The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), renamed the Republic of Afghanistan in 1987, was the Afghan state during the one-party rule of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) from 1978 to 1992. It relied heavily on assistance from the Soviet Union for most of its existence, especially during the Soviet–Afghan War.
The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Soviet-controlled Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) from 1979 to 1989. The war was a major conflict of the Cold War as it saw extensive fighting between the DRA, the Soviet Union and allied paramilitary groups against the Afghan mujahideen and their allied foreign fighters. While the mujahideen were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of their support came from Pakistan, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Iran, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The involvement of the foreign powers made the war a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Combat took place throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside. The war resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000,000 Afghans, while millions more fled from the country as refugees; most externally displaced Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and in Iran. Approximately 6.5% to 11.5% of Afghanistan's erstwhile population of 13.5 million people is estimated to have been killed over the course of the conflict. The Soviet–Afghan War caused grave destruction throughout Afghanistan and has also been cited by scholars as a significant factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, formally ending the Cold War.
Kabul University is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd District of the capital Kabul, near the Ministry of Higher Education. It was founded in 1931 by King Mohammed Nadir Shah, whose prime minister at the time was his younger brother, Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan.
The Kabul Times Daily is a state-run English-language newspaper in Afghanistan, initially established on February 27, 1962, as The Kabul Times. As of 2018, it had a daily circulation of 47,000 and is offered in both print and online formats.
Surkh-Rōd.(Pashto/Persian: سرخرود/ سره رود), also spelled as Surkh-Rūd or Sorkh-Rūd, also called Sra-rod or Sra- road, is a district in the north of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. The district centre is the town of Sultanpur. It is well known to locals because of its abundance of fertile land; however, it is currently facing a lack of water.
The Tajbeg Palace assault, known by the military codename Operation Storm-333, was a military raid executed by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan on 27 December 1979. Special forces and airborne troops stormed the heavily fortified Tajbeg Palace in Kabul and assassinated Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin, a Khalqist of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) who had taken power in the Saur Revolution of April 1978. It was the start of the Soviet–Afghan War.
Abdul Salam Azimi is an Afghan judge who was the Chief Justice of Afghanistan and, as such, the head of the Afghan Supreme Court from August 2006 to October 2014, when he resigned his position.
Mohammad Haron Amin was the Afghan ambassador to Japan and non-resident ambassador to Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore from 2004–2009. He is also known for his role as spokesman for the Northern Alliance during the U.S.-led invasion of his country after the events of September 11, 2001.
Taher Badakhshi has been a cultural and political personality in Afghanistan. He had performed a large variety of cultural and political activities in Afghanistan including organisation of different scale gatherings of authors, journalists and writers of the country and hosting meetings in which the intelligentsia of different cultural and political backgrounds came together for discussions, and he was the founder of "Revolutionary Organization of the Toilers of Afghanistan", a liberal leftist group with affinity to the Non-Aligned Movement that was founded in Yugoslavia in 1956, triggered by Josip Broz Tito, and promoted by the two most pivotal personalities in the global South: Jawaharlal Nehru and Gamal Abdel Nasser. The group has also had a firm touch to the liberal principles and heterogeneous ideas of liberalism and modernism, and of course in the very temporal and geographic context of the country, it had affinities to the leftist liberation and anti-colonial movements in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Mohammad Amin Wakman is the Honorary Chairman and Director of International Affairs of Afghan Millat Party.
Hamidullah Qalandarzai was born in Surkh Rod district of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. He is the former governor of Khost Province, replacing Arsala Jamal.
Mohammad Asif Rahimi is an Afghan politician serving as ambassador to the Netherlands. He was previously the governor of Herat Province and Minister of Agriculture. An ethnic Tajik, he was raised in Kabul, and obtained a bachelor's degree from Kabul University in 1981 before completing post-graduate studies in Management of Development Programs in 1989 at Omaha University in Nebraska, United States. Rahimi moved to Canada in 2001, and returned to Afghanistan in 2005, where he joined the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, spearheading rural development and infrastructure regeneration. He was appointed to his current posting in October 2008 and was confirmed by the National Assembly of Afghanistan. Part of his Ministry's efforts have been focused on reducing opium production in Afghanistan, which is seen as critical to Afghanistan's development.
Abdul Karim Brahui is a former politician in Afghanistan. He last served as Governor of Nimroz Province from 2010 to 2012, and before that he served as a minister in the Cabinet of Afghanistan. From February 2009 to August 2010, Brahui served as Minister of Refugees. In 2004, Brahui was appointed as Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs.
Amin Wardak is a major Afghan mujahideen leader who mostly fought against the Afghan communist regime and the Soviet invaders in his home region of Maidan Wardak Province during the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s. However, his reach of military actions had spread till the provinces of Ghazni and Kabul, and his political influence and relations towards the other mujahideen groups was reaching even further.
Louis Dupree was an American archaeologist, anthropologist, and scholar of Afghan culture and history. He was the husband of Nancy Hatch Dupree, who was the Board Director of the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University in Afghanistan and the author of five books about Afghanistan. The husband and wife team from the United States worked together for 15 years in Kabul, collecting as many works written about Afghanistan as they could. They travelled across the country from 1962 until the 1979 Soviet intervention, conducting archaeological excavations.
Abbas Noyan is an ethnic Hazara politician. He is Afghanistan's ambassador to Sweden, from the Islamic Republic that fell in August 2021 to the Taliban. Previously he served as a Member of Parliament to Wolesi Jirga, the lower house, representing the people of Kabul province from 2005 to 2010. In 2005, he ranked seventh among candidates from Kabul province, quickly rising to one of the most prominent and active representatives at the Wolesi Jirga. During his tenure, he advocated for women's rights, education for all, a responsive and accountable government, and a strong rule of law. Noyan has worked across ethnic and sectarian divides in representing his constituents, and sought to bridge those divides by establishing a multi-ethnic political party.
Ronald William Roskens was an American academic. He was the president of the University of Nebraska System from 1977 to 1989. Roskens was a member and past National President of Sigma Tau Gamma. He served as Administrator of USAID from 1990 to 1992. Ronald W. and Lois G. Roskens Hall, finished in Fall 2011, located on the campus of University of Nebraska Omaha, is named after the Roskens.
Chris Allen is a professor in the College of Communication, Fine Arts and Media at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). A Fulbright scholar, he has lectured on investigative journalism and freedom of the press in Afghanistan and Oman.
Hamidullah Farooqi is an Afghan politician, economist and activist. He has written several research papers and served in higher positions within the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s government. Farooqi served as the Chancellor of Kabul University from 2016 to 2021 until the fall of Kabul in the hands of Taliban. He also served as Advisor Minister to President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Higher Education. He previously served as Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation from March 2009 to January 2010 in the cabinet of former President Hamid Karzai.
The Unai Pass or Onai Pass is a mountain pass on the western side of the Paghman Mountains in Jalrez District, Maidan Wardak Province, Afghanistan. It is of strategical importance due to its geographical location to the southwest of Kabul. The Sarchashma River flows through the pass, which is the upstream part of the Kabul River. The Maidan River, a tributary of the Kabul/Sarchashma rises at the pass at an altitude of about 3,300 metres (10,800 ft).
