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222-417: The scope of SAAG's work encompasses Afghanistan , Bangladesh , India , Pakistan , China , Iraq , Nepal , Sri Lanka and Fiji . SAAG's website hosts articles provided on political and strategic analysis. The site hosts notes, analysis, papers and updates on a broad range of aspects of Indian security issues and international relations. It includes access to news updates from the regions of interest and

444-653: A coup d'état in 1973 ), and subsequent infighting prompted the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan in 1979. Mujahideen fought against the Soviets in the Soviet–Afghan War and continued fighting among themselves following the Soviets' withdrawal in 1989 . The Taliban controlled most of the country by 1996, but their Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan received little international recognition before its overthrow in

666-627: A proxy war as the Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, the United States supported them through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA regime. Meanwhile, there was increasingly hostile friction between the competing factions of the PDPA ;– the dominant Khalq and

888-570: A "bulldog" with his sword, cutting down any Afghan who tried to take him on so efficiently that by the end of the day no Afghan would challenge him. On the evening of 11 January 1842, General Elphinstone, Captain Shelton, the paymaster Johnston, and Captain Skinner met with Akbar Khan to ask him to stop his attacks on the column. Akbar Khan provided them with warm tea and a fine meal before telling them that they were all now his hostages as he reckoned

1110-511: A building close-by, where he was protected by the gates being shut." Sturt was sent home to be cared for by Lady Sale and his wife with the former noting: "He was covered with blood issuing from his mouth and was unable to articulate. He could not lie down, from the blood choking him", only being capable hours later to utter one word: "bet-ter". Lady Sale was highly critical of Elphinstone's leadership, writing: "General Elphinstone vacillates on every point. His own judgement appears to be good, but he

1332-451: A bullet in her wrist while she had to watch as her son-in-law Sturt had "...his horse was shot out from him and before he could rise from the ground he received a severe wound in the abdomen". With his wife and mother-in-law by his side in the snow, Sturt bled to death over the course of the night. The incompetent, naive and gullible Elphinstone continued to believe that Akbar Khan was his "ally", and believed his promise that he would send out

1554-470: A century, until Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973 , following which the Republic of Afghanistan was established. Since the late 1970s, Afghanistan's history has been dominated by extensive warfare, including coups, invasions, insurgencies, and civil wars . The conflict began in 1978 when a communist revolution established a socialist state (itself a response to the dictatorship established following

1776-574: A closer relationship with the Soviet Union . Afterward, the 1964 constitution was formed, and the first non-royal prime minister was sworn in. Zahir Shah, like his father Nadir Shah, had a policy of maintaining national independence while pursuing gradual modernization, creating nationalist feeling, and improving relations with the United Kingdom. Afghanistan was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in

1998-477: A collection of discussion papers published since 1998 by authors from the South Asian continent. Key topics of the papers include: terrorism , international security , Indian politics and political parties , weapons of mass destruction and connection between radical Islam and terrorism. A few of the analysts are: Recurring guest columnists include Afghanistan Afghanistan , officially

2220-652: A contingent of 4,000 Pashtuns . The Abdalis had "unanimously accepted" Ahmad Shah as their new leader. With his ascension in 1747, Ahmad Shah had led multiple campaigns against the Mughal empire , Maratha empire , and then-receding Afsharid empire . Ahmad Shah had captured Kabul and Peshawar from the Mughal appointed governor, Nasir Khan. Ahmad Shah had then conquered Herat in 1750, and had also captured Kashmir in 1752. Ahmad Shah had launched two campaigns into Khorasan , 1750–1751 and 1754–1755. His first campaign had seen

2442-524: A counter-attack, whereupon the disorganized Bengal horse force was routed, with the Afghan Cavalry chasing them in pursuit and killing many. According to the depictions of Jonathan Lee, the 2nd Bengal Horse was disgraced for their inability to follow orders, later disbanded, and erased from records. Nonetheless, following this route, Sale ordered his infantry and Qizilbash to storm the heights, and after heavy fighting and heavy casualties, they secured

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2664-614: A dark-skinned faqir who appeared in India in rags but was in fact a Scottish non commissioned officer who fled all the way to a British army Camp Deesa in Gujrat India, "This morning a strange man came into camp, covered with hair, and almost naked his face burnt very much; he turned out to be Lance-Sergeant Philip Edwards of the Queen's 44th Regiment who escaped the general slaughter at Gundamuch, Afghanistan, and after travelling 15 months in

