History

Before 651: Pre-Islamic Period

Afghanistan's known pre-Islamic past began with Aryan invasions around 2000 BC and continued with Persian, Median, Greek, Mauryan, Bactrian and other phases in its history. Following the defeat of the Persian Achaemenids in 329 BC, Alexander the Great entered the territory of modern Afghanistan to capture Bactria (present-day Balkh).

After the defeat of Seleucus' invasion by Chandragupta, the Maurya Empire of India obtained the provinces of Southern Afghanistan, including the Kabul Valley and modern Kandahar. Mauryan rule lasted roughly 100-120 years. It was most notable for the introduction of Buddhism under Emperor Ashoka. Invasions by the Indo Greeks, Scythians, Kushans, Parthians, White Huns and Göktürks followed in succeeding centuries.

During the Kushan rule, Afghanistan became the centre of culture and learning. The Sassanians and other Persian powers ruled most of Afghanistan before the coming of Muslim armies, while the Shahis ruled eastern Afghanistan from the mid-7th century until Turkic invasions in the 10th century AD.

642-1747: Islamic Conquest

In 642 AD, Arabs invaded the entire region and introduced Islam. Afghanistan, like all others conquered by the Arabs, had local rulers including the empire of Tang China, which had extended its influence all the way to Kabul. The Khorasani Persian-Arabs controlled the area until they were conquered by the Ghaznavid Empire in 998.

Mahmud of Ghazni (998-1030) consolidated the conquests of his predecessors and turned Ghazna (Ghazni) into a great cultural centre as well as a base for frequent forays into India. The Ghaznavid dynasty was defeated in 1146 by the Ghurids (Ghor), the Ghaznavid Khans continued to live in Ghazni as the 'Nasher', but they did not regain their once vast power until about 500 years later when the Ghilzai Pashtuns's defeated the Safavid Persians in Kandahar. Various princes and Seljuk rulers attempted to rule parts of the country until the Shah Muhammad II of the Khwarezmid Empire conquered all of Persia in 1205. By 1219 the empire had fallen to the Mongols.

Led by Genghis Khan, the invasion resulted in massive slaughter of the population, destruction of many cities, including Herat, Ghazni, and Balkh, and the despoliation of fertile agricultural areas. Following Genghis Khan's death in 1227, a succession of petty chiefs and princes struggled for supremacy until late in the 14th century, when one of his descendants, Timur Lang, incorporated what is today Afghanistan into his own vast Asian empire. Babur, a descendant of Timur and the founder of Moghul Empire at the beginning of the 16th century, made Kabul the capital.

Afghanistan was divided in many parts in the 16th, 17th and early 18th century. North were the Uzbeks, west was Safavid's rule and east was the Mughal's and local Pashtun rule. In 1709, the Pashtuns (Afghans) decided to rise against the Persian Safavids. The Persians were badly defeated and the Afghans held Isfahan (Iran) from 1719-1729. Nadir Shah of Persia pushed back the Afghans in the 1729 Battle of Damghan. In 1738, Nadir Shah conquered Kandahar, in the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore. After his death in 1747, the Durrani Pashtuns became the principal Afghan rulers.

1709-1736: Hotaki Dynasty

In 1709, Mirwais Khan Hotak, a local Afghan (Pashtun) from the Ghilzai clan, overthrew and killed Gurgin Khan, the Safavid governor of Kandahar. Mirwais Khan successfully defeated the Persians, who were attempting to convert the local population of Kandahar from Sunni to the Shia sect of Islam. Mirwais held the region of Kandahar until his death in 1715 and was succeeded by his son Mir Mahmud Hotaki.

In 1722, Mir Mahmud led an Afghan army to Isfahan (now in Iran), sacked the city and proclaimed himself King of Persia. However, the great majority still rejected the Afghan regime as usurping, and after the massacre of thousands of civilians in Isfahan by the Afghans - including more than three thousand religious scholars, nobles, and members of the Safavid family - the Hotaki dynasty was eventually removed from power by a new ruler, Nadir Shah of Persia.

In 1738, Nadir Shah and his army, which included four thousand Pashtuns of the Abdali clan, conquered the region of Kandahar; in the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore. On June 19, 1747, Nadir Shah was assassinated, possibly planned by his nephew Ali Qoli.

