Jalalabad is the fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 356,274,and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country,about 130 kilometres (80 mi) from the capital Kabul. Jalalabad is located at the junction of the Kabul River and the Kunar River in a plateau to the south of the Hindu Kush mountains. It is linked by the Kabul-Jalalabad Road to the west and Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,Pakistan,to the east through Torkham and the Khyber Pass.
Hamid Karzai is an Afghan politician who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from July 2002 to September 2014,including as the first elected president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from December 2004 to September 2014. He previously served as Chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration from December 2001 to July 2002. He is the chief (khān) of the Popalzai Durrani tribe of Pashtuns in Kandahar Province.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan politician,and former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party,so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis split from Hezbi Islami in 1979 to found Hezb-i Islami Khalis. He has twice served as Prime Minister during the 1990s.
Gul Agha Sherzai,also known as Mohammad Shafiq,is a politician in Afghanistan. He is the former governor of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. He previously served as Governor of Kandahar province,in the early 1990s and from 2001 until 2003. In October 2013,Sherzai resigned from his post as governor and formally announced himself as a candidate for Afghanistan's 2014 Presidential Election,and served as the minister of border and tribal affairs until the Taliban victory in 2021.
Da Afghanistan Bank is the central bank of Afghanistan. It regulates all banking and monetary transactions in Afghanistan. Established in 1939,the bank is wholly government-owned. It is active in developing policies to promote financial inclusion and a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.
The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA),also known as the Afghan Transitional Authority,was the name of the temporary transitional government in Afghanistan put in place by the June 2002 loya jirga. The Transitional Authority succeeded the original Islamic State of Afghanistan,and preceded the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2004–2021).
The Afghan Social Democratic Party,more commonly known as the Afghan Mellat Party or simply the Afghan Mellat,is a Pashtun nationalist political party in Afghanistan. The party's leadership describes it as social democratic. The party's current leader is Stanagul Sherzad,who became the new leader after the 6th party congress on October 3,2012.
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 Northern Alliance,officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan,was a military alliance of groups that operated between early 1992 and 2001 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At that time,many non-Pashtun Northerners originally with the Republic of Afghanistan led by Mohammad Najibullah became disaffected with Pashtun Khalqist Afghan Army officers holding control over non-Pashtun militias in the North. Defectors such as Rashid Dostum and Abdul Momim allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud and Ali Mazari forming the Northern Alliance. The alliance's capture of Mazar-i-Sharif and more importantly the supplies kept there crippled the Afghan military and began the end of Najibullah's government. Following the collapse of Najibullah's government the Alliance would fall with a Second Civil War breaking out however following the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan's (Taliban) takeover of Kabul,The United Front was reassembled.
Shams-ul-Huda Shams was the president of the Afghan Millat Party from 1987 until his death on October 9,2005. He was also a journalist,publishing articles in his party's newspaper called 'Afghan Millat'. Shams had recently returned to his homeland after twenty-seven years in exile and had opened an office for his party in Jalalabad.
Haji Abdul Qadeer was an Afghan politician and prominent Northern Alliance leader who fought the Taliban during the Third Afghan Civil War. Originally a commander of the Hezb-i Islami Khalis faction during the Soviet–Afghan War,he then served as governor of Nangarhar Province,the head of the Eastern Afghanistan Shura,and later Vice President of Afghanistan and Minister of Public Works in the administration of Hamid Karzai from 19 June 2002 until his assassination on 6 July 2002. He was the older brother of fellow anti-Soviet and Northern Alliance commander Abdul Haq,who was assassinated in late 2001 by the Taliban.
Abdul Haq was an Afghan mujahideen commander who fought against the Soviet-backed People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan,the de facto Afghan government in the 1980s. He was killed by the Taliban in October 2001 while trying to create a popular uprising against the Taliban in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11th attacks.
Afghanistan–Pakistan relations refer to the bilateral ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In August 1947,the partition of British India led to the emergence of Pakistan along Afghanistan's eastern frontier,and the two countries have since had a strained relationship;Afghanistan was the sole country to vote against Pakistan's admission into the United Nations following the latter's independence. Various Afghan government officials and Afghan nationalists have made irredentist claims to large swathes of Pakistan's territory in modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistani Balochistan,which complete the traditional homeland of "Pashtunistan" for the Pashtun people. The Taliban has received substantial financial and logistical backing from Pakistan,which remains a significant source of support. Since the Taliban's inception,the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been providing them with funding,training,and weaponry. However,Pakistan's support for the Taliban is not without risks,as it involves playing a precarious and delicate game. Afghan territorial claims over Pashtun-majority areas that are in Pakistan were coupled with discontent over the permanency of the Durand Line which has long been considered the international border by every nation other than Afghanistan,and for which Afghanistan demanded a renegotiation,with the aim of having it shifted eastward to the Indus River. Territorial disputes and conflicting claims prevented the normalization of bilateral ties between the countries throughout the mid-20th century. Further Afghanistan–Pakistan tensions have arisen concerning a variety of issues,including the Afghanistan conflict and Afghan refugees in Pakistan,water-sharing rights,and a continuously warming relationship between Afghanistan and India,but most of all the Taliban in Kabul providing sanctuary and safe havens to TTP terrorists to attack Pakistani territory. Nonetheless,the Durand Line witnesses frequent occurrences of suicide bombings,airstrikes,or street battles on an almost daily basis.
Mohammad Yousef Pashtun is an Afghan technocrat and politician. He served as Minister of Urban Development and Housing for two terms and as Governor of Kandahar province in 2003,replacing Gul Agha Sherzai under President Hamid Karzai's administration. In 2010,he was appointed as Senior Adviser to President Karzai on Construction,Mines,Water &Energy. In 2014,minister Pashtun continued to serve as Senior Adviser to President Ashraf Ghani. Yِousef Pashtun is also chairing the Kabul New City Development Authority Board.
Current and past governments of Afghanistan have included a Minister of Commerce in the Afghan cabinet. The Ministry of Commerce and Industries creates the enabling environment for sustainable and equitable economic growth and opportunity for all Afghans by promoting private sector development in a socially responsible free market economy. The Ministry has three basic goals:a) to promote the establishment and implementation of a legal and regulatory framework necessary for a free market economy b) to integrate Afghanistan into the regional and global economy and c) to facilitate and promote the development of a dynamic,competitive private sector.
Darul Uloom Haqqania or Jamia Dar al-Ulum Haqqania is an Islamic Seminary in the town of Akora Khattak,Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province,northwestern Pakistan. The seminary propagates the Hanafi Deobandi school of Sunni Islam. It was founded by Maulana Abdul Haq along the lines of the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary in India,where he had taught. It has been dubbed the "University of Jihad" due to its methods and content of instruction,along with the future occupations of its alumni. A number of leading members of the Taliban,including past chief Akhtar Mansour,studied here.
Events from the year 2010 in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's principal intelligence and covert action agency,Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),has historically conducted a number of clandestine operations in its western neighbor,Afghanistan. ISI's covert support to militant jihadist insurgent groups in Afghanistan,the Pashtun-dominated former Federally Administered Tribal Areas,and Kashmir has earned it a wide reputation as the primary progenitor of many active South Asian jihadist groups.
As a geographically fragmented state,Afghanistan is separated into as many as 14 ethnic groups that have historically faced divisions that devolved into political violence. This conflict reached its culminating point in the 1990s with the rise of the Taliban.
