The Hazaras are an ethnic group and a principal component of the population of Afghanistan, native to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in Afghanistan and primarily residing in the Hazaristan (Hazarajat) region in central Afghanistan, as well as a significant minority groups mainly in Quetta, Pakistan and Mashhad, Iran. They speak the Dari and Hazaragi dialects of Persian. Dari, also known as Dari Persian, is one of two official languages of Afghanistan.
The Taliban, which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a militant organization in Afghanistan with an ideology comprising elements of Pashtun nationalism and the Deobandi current of Islamic fundamentalism. It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country from 1996 to 2001, before being overthrown following the American invasion. It recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 following the departure of most coalition forces, after nearly 20 years of insurgency, and currently controls all of the country. However, its government is not recognized by any country. The Taliban government has been internationally condemned for restricting human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women and girls to work and to have an education.
The Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accords of 26 April 1992. Many Afghan mujahideen parties participated in its creation, after the fall of the socialist government. Its power was limited due to the country's second civil war, which was won by the Taliban, who took control of Kabul in 1996. The Islamic state then transitioned to a government in exile and led the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. It remained the internationally recognized government of Afghanistan at the United Nations until 2001, when the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan was created and an Afghan Interim Administration took control of Afghanistan with US and NATO assistance following the overthrow of the first Taliban government. The Transitional Islamic State was subsequently transformed into the Islamic Republic, which existed until the Taliban seized power again in 2021 following a prolonged insurgency.
Abdul Ali Mazari was an Afghan Hazara politician and leader of the Hezbe Wahdat during and following the Soviet–Afghan War, who advocated for a federal system of governance in Afghanistan. He believed that this would end political and ethnic division in Afghanistan by guaranteeing rights to every ethnic group. He was allegedly captured and murdered by the Taliban during negotiations in 1995. In 2016, he was posthumously given the title "Martyr for National Unity of Afghanistan" and had a statue erected in his honor by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Shortly after reclaiming power, the Taliban demolished the statue.
The national flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, adopted on 15 August 2021 following the Taliban's victory in the 2001–2021 war, features a white field with a black Shahada inscribed. Since the 20th century, Afghanistan has changed its national flag several times. The national flag had black, red and green colors most of the time during the period.
Khost is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan located in the southeastern part of the country. Khost consists of thirteen districts and the city of Khost serves as the capital of the province. Historically, Khost used to be a part of Paktia and a larger region surrounding Khost is still referred to as Loya Paktia.
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf is an exiled Afghan politician and former mujahideen commander. He took part in the war against the Marxist–Leninist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government in the 1980s, leading the Afghan mujahideen faction Ittehad-al-Islami.
The 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War, also known as the Third Afghan Civil War, took place between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the US and UK 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.
The Afghan conflict refers to the series of events that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. Early instability followed the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the largely non-violent 1973 coup d'état, which deposed Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah in absentia, ending his 40-year-long reign. With the concurrent establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan, headed by Mohammad Daoud Khan, the country's relatively peaceful and stable period in modern history came to an end. However, all-out fighting did not erupt until after 1978, when the Saur Revolution violently overthrew Khan's government and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Subsequent unrest over the radical reforms that were being pushed by the then-ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led to unprecedented violence, prompting a large-scale pro-PDPA military intervention by the Soviet Union in 1979. In the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War, the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen received extensive support from Pakistan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia in a joint covert effort that was dubbed Operation Cyclone.
The jihadist flag is a flag commonly used by various Islamist and fundamentalist movements as a symbol of jihad. It usually consists of the Black Standard with a white text of the Shahada emblazoned across it in calligraphy style writing. Its usage was widely adopted by Islamist groups and jihadists during the 1990s and early 2000s.
The Hazaras have long been the subjects of persecution in Afghanistan. The Hazaras are mostly from Afghanistan, primarily from the central regions of Afghanistan, known as Hazarajat. Significant communities of Hazara people also live in Quetta, Pakistan and in Mashad, Iran, as part of the Hazara and Afghan diasporas.
The Islamic State – Khorasan Province is a regional branch of the Salafi jihadist group Islamic State (IS) active in South-Central Asia, primarily Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISIS–K seeks to destabilize and replace current governments within historic Khorasan region with the goal of establishing a caliphate across South and Central Asia, governed under a strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law, which they plan to expand beyond the region.
Hazara nationalism is a movement that claims the Hazara people, an ethnic group native to the Hazaristan region of Afghanistan, are a distinct nation and deserve a nation-state of their own. The movement propagates the view that Muslims are not a nation and that ethnic loyalty must surpass religious loyalty, though this view has been challenged by both the 1890s independence uprisings of Hazaristan and the systematic discrimination many Hazaras have historically faced within Afghanistan.
The flag of Hazaristan is the national flag of Hazaristan and Hazaras. It was originally proposed by Kamran Mir Hazar on Kabul Press in 2013, and later in 2014 presented on the cover of the anthology Poems for the Hazara. Article 37 of the Hazaristan Charter, released by the Pioneers of the Hazaristan Independence Movement on April 11, 2021, is about the Hazaristan Flag.
Events in the year 2018 in Afghanistan.
The Islamic State–Taliban conflict is an ongoing armed conflict between the Islamic State and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The conflict escalated when militants who were affiliated with Islamic State – Khorasan Province killed Abdul Ghani, a senior Taliban commander in Logar province on 2 February 2015. Since then, the Taliban and IS-KP have engaged in clashes over the control of territory, mostly in eastern Afghanistan, but clashes have also occurred between the Taliban and IS-KP cells which are located in the north-west and south-west.
The republican insurgency in Afghanistan is an ongoing low-level guerilla war between the National Resistance Front and allied groups which fight under the banner of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on one side, and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on the other side. On 17 August 2021, former first vice president of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh declared himself the "caretaker" president of Afghanistan and announced the resistance. On 26 August, a brief ceasefire was declared. On 1 September, talks broke down and fighting resumed as the Taliban attacked resistance positions.
Throughout the history of Afghanistan, there have been many flags used by rebel groups in Afghanistan's various conflicts. This is a list of the Afghan rebel flags flown by various groups throughout the country's history.
The war in Afghanistan ended with the Taliban victorious when the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. The aftermath has been characterized by marked change in the social and political order of Afghanistan as Taliban took over the country once again after the fall of Kabul in 2021.
On September 30, 2022, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Kaaj education center in Dashte Barchi, a Hazara neighborhood in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing at least 52 and 110 injured The majority of the victims were young female students.
