Mazār-i-Sharīf, also called Mazār-e Sharīf, or just Mazar, is the fourth-largest city of Afghanistan, with a population estimate of 500,207 people. It is the capital of Balkh province and is linked by highways with Kunduz in the east, Kabul in the southeast, Herat in the southwest and Termez, Uzbekistan in the north. It is about 55 km (34 mi) from the Uzbek border. The city is also a tourist attraction because of its famous shrines as well as the Islamic and Hellenistic archeological sites. The ancient city of Balkh is also nearby.
The Taliban is a Deobandi Islamist religious and political movement and military organization in Afghanistan. Currently one of two entities claiming to be the legitimate government of Afghanistan, alongside the internationally recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Taliban maintain de facto control over the country. The Taliban's ideology has been described as combining an "innovative" form of Sharia Islamic law based on Deobandi fundamentalism and militant Islamism, combined with Pashtun social and cultural norms known as Pashtunwali, as most Taliban are Pashtun tribesmen. The group is internally funded by its activities in the illegal drug trade by producing and trafficking narcotics such as heroin, extortion, and kidnap and ransom. They also seized control of mining operations in the mid 2010s which were illegal under the previous government.
Humanitarian aid workers belonging to United Nations organisations, PVOs / NGOs or the Red Cross / Red Crescent have traditionally enjoyed both international legal protection, and de facto immunity from attack by belligerent parties. However, attacks on humanitarian workers have occasionally occurred, and became more frequent since the 1990s and 2000s. In 2017, the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) documented 139 humanitarian workers killed in intentional attacks out of the estimated global population of 569,700 workers. In every year since 2013, more than 100 humanitarian workers were killed. This is attributed to a number of factors, including the increasing number of humanitarian workers deployed, the increasingly unstable environments in which they work, and the erosion of the perception of neutrality and independence. In 2012 road travel was seen to be the most dangerous context, with kidnappings of aid workers quadrupling in the last decade, reaching more aid workers victims than any other form of attack.
Bettina Goislard was a French employee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), assigned to its mission in Afghanistan. She was the first United Nations worker to be killed in that country since the fall of the Taliban in December 2001.
Reza Khan was charged on August 5, 2004 in Kabul, Afghanistan, of murder, rape and robbery involving four journalists on November 19, 2001. Khan was also accused of cutting off the noses and ears of four Afghan men because of their short beards. Khan was convicted in November 2004 and executed in Afghanistan on October 8, 2007.
Human rights in Afghanistan is a topic of some controversy and conflict. While the Taliban were well known for numerous human rights abuses, several human rights violations continue to take place across the country. Afghanistan has an interesting strong human rights framework within its constitution. It is a member of the United Nations Convention against Torture since April 1987.
The Taliban insurgency was an insurgency that 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.
Dadullah was the Taliban's senior military commander in Afghanistan until his death in 2007. He was also known as Maulavi or Mullah Dadullah Akhund. He also earned the nickname of Lang, meaning lame, because of the leg he lost during fighting.
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.
Daniele Mastrogiacomo is an Italian-Swiss journalist and a war correspondent for la Repubblica newspaper.
The following lists events that happened during 2004 in Afghanistan.
The War in Afghanistan was a conflict that took place from 2001 to 2021 in Afghanistan. It started when the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate. The war ended with the Taliban regaining power after a 19 years and 8 months insurgency against allied NATO and Afghan Armed Forces. It was the longest war in United States history, surpassing the Vietnam War (1955–1975) by roughly five months.
Bartolini is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include:
The Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club (GJMC), are a "one-percenter" motorcycle club that was originally formed in San Francisco, California on April Fool's Day, 1956. Though founded in the United States, the MC expanded more successfully overseas is now one of the most notorious motorcycle clubs in Australia, Germany, South Africa and Norway.
Aziz Ullah Haidari was a Reuter's correspondent and photo-journalist in Pakistan. On 19 November 2001, he, along with three other journalists, were kidnapped and murdered by the Taliban on the highway of Sarobi area situated between Jalalabad and Kabul in Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan conflict is a series of wars fought in Afghanistan from 1978 through to the present day. Afghanistan has been in a continuous state of civil war since the Soviet invasion in 1979. Previously, the Kingdom of Afghanistan was overthrown in the relatively bloodless 1973 Afghan coup d'état, which brought the monarch Mohammed Zahir Shah’s 39-year reign to an end, and ended Afghanistan’s relatively peaceful period in modern history. Starting with the Saur Revolution military coup, an almost continuous series of armed conflicts has dominated and afflicted Afghanistan, including a Soviet invasion, a series of civil wars between mujahideen groups, notably the Taliban, a NATO invasion, a Taliban insurgency, and fighting between the Taliban and the Islamic State – Khorasan Province. The conflict includes:
2003 in Afghanistan. A list of notable incidents in Afghanistan during 2003
Clint Allen Lorance is a former United States Army officer who is known for having been convicted and pardoned for war crimes.
In a continuation of previous attacks by the Taliban in May and June, multiple clashes between Afghan security forces and the Taliban were reported. They carried out several attacks throughout Afghanistan, resulting in multiple fatalities on both sides. Both the Taliban and government forces have accused each other responsibility over the recent surge in violence across Afghanistan. The attacks come despite the signing of a peace deal with the U.S. in February that was intended to put an end to the war.
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.
