The history of Afghanistan, preceding the establishment of the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1823 is shared with that of neighbouring Iran, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The Sadozai monarchy ruled the Afghan Durrani Empire, considered the founding state of modern Afghanistan.
Herāt is an oasis city and the third-largest city in Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains in the fertile valley of the Hari River in the western part of the country. An ancient civilization on the Silk Road between West Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia, it serves as a regional hub in the country's west.
Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of 1,010 m (3,310 ft). It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the capital of Kandahar Province and the centre of the larger cultural region called Loy Kandahar.
The Military history of Afghanistan began before 1709 when the Hotaki dynasty was established in Kandahar followed by the Durrani Empire. The Afghan military was re-organized with assistance from the British in 1880, when the country was ruled by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. It was modernized during King Amanullah Khan's rule in the early 20th century, and then during King Zahir Shah's forty-year rule; the Soviet Union supplied almost all weapons, training and military needs between the 1950s and 1970s. From 1978 to 1992, the Soviet-backed Afghan Armed Forces engaged in heavy fighting with the multi-national mujahideen groups who were then backed by the United States, Pakistan and others. After President Najibullah's resignation in 1992 and the end of Soviet support, the Afghan military dissolved into portions controlled by different factions. This era was followed by the Taliban regime, whose leaders were trained and influenced by the Pakistan Armed Forces.
This article on the history of Afghanistan covers the period from the fall of the Najibullah government in 1992 to the end of the international military presence in Afghanistan.
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.
Afghanistan is a mountainous landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Some of the invaders in the history of Afghanistan include the Maurya Empire, the ancient Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, the Rashidun Caliphate, the Mongol Empire led by Genghis Khan, the Timurid Empire of Timur, the Mughal Empire, various Persian Empires, the Sikh Empire, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and most recently the United States with a number of allies in response to the September 11 attacks. A reduced number of NATO troops remained in the country in support of the government. Just prior to the American withdrawal in 2021, the Taliban regained control of the capital Kabul and most of the country. They changed Afghanistan's official name to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Bamyan Province, also spelled Bamiyan, Bāmīān or Bāmyān, is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan with the city of Bamyan as its center, located in central parts of Afghanistan.
Uruzgan, also spelled as Urozgan or Oruzgan, is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. Uruzgan is located in the center of the country. The population is 436,079, and the province is mostly a tribal society. Tarinkot serves as the capital of the province. Uruzgan borders the provinces of Kandahar, Daykundi, Ghazni, Zabul, and Helmand.
Mohammad Yunus Khalis was a mujahideen commander in Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. His party was called Hezb-i-Islami, the same as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party. The two are commonly differentiated as Hezb-e Islami Khalis and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin.
The 1989–1992 Afghan Civil War, also known as the FirstAfghan Civil War, took place between the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the Soviet–Afghan War on 15 February 1989 until 27 April 1992, ending the day after the proclamation of the Peshawar Accords proclaiming a new interim Afghan government which was supposed to start serving on 28 April 1992.
The Afghan mujahideen were Islamist resistance groups that fought against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent First Afghan Civil War.
General Mohammad Panah was a Tajik Afghanistan military commander who was loyal to Ahmad Shah Massoud. Panah gained popularity after successfully fighting in Soviet incursions in the Panjsher Valley and northern areas of Afghanistan. Following the withdrawal of USSR forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent collapse of the communist regime in Kabul, Panah was a commander alongside Mohammad Fahim in the northern Kabul fronts; he fought the Hezb-e-islami, Hekmatyar, and the Taliban afterwards. He was killed in Paghman District during a Taliban offensive in Kabul.
The Afghanistan conflict began in 1978 and has coincided with several notable operations by the United States (U.S.) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The first operation, code-named Operation Cyclone, began in mid-1979, during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter. It financed and eventually supplied weapons to the anti-communist mujahideen guerrillas in Afghanistan following an April 1978 coup by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and throughout the nearly ten-year military occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.). Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, supported an expansion of the Reagan Doctrine, which aided the mujahideen along with several other anti-Soviet resistance movements around the world.
Relations between Afghanistan and Russia first emerged in the 19th century. At the time they were placed in the context of "The Great Game", Russian–British confrontations over Afghanistan from 1840 to 1907. The Soviet Union was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. On 28 February 1921, Afghanistan and the Soviet Russia signed a Friendship Treaty. The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan against the Basmachi movement in 1929 and 1930.
Mujahideen, or Mujahidin, is the plural form of mujahid, an Arabic term that broadly refers to people who engage in jihad, interpreted in a jurisprudence of Islam as the fight on behalf of God, religion or the community (ummah).
The Afghan conflict is a term that 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 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.
The following is an outline of the series of events that led up the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021).