1747-1818: Durrani Empire

Ahmed Shah Durrani, the founder of the Durrani Empire, established his rule in 1747 at Kandahar. Ahmad Shah, a Pashtun from the Abdali clan, was elected King in a loya jirga after the assassination of Nadir Shah in the same year. Since then, he has often regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan. After the inauguration, he changed his title or clans' name to 'Durrani', which derives from the Persian word Durr, meaning 'Pearl'.

Throughout his reign, Ahmad Shah consolidated chieftains, petty principalities, and fragmented provinces into one country. His rule extended from Mashad in the west to Kashmir and Delhi in the east, and from the Amu Darya (Oxus) River in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south. With the exception of a 9-month period in 1929, all of Afghanistan's rulers until the 1978 Marxist coup were from Durrani's Pashtun tribal confederation, and all were members of that tribe's Mohammedzai clan after 1818.

1826-1919: European Influence

During the nineteenth century, following the Anglo-Afghan wars (fought 1839-42, 1878-80 and lastly in 1919) and the ascension of the Barakzai dynasty, Afghanistan saw much of its territory and autonomy ceded to the United Kingdom. The UK exercised a great deal of influence, and it was not until the Treaty of Rawalpindi, signed in August 1919 after the Third Anglo-Afghan war, that Afghanistan re-gained complete independence over its foreign affairs. In commemoration of this event, Afghans celebrate August 19 as their Independence Day.

During the period of British intervention in Afghanistan, ethnic Pashtun territories were divided by the Durand Line. This would lead to strained relations between Afghanistan and British India - and later the new state of Pakistan - over what came to be known as the Pashtunistan debate.

1919-1929: Amanullah Khan

King Amanullah moved to end his country's traditional isolation in the years following the Third Anglo-Afghan war. He established diplomatic relations with most major countries and, following a 1927 tour of Europe and Turkey (during which he noted the modernisation and secularisation advanced by Atatürk), introduced several reforms intended to modernise Afghanistan. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, the Foreign Minister. Tarzi was Amanullah Khan's father-in-law and an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of the first constitution (declared through a Loya Jirga) of Afghanistan, which made elementary education compulsory. Other reforms included the abolition of the traditional Muslim veil for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, which soon alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to forces led by Habibullah Kalakani.

1929-1933: Nadir Shah

Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, a cousin of Amanullah's, in turn defeated and killed Habibullah Kalakani in October of the same year, and with considerable Pashtun tribal support he was declared King Nadir Shah. He began consolidating power and regenerating the country. He reversed the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favour of a more gradual approach to modernisation. In 1933, however, he was assassinated in a revenge killing by a Kabul student.

1933-1973: Zahir Shah

Mohammad Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946, he ruled with the assistance of his uncle Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. In 1946, another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Sardar Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister. He began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but was replaced as Prime Minister by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law in 1953. Daoud sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more hostile one towards Pakistan. However, dispute with Pakistan led to an economic crisis and he was asked to resign in 1963. From 1963 until 1973 Zahir Shah took a more active role in the reign of his country.

In 1964, King Zahir Shah promulgated a liberal constitution providing for a bicameral legislature to which the king appointed one-third of the deputies. The people elected another third, and the remainder were selected indirectly by provincial assemblies. Although Zahir's 'experiment in democracy' produced few lasting reforms, it permitted the growth of unofficial extremist parties on both the left and the right. These included the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had close ideological ties to the Soviet Union. In 1967, the PDPA split into two major rival factions: the Khalq (Masses) faction headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin and supported by elements within the military, and the Parcham (Banner) faction led by Babrak Karmal. The split reflected ethnic, class and ideological divisions within Afghan society.

1973-1978: Daoud's Republic of Afghanistan

Amid charges of corruption and malfeasance against the royal family and poor economic conditions created by the severe 1971-72 drought, former Prime Minister Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan seized power in a military coup on July 17, 1973. Zahir Shah fled the country eventually finding refuge in Italy. Daoud abolished the monarchy, abrogated the 1964 constitution, and declared Afghanistan a republic with himself as its first President and Prime Minister. His attempts to carry out badly needed economic and social reforms met with little success, and the new constitution promulgated in February 1977 failed to quell chronic political instability.

As disillusionment set in, on April 27, 1978, the PDPA initiated a bloody coup, which resulted in the overthrow and murder of Daoud and most of his family. Nur Muhammad Taraki, Secretary General of the PDPA, became President of the Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, strongly supported by the USSR.

1978-1992: Soviet Intervention

The PDPA, as a Communist Party, implemented a socialist agenda which included decrees abolishing usury, banning forced marriages, state recognition of women's rights to vote, replacing religious and traditional laws with secular and Marxist ones, banning tribal courts, and land reform. Men were obliged to cut their beards, women couldn't wear a burqa, and mosque visiting was forbidden. The PDPA invited the Soviet Union to assist in modernising its economic infrastructure (predominantly its exploration and mining of rare minerals and natural gas). The USSR also sent contractors to build roads, hospitals, schools and mine for water wells; they also trained and equipped the Afghan army. Upon the PDPA's ascension to power, and the establishment of the DRA, the Soviet Union promised monetary aid in the amount of at least $1.262 billion.

These reforms and the PDPA's monopoly on power were met with a large backlash, partly led by members of the traditional establishment. Many groups were formed in an attempt to reverse the dependence on the Soviet Union, some resorting to violent means and sabotage of the country's industry and infrastructure. The government responded with a heavy handed military intervention and arrested, exiled and executed many mujahideen 'holy Muslim warriors'.

In 1979, the Afghan army was overwhelmed with the number of incidents, and the Soviet Union sent troops to crush the uprising, install a pro-Moscow government, and support the new government. On December 25, 1979 the Soviet army entered Kabul. This was the starting point of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which ended only in 1989 with a full withdrawal of Soviet troops under the Geneva Accords reached in 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For over nine years the Soviet Army conducted military operations against the Afghan mujahedin rebels. The American CIA, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia assisted in the financing of the resistance because of their anti-communist stance, and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, because of their Islamist inclinations.

Among the foreign participants in the war was Osama bin Laden, whose Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) (Office of Order) organisation trained a small number of mujahideen, and providing some arms and funds to fight the Soviets. Bin Laden played only a limited part in this conflict and, in 1988, he broke away from the MAK with some of its more militant members to form Al-Qaida, in order to expand the anti-Soviet resistance effort into a worldwide Islamic fundamentalist movement.

The Soviet Union withdrew its troops in February 1989, but continued to aid the government, led by Mohammed Najibullah. Massive amounts of aid from the CIA and Saudi Arabia to the mujahadin also continued. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Najibullah government was overthrown on April 18, 1992 when Abdul Rashid Dostum mutinied, and allied himself with Ahmed Shah Massoud, to take control of Kabul and declare the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

1992-2001: The Rise of the Taliban

When the victorious mujahideen entered Kabul to assume control over the city and the central government, internecine fighting began between the various militias, which had coexisted only uneasily during the Soviet occupation. With the demise of their common enemy, the militias' ethnic, clan, religious and personality differences surfaced, and the civil war continued.

An interim Islamic Jihad Council was put in place, first led by Sibghatullah Mojadeddi for two months, then by Burhanuddin Rabbani. Fighting among rival factions intensified.

In reaction to the anarchy and warlordism prevalent in the country, and the lack of Pashtun representation in the Kabul government, the Taliban, a movement of religious scholars and former mujahideen, emerged from the southern province of Kandahar. The Taliban took control of approximately 95% of the country by the end of 2000, limiting the opposition mostly to a small corner in the northeast. The opposition formed the Afghan Northern Alliance, which continued to receive diplomatic recognition in the United Nations as the government of Afghanistan.

The Taliban sought to impose an extreme interpretation of Islam - based in part upon rural Pashtun tradition - upon the entire country and committed human rights violations, particularly directed against women and girls, in the process. Women were restricted from working outside the home or pursuing an education, were not to leave their homes without an accompanying male relative, and required to wear a traditional burqa.

The Taliban repressed minority populations, particularly the Shia, as a retaliation in which approximately 2,500 Taliban soldiers were massacred by Abdul Malik and his Shia followers, and attacking the Iranian embassy, killing eight diplomats and a television reporter, accusing them as spies.

In 2001, as part of a drive against relics of Afghanistan's pre-Islamic past, the Taliban destroyed two large statues of Buddha outside of the city of Bamiyan and announced destruction of all pre-Islamic statues in Afghanistan, including the remaining holdings of the Kabul Museum.

In addition to the continuing civil strife, the country suffered from widespread poverty, drought, a devastated infrastructure, and ubiquitous use of landmines. These conditions led to about a million Afghans facing starvation.

2001: War in Afghanistan

From the mid-1990s, the Taliban provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national who had fought with them against the Soviets, and provided a base for his and other terrorist organisations. The United Nations Security Council repeatedly sanctioned the Taliban for these activities. Bin Laden provided both financial and political support to the Taliban, as did Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, until American pressure forced them to drop their public support for the Taliban after September 11, 2001. Bin Laden and his al Qaeda group were charged with the bombing of the United States embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam in 1998, and in August 1998 the United States launched a cruise missile attack against bin Laden's terrorist camp in Afghanistan. Bin Laden and al Qaeda are believed responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, among other crimes.

By September 2001, the remaining opposition to the Taliban had been confined to the Panjshir Valley and a small region in the northeast. The opposition by this time had formed the Afghan Northern Alliance but controlled less than 5% of the country. Nevertheless, they held onto Afghanistan's diplomatic representation in the United Nations as only three countries in the world continued to recognise the Taliban government. On September 9, agents working on behalf of the Taliban and believed to be associated with bin Laden's al Qaeda group assassinated Northern Alliance Defence Minister and chief military commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, a hero of the Afghan resistance against the Soviets and the Taliban's principal military opponent. Following the Taliban's repeated refusal to expel bin Laden and his group and end its support for international terrorism, the United States and its partners launched an invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.

A period of bombing followed, which for about a month appeared to be having little effect. The US required the assistance of countries around Afghanistan to provide a route for the attack, but criticism increased as various mosques, aid agencies, hospitals, and other civilian buildings were damaged by US bombs. However, the Northern Alliance, fighting against a Taliban weakened by US bombing and massive defections, captured the city of Mazari Sharif on November 9. It rapidly gained control of most of northern Afghanistan and took control of Kabul on November 13 after the Taliban unexpectedly fled the city. The Taliban were restricted to a smaller and smaller region, with Kunduz, the last Taliban-held city in the north, captured on November 26. Most of the Taliban fled to Pakistan.

The war continued in the south of the country, where the Taliban retreated to Kandahar. After Kandahar fell in December, remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda continued to mount resistance.

2001 - Present: Rebuilding Afghanistan

Sponsored by the UN, Afghan factions opposed to the Taliban met in Bonn, Germany in early December and agreed on a political process to restore stability and governance to Afghanistan. In the first step, the Afghan Interim Authority, was formed and was installed in Kabul on December 22, 2001.Chaired by Hamid Karzai, it numbered 30 leaders and included a Supreme Court, an Interim Administration, and a Special Independent Commission.

A 'Loya Jirga' (Grand Council of tribal leaders) was convened in June of 2002 by former King Zahir Shah, who returned from exile after 29 years. The Loya Jirga elected Hamid Karzai as president for the two year transitional period, and replaced the Afghan Interim Authority with the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA). Hamid Karzai was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt in September 5, 2002. A constitutional Loya Jirga was held in December 2003, adopting a new constitution (January 2004) with a presidential form of government and a bicameral legislature.

Hamid Karzai was elected in the first nationwide presidential election in October 2004. Over eight million people, including women, were able to vote. Seats in the 250 member parliament and provincial council seats were filed by elections in September 2005.

Current problems that exist for the administration include controlling bands of bandits roaming Afghanistan's rural sector, removing the debris (and in particular, unmapped buried landmines) from decades of civil war from the countryside, and rebuilding the Afghan economy. Political violence also remains a problem. Numerous bombs have exploded in Kabul, targeting the international peacekeepers of the International Security Assistance Force. The Taliban have not disappeared, and the civil war still continues in the countryside, especially in the southern provinces.

At the start of 2007, reports of the Taliban's increasing presence in Afghanistan led the US to consider longer tours of duty and even an increase in troop numbers.