committed crimes within the boundaries of the Pakistani nation.
MullahAbdul Ghani Baradar, also called Mullah Baradar Akhund or Mullah Brother, is a co-founder of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. He was the deputy of Mullah Mohammed Omar. Baradar was captured in Pakistan by a team of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers in February 2010 and was released on 24 October 2018 at the request of the United States.
Mullah Muhammad Rasul is the leader of the High Council of Afghanistan Islamic Emirate, a Taliban group in Afghanistan. He was a Taliban-appointed governor of Nimruz Province, Afghanistan. Rasul exerted economic pressures on ethnic and religious minorities unpopular with the Taliban, and made a considerable fortune controlling cross-border drug-smuggling through Nimruz.
The Afghanistan conflict is a series of wars that has been fought in Afghanistan since 1978. Starting with the Saur Revolution military coup, an almost continuous series of armed conflicts has dominated and afflicted Afghanistan. The wars include:
