Human civilization in Afghanistan dates at least as far back as 4000BC. The territory has always been an important link between the Middle East and civilizations in India, Central and Eastern Asia. Control of Afghanistan has always been deemed essential to the dominant regional power of the day – much of Afghan history concerns the efforts of the fractious and rebellious indigenous tribes to assert their independence. In the late sixth century BC, much of the country was absorbed into the Persian empire of Darius the Great. However, plagued by constant uprisings, the Persians never established
effective control; neither did Alexander the Great and nor did the Greeks who arrived 200 years after Alexander’s comprehensive victory over the Persians.
From AD50 onwards, Buddhist culture was established in Afghanistan, under the rule of the Kushans, which lasted until the turn of the fifth century (the famous giant statues of Buddha destroyed by the Taleban in 2001 dated from this period). By AD550, the Persians were once again the dominant power in the region. Yet a far more important influence, which emerged around this time, was Islamic religion, introduced by Arabs and supplanting the existing dominant Zoroastrian creed. During the 10th and 11th centuries, under the Ghaznavid dynasty, Afghanistan became a major center of Islamic power and civilization. Their rule finally was brought to an end by the Mongol warlord, Genghis Khan, who invaded in 1219. The Mongols destroyed most of the sophisticated irrigation system (traces of which can still be seen today), which had rendered much of the country highly fertile and prosperous; the majority of it was turned into - and remains - permanent desert.
In the 14th century, Afghanistan came under the rule of Tamburlane who, like his predecessors, suffered from repeated tribal uprisings. The Moghuls of India were the next to try and establish their hegemony in the early 16th century. For the first time, the normally fractious and suspicious Afghan tribes united in the struggle under the leadership of the warrior-poet, Khan Khattak, and managed to dispose of the Moghuls in the 1650s. In 1736, the Persians reappeared under the leadership of Nadir Shah, who occupied the southwestern part of the country (including the city of Kandahar). The 1747 rebellion, which forced the Persian withdrawal, was organized on a national basis and finally gave shape to the modern state of Afghanistan. During the second half of the 18th century, Afghanistan reached a zenith of regional power and influence. Ahmad Shah, who governed the country between 1747 and 1773, managed to extend the national territory as far east as Delhi and from Kashmir to the Indian Ocean. Shah also kept a firm rein on the ever-bellicose Afghan tribes, a feat that none of his immediate successors were able to repeat. During the early 19th century, Afghanistan was once again wracked by constant feuds and revolts.
During the 1830s, the Afghans managed to ward off incursions by the Persians and the Sikhs of northwestern India. At this point they came up against a new enemy – the British, then in the process of establishing their global empire. After initial victories, the British installed a puppet ruler in Kabul (which had recently replaced Kandahar as the national capital). However, the Afghans rallied and, led by Akhbar Khan, inflicted a major defeat on the British in 1842, recovering their independence. During the 1860s, the Russians, then engaged in their imperial drive southwards, took control of several northern Afghan provinces. (These later became part of Soviet Central Asia.) Meanwhile, the British returned and dominated the southwestern province of Baluchistan (now a province of Pakistan), thereby cutting off Afghan access to the coast.
From this point onwards, Afghanistan became – and in many ways still remains – a pawn in the ‘Great Game’ of geopolitical strategy, played out by the major global powers. The main concern of the UK was to prevent Russian encroachment towards India. The UK made one more, unsuccessful attempt to take control of Afghanistan, although they did secure the right to dictate Afghan foreign policy and further encroached on Afghan territory. To the north, the Russians pushed the border southwards to the Oxus (Amur Darya) river.
It was not until after World War I, at the 1919 Treaty of Rawalpindi, that the UK finally recognized Afghanistan’s independence. Nonetheless, it made a third and final attempt to subjugate Afghanistan in 1921; again, it ended in failure. During the 1920s, under King Amanullah, major domestic reforms were introduced; abroad, the government sought to steer a neutral course between Russia and British-controlled India and settle outstanding disputes with smaller regional powers (Turkey and Persia). However, political stability at home proved elusive. The major rival factions were tribal and ethnic. The single-largest ethnic group in Afghanistan is the Pashtun; along with the smaller Hazara group, they populate most of the southern and central regions. The dominant groups in the north are the Uzbeks and Tajiks (who also populate the newly independent states of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). Each of the major groupings sub-divide into a plethora of ethnic sub-groups, tribes and clans, linked by a complex system of alliances and allegiances.
In 1929, Amanullah was overthrown in a coup, one of a series that did not end until King Zahir Shah took power in 1933. Following the withdrawal of the British from India in 1947, the Soviet Union became the undisputed power in Central Asia. Soviet relations with the Afghans were particularly good during the mid-1950s, when Moscow provided substantial economic aid to Afghanistan. Zahir Shah was eventually overthrown by a coup led by his cousin and former Prime Minister, General Sardar Mohammed Daoud (one of the architects of the reform program) in 1973. Afghanistan was declared a republic.
More importantly in the long term, the 1970s saw the rise of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the pro-Soviet communist party that, with extensive support from the Soviets, was able to launch a successful military coup in early 1978, which overthrew Daoud. The PDPA faced two major problems: a bitter internal feud between two main factions, named after their respective newspapers (
Khalq and
Parcham) and a growing conflict with the country’s Islamists, who opposed many communist social policies. By the end of 1979, the country was in chaos. At this point, the Soviets intervened. Babrak Karmal, the exiled leader of the PDPA Parcham faction, was installed as leader and propped up by a large force of Soviet troops to quell the Islamist rebels, known as the ‘Mujaheddin’.
The Mujaheddin could not hope to defeat the Soviets, who at their peak numbered over 100,000. But operating from bases in remote mountainous regions and with copious support from the West, China and Pakistan, they were able to fight them to a standstill. The war inflicted enormous damage on the country, from which it has never recovered. An estimated five million Afghans fled as refugees, mostly to Pakistan. Here, many of them attended Islamic religious schools, where a new political movement, the Taleban (roughly, ‘students of religion’), was born – with far-reaching consequences for Afghanistan. Among them was the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, who organized logistical support for the Mujaheddin from his base in Peshawar. From 1986, the Soviets began to look for a way out. Three years later, in February 1989, the last Red Army troops pulled out of the country.
The rump communist government put up unexpectedly strong resistance, before the Mujaheddin finally took control of the country in April 1992. An administration was formed under the Islamic scholar, Burhauddin Rabbani. However, the disparate factions within the Mujaheddin alliance were frequently at loggerheads and their arguments gradually came to be settled with the use of ever greater military force. During this period, an estimated 50,000 people were killed and much of the capital, Kabul, destroyed. The Taleban’s time had arrived. With discreet backing from Pakistan, Taleban fighters gradually pushed the old Mujaheddin forces out, until, by September 1996, they had control of most of the country, including Kabul. The supporters of the old government, mainly Tajiks and Uzbeks, were pushed into several small pockets in the north of the country, from where they fought the Taleban as best they could. The bulk of the population, sick and tired of death, destruction and lawlessness, enthusiastically welcomed the Taleban. Consequently (at least initially) they were prepared to tolerate a doctrinaire regime based on rigid adherence to a draconian interpretation of Sharia Islamic law. Edicts were dispensed by the reclusive Taleban leader, Mullah Omar Mohammed, and keenly enforced by the Taleban’s police from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
In concentrating on its Islamic experiment, the Taleban put little effort into essential reconstruction. The Taleban’s own policy decisions, the hostility of an uncomprehending outside world, and other factors – including the worst drought for half a century –combined to isolate the country from the rest of the world and plunge its population into ever deeper penury.
A central plank of Mullah Omar’s philosophy was that true Muslims should be prepared to wage
jihad (holy war) against the perceived enemies of Islam. In this he found common cause with the now notorious Osama bin Laden, ex-Mujaheddin arms supplier and now the leader of al-Qaeda (‘The Base’), a loosely-structured alliance of terrorists and guerrilla groups similarly dedicated to the pursuit of
jihad. The USA, on the grounds of its military presence in Saudi Arabia and support for Israel, as well as its huge global influence, is al-Qaeda’s principal target. Bin Laden and his organization came to prominence in the mid-1990s, with a series of attacks on US facilities. In 1998 he relocated from Sudan to Afghanistan.
The US government held bin Laden and, by extension, the Taleban responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon buildings in the USA on 11 September 2001. Within months, the USA took action to destroy al-Qaeda and bring down the Taleban government. Along with heavy aerial bombardment, the Americans used the rump Uzbek and Tajik guerrilla forces – dubbed the Northern Alliance – as their main instrument on the ground. By the end of November 2001, the Taleban was defeated, although most of its top leadership, along with that of al-Qaeda (and especially bin Laden), escaped into the badlands of western Pakistan and are still uncaptured.
In constructing a new Afghan government, the Americans were concerned to ensure that the Pashtuns – Afghanistan’s main ethnic group – were represented to counter-balance the Uzbek/Tajik dominance of the victorious Northern Alliance. Hamid Karzai, a prominent Pashtun from the southern city of Kandahar, was appointed Prime Minister of an interim administration. Karzai belongs to the same tribe as the aged former monarch, Zahir Shah, who has also returned to the country in an attempt to provide a unifying political figure.
Amidst unfounded allegations of voting irregularities, Hamid Karzai was officially elected as president in October 2004. However, Afghanistan's troubles are far from over; the Taleban are re-emerging as a fighting force in pockets in the south and south-east and much of the country outside Kabul is plagued by local warlords fighting for dominance. The government continues to rely on the presence of thousands of foreign peace-keeping troops to maintain order. Unfortunately, in early 2005, climatological factors also hampered Afghanistan: harsh winter weather is feared to have left hundreds of people dead.
The first parliamentary and local elections for more than 30 years were held on 18 September 2005. Only about 55 per cent of registered voters cast their ballots, more than 20 per cent down on last year's presidential poll. Many voters said they did not want to vote for candidates they regarded as warlords. There was also evidence many people found the elections too confusing. The process of counting the results was completed in November 2005. President Hamid Karzai's brother, Abdul Qayyum Karzai, was elected to the lower House of Parliament.
GovernmentAfter the defeat of the Taleban in November 2001, the main opposition factions agreed upon the formation of a new interim administration, pending the convening of a
loya jirga (traditional assembly). This traditional form of assembly, held in mid-2002, brought together representatives of all the major powers in the country and attempted to map out a constitutional future for Afghanistan. The assembly agreed on the appointment of Hamad Karzai as interim premier but very little else.
EconomyTwenty-four years of continuous war completely wrecked the Afghan economy. Reconstruction of the agricultural sector, which accounted for about half of GDP, has been severely hampered by abandonment of farms and the huge number of minefields. Agricultural problems have led to recurring food shortages. Afghanistan has had to rely heavily on foreign aid. Many farmers have come to rely on growing opium as a relatively lucrative cash crop – both the Taleban and now the Karzai government have attempted to limit production, with mixed success.
The industrial sector, which barely functions, was formerly concentrated in mining and some manufacturing. There are significant deposits of natural gas, coal, salt, barite and other ores. The small manufacturing sector produces textiles, chemical fertilizers, leather and plastics. Some trade links have been established with the former Soviet Central Asian republics but Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are now the strongest economic influences in the country.
There have also been some positive advancements in recent years: in January 2003, Afghanistan signed a trilateral trade agreement with Iran and India that designated the Iranian port of Chabahar as a major port for Afghanistan. In September 2003, representatives of Afghanistan and its neighbors, China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan met in Dubai to forge new trade dynamics and foster investment gradually. There seems to have been a genuine attempt to revivify the Afghan economy.
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