2886-538: A deep state of depression as it finally dawned on him that his people hated him and wanted to see him dead. Captain Sturt was sent to the Bala Hissar by Elphinstone to see if it were possible to recover control of the city later that afternoon, where his mother-in-law Lady Sale noted in her diary: "Just as he entered the precincts of the palace, he was stabbed in three places by a young man well dressed, who escaped into

3108-691: A demoralized force in Peshawar used it to clear the Khyber Pass to arrive at Jalalabad, where General Sale had already lifted the siege. From Jalalabad, General Pollock inflicted a further crushing defeat on Akbar Khan. As the expedition advanced through Afghanistan, they bore witness to the countless dead comrades who perished following the retreat from Kabul. This enraged the British who took revenge on Afghan civilians by razing villages, murdering men and raping women. Neville Bowles Chamberlain described

3330-656: A different interpretation that the fear of the East India Company was in fact the decision of Dost Mohammed Khan and the Qajar Ruler of Iran to form an alliance and extinguish Sikh rule in Punjab. The British feared that an invading Islamic army would lead to an uprising in India by the people and princely states therefore it was decided to replace Dost Mohammed Khan with a more pliant ruler. "Rumours could cost lives and Empire itself. Therefore instead of fixating on

3552-692: A euphoric mood. During the battle, the British suffered 200 killed and wounded, while the Afghans suffered 500 killed and 1,500 captured. Ghazni was well-supplied, which eased the further advance considerably. Following this and an uprising of Tajiks in Istalif , the British marched to Kabul with no resistance from Dost Mohammad's troops. With his situation rapidly deteriorating, Dost Mohammed offered to accept Shuja as his overlord in exchange for becoming his wazir (a common practice in Pashtunwali ), which

3774-681: A grand review at Ferozepore as Ranjit Singh, the Maharajah of the Punjab brought out the Dal Khalsa to march alongside the sepoy troops of the East India Company and the British troops in India. Ranjit Singh agreed to a treaty with the British viceroy Lord Auckland to restore Shah Shoja to the Afghan throne in Kabul. In pursuance of this agreement, the British army of the Indus entered Afghanistan from

3996-510: A gunpowder charge. Before the fortress, the British were attacked by a force of the Ghilji tribesmen fighting under the banner of jihad who were desperate to kill farangis , a pejorative Pashtun term for the British, and were beaten off. The British took fifty prisoners who were brought before Shuja, where one of them stabbed a minister to death with a hidden knife. Shuja had them all beheaded, which led Sir John Kaye, in his official history of

4218-507: A habit of mutilating people who displeased him in the slightest, Macnaghten's demand that the children of the chiefs go to the Emir's court was received with horror, which led the Ghazi chiefs to vow to fight on. Macnaghten, who had just been appointed as the governor of Bombay was torn between a desire to leave Afghanistan on a high note with the country settled and peaceful versus a desire to crush

4440-733: A key role in the transfer of the Avesta to Persia and is thus considered by some to be the "second homeland of Zoroastrianism". Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela . Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE, when they gave much of it to

4662-455: A man. The standard Afghan weapon was a matchlock rifle known as the jezail . The "Army of the Indus" which included 21,000 British and Indian troops under the command of John Keane, 1st Baron Keane (subsequently replaced by Sir Willoughby Cotton and then by William Elphinstone ) set out from Punjab in December 1838. With them was William Hay Macnaghten , the former chief secretary of

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4884-565: A mansion in Kabul, where he installed his wife, crystal chandelier, a fine selection of French wines, and hundreds of servants from India, making himself completely at home. Macnaghten, who had once been a judge in a small town in Ulster before deciding he wanted to be much more than a small town judge in Ireland, was known for his arrogant, imperious manner, and was simply called "the Envoy" by both

5106-801: A member state for their official spokesman in Doha , Suhail Shaheen . The United Nations did not recognize the previous Taliban government and chose to work with the then government-in-exile instead. Western nations suspended most of their humanitarian aid to Afghanistan following the Taliban's August 2021 takeover of the country; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund also halted their payments. More than half of Afghanistan's 39 million people faced an acute food shortage in October 2021. Human Rights Watch reported on 11 November 2021 that Afghanistan

5328-524: A movement and militia of students ( talib ) from Islamic madrassas (schools) in Pakistan , who soon had military support from Pakistan. Taking control of Kandahar city that year, they conquered more territories until finally driving out the government of Rabbani from Kabul in 1996, where they established an emirate . The Taliban were condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic sharia law, which resulted in

5550-468: A myriad of campaigns to unite most of Afghanistan in his reign, launching numerous incursions including against the surrounding states such as the Hazarajat campaign , conquest of Balkh , conquest of Kunduz , and the conquest of Kandahar . Dost Mohammad led his final campaign against Herat , conquering it and re-uniting Afghanistan. During his campaigns of re-unification, he held friendly relations with

5772-609: A near contemporary account of the First Anglo-Afghan War, elaborates further on the details of this plot. According to Al-Karim, Sales and Burnes were in contact with the Malik of ‘Ali Hissar, who agreed to kill or capture Dost Mohammad and his two sons in exchange for a substantial payment. According to confidential information shared by British officers, Macnaghten and Burnes had been intercepting communications from Sultan Muhammad Khan of Nijrab, and his supporters. As

5994-419: A planned withdrawal) and Ghazni. Ghazni was stormed, but the other garrisons held out until relief forces arrived from India, in spring 1842. Akbar Khan was defeated near Jalalabad and plans were laid for the recapture of Kabul and the restoration of British control. However, Lord Auckland had suffered a stroke and had been replaced as governor-general by Lord Ellenborough , who was under instructions to bring

6216-796: A powerful Company lobby in Parliament while the Company regularly gave "gifts" to influential people in Britain. The East India Company was sufficiently wealthy to maintain the three Presidency armies , known after their presidencies as the Bengal Army , the Bombay Army and the Madras Army , with the supreme field headquarters for commanding these armies being at Simla . The East India Company's army totaled 200,000 men, making it one of

6438-525: A result, Macnaghten forged a letter from a well-wisher in Kabul, sending a letter to Dost Mohammad Khan, where it warned the Amir of a plot on his life. Dost Mohammad Khan, having read this letter, was convinced that there was indeed, a plot on his life, as he did not have reason to trust the Kohistanis, as decades prior, he attacked and razed the region. As a result, the only person he seemed to have trusted

6660-515: A series of events that would dramatically turn Afghanistan from a poor and secluded (albeit peaceful) country to a hotbed of international terrorism. The PDPA initiated various social, symbolic, and land distribution reforms that provoked strong opposition, while also brutally oppressing political dissidents. This caused unrest and quickly expanded into a state of civil war by 1979, waged by guerrilla mujahideen (and smaller Maoist guerrillas) against regime forces countrywide. It quickly turned into

6882-585: A small power like Afghanistan, which is like a goat between these lions [Britain and Russia] or a grain of wheat between two strong millstones of the grinding mill, stand in the midway of the stones without being ground to dust? During the First World War , when Afghanistan was neutral, Habibullah Khan was met by officials of the central powers in the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition . They called on Afghanistan to declare full independence from

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7104-423: A southerly direction by the sun, he found his way into camp here, not knowing where he was."" Many of the women and children were taken captive by the Afghan warring tribes; some of these women married their captors, mostly Afghan and Indian camp followers who were wives of British officers. Children taken from the battlefield at the time who were later identified in the early part of the 20th century to be those of

7326-526: A state-supporting elite of Abdālī / Durrānī Afghans, the Sadūzāʾī Durrānī polity that came into being in 1160 / 1747 was not called Afghanistan in its own day. The name became a state designation only during the colonial intervention of the nineteenth century. The term "Afghanistan" was officially used in 1855, when the British recognized Dost Mohammad Khan as king of Afghanistan . Excavations of prehistoric sites suggest that humans were living in what

7548-502: A strong defensive position with over 400 cavalrymen, with his forces dug in on a ridge overlooking Sale's advance. Sale sent Captain Fraser and his Bengal horse force to attack the enemy infantry, however, only a handful of men followed the order, leaving the British officers to charge against the Afghan force alone and essentially without any support. Dr Lord, earlier political officer of Bamiyan who offered Dost Mohammad terms of surrender

7770-595: A surgeon with the East India Company's troops in the First Burma War. Shuja Shah had been deposed in 1809 and had been living in exile in British India since 1818, collecting a pension from the East India Company, which believed that he might be useful one day. The British denied that they were invading Afghanistan, claiming they were merely supporting its "legitimate" Shuja government "against foreign interference and factious opposition." Shuja Shah by 1838

7992-407: A survivor reached the besieged garrison at Jalalabad . At Gandamak, some 20 officers and 45 other ranks of the 44th Foot regiment, together with some artillerymen and sepoys, armed with some 20 muskets and two rounds of ammunition to every man, found themselves at dawn surrounded by Afghan tribesmen. The force had been reduced to fewer than forty men by a withdrawal from Kabul that had become, towards

8214-618: A threat and could possibly march all the way to Khulm. Dennie, however, was not in a position to do so due to the already overstretched Bamiyan garrison facing shortage of manpower, and as a result, they decided not to garrison Saighan, Kahmard, or Ajar. Threats of a British sponsored attack from Herat by Shah Kamran were a threat, and this forced the Wali of Maimana to pledge allegiance to Shah Shuja's rule. On 2 November 1840, Dost Mohammad finally confronted Sale's forces, halting his advance and engaging battle at Parwan Darra. Dost Mohammad held

8436-399: A victory. However he was unable to conceal the fact of the 2nd Bengal horse defying orders, and as a result, many British officers were killed. Atkinson, the armies surgeon general, called the encounter a “disaster”, Kaye also called the battle a defeat. However, early in the evening of 2 November 1840, a horsemen identified as Sultan Muhammad Khan Safi rode up to Macnaghten, as with this, he

8658-524: A village of Begramee: "There were no tents, save two or three small palls that arrived. Everyone scraped away the snow as best they might, to make a place to lie down. The evening and night were intensely cold; no food for man or beast procurable, except a few handfuls of bhoosay [chopped stew], for which we had to pay five to ten rupees". As the night fell and with it, the temperature, dropped well below freezing. The retreating force then learned that they lost all of their supplies of food and their baggage. On

8880-480: A way, they really didn't. They would die, all of them - shot, stabbed, frozen to death - in these mountain passes, and no one bothered to write down the name of even one of them". The military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion, 44th Regiment of Foot . They were attacked by Ghilzai warriors as they struggled through the snowbound passes. On the first day, the retreating force made only five miles and as Lady Sale wrote about their arrival at

9102-536: Is $ 81 billion by purchasing power parity and $ 20.1 billion by nominal values. Per capita, its GDP is among the lowest of any country as of 2020 . Some scholars suggest that the root name Afghān is derived from the Sanskrit word Aśvakan , which was the name used for ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush . Aśvakan literally means "horsemen", "horse breeders", or " cavalrymen " (from aśva ,

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9324-484: Is a difficult one", and finally concluding "We must see what the morning brings". The British situation soon deteriorated when Afghans stormed the poorly defended supply fort inside Kabul on 9 November. In the following weeks, the British commanders tried to negotiate with Akbar Khan. Macnaghten secretly offered to make Akbar Afghanistan's vizier in exchange for allowing the British to stay, while simultaneously disbursing large sums of money to have him assassinated, which

9546-638: Is a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and a founding member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation . Due to the effects of war in recent decades, the country has dealt with high levels of terrorism, poverty , and child malnutrition. Afghanistan remains among the world's least developed countries , ranking 182nd on the Human Development Index . Afghanistan's gross domestic product (GDP)

9768-833: Is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) was a center of the Helmand culture . More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. After 2000 BCE successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European -speaking Indo-Iranians . These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, and toward Europe via

9990-516: Is considered the "crossroads of Asia", and the country has had the nickname Heart of Asia. The renowned Urdu poet Allama Iqbal once wrote about the country: First Anglo-Afghan War The First Anglo-Afghan War ( Pashto : ده انګريز افغان اولني جګړه ) was fought between the British Empire and the Emirate of Kabul from 1838 to 1842. The British initially successfully invaded

10212-482: Is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in the historical value of its archaeological sites. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic , Mesolithic , Neolithic , Bronze , and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization

10434-473: Is one of the four founders of the Taliban and was a deputy prime minister of the previous emirate; his appointment was seen as a compromise between moderates and hardliners. A new, all-male cabinet was formed, which included Abdul Hakim Haqqani as minister of justice. On 20 September 2021, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres received a letter from acting minister of foreign affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi to formally claim Afghanistan's seat as

10656-479: Is swayed by the last speaker", criticising him for "...a very strange circumstance that troops were not immediately sent into the city to quell the affair in the commencement, but we seem to sit quietly with our hands folded, and look on".." Despite both being in the cantonment, Elphinstone preferred to write letters to Macnaghten, with one letter on 2 November saying "I have been considering what can done tomorrow" (he decided to do nothing that day), stating "our dilemma

10878-685: Is the principle of these vagabonds". Macnaghten ordered an expedition. On 10 October 1841, the Ghazis in a night raid defeated the Thirty-fifth Native Infantry, but were defeated the next day by the Thirteenth Light Infantry. After their defeat, which led to the rebels fleeing to the mountains, Macnaghten overplayed his hand by demanding that the chiefs who rebelled now send their children to Shuja's court as hostages to prevent another rebellion. As Shuja had

11100-524: The Dal Khalsa , and they considered the Sikh army to be a far more formidable threat than the Afghans who did not have a well-disciplined army, instead of having only a tribal levy where under the banner of jihad tribesmen would come out to fight for the Emir. For this reason, Lord Auckland preferred an alliance with the Punjab over an alliance with Afghanistan. The British could have had an alliance with

11322-478: The 2014 presidential election where for the first time in Afghanistan's history power was democratically transferred. On 28 December 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. The NATO-led Operation Resolute Support was formed the same day as a successor to ISAF. Thousands of NATO troops remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces and continue their fight against

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11544-580: The Badakhshan region. During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire , centered in Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE, though

11766-655: The Battle of Jamrud . Akbar Khan and the Afghan army failed to capture the Jamrud Fort from the Sikh Khalsa Army , but killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa , thus ending the Afghan-Sikh Wars . By this time the British were advancing from the east, capitalizing off of the decline of the Sikh Empire after it had its own period of turbulence following the death of Ranjit Singh , which engaged

11988-530: The Calcutta government, who had been selected as Britain's chief representative to Kabul. It included an immense train of 38,000 camp followers and 30,000 camels, plus a large herd of cattle. The British intended to be comfortable – one regiment took its pack of foxhounds, another took two camels to carry its cigarettes, junior officers were accompanied by up to 40 servants, and one senior officer required 60 camels to carry his personal effects. By late March 1839

12210-621: The Cold War . However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports, and other vital infrastructure. On a per capita basis, Afghanistan received more Soviet development aid than any other country. In 1973, while the King was in Italy, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became

12432-565: The Emirate of Kabul in the first major conflict during " The Great Game ". In 1839 a British expeditionary force marched into Afghanistan, invading the Principality of Qandahar , and in August 1839, seized Kabul . Dost Mohammad Khan defeated the British in the Parwan campaign , but surrendered following his victory. He was replaced with the former Durrani ruler Shah Shuja Durrani as

12654-435: The Great Game between the British Empire and the Russian Empire . From India, the British attempted to subjugate Afghanistan but were repelled in the First Anglo-Afghan War ; the Second Anglo-Afghan War saw a British victory. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, Afghanistan became free of foreign political hegemony, and emerged as the independent Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1926. This monarchy lasted almost half

12876-421: The Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarites who, in turn, was replaced by the Hephthalites . They were replaced by the Turk Shahi in the 7th century. The Buddhist Turk Shahi of Kabul was replaced by a Hindu dynasty before the Saffarids conquered the area in 870, this Hindu dynasty was called Hindu Shahi . Much of the northeastern and southern areas of

13098-410: The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia . It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south , Iran to the west , Turkmenistan to the northwest , Uzbekistan to the north , Tajikistan to the northeast , and China to the northeast and east . Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land,

13320-420: The Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth. In the early 16th century Babur arrived from Ferghana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty . Babur would go on to conquer the Afghan Lodi dynasty who had ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat . Between the 16th and 18th century, the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara , Iranian Safavids , and Indian Mughals ruled parts of

13542-463: The Karzai administration and provide basic security. By this time, after two decades of war as well as an acute famine at the time, Afghanistan had one of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the world, the lowest life expectancy, much of the population were hungry, and infrastructure was in ruins. Many foreign donors started providing aid and assistance to rebuild the war-torn country. As coalition troops entered Afghanistan to help

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13764-413: The League of Nations in 1934. The 1930s saw the development of roads, infrastructure, the founding of a national bank , and increased education. Road links in the north played a large part in a growing cotton and textile industry. The country built close relationships with the Axis powers , with Nazi Germany having the largest share in Afghan development at the time. Until 1946 King Zahir ruled with

13986-409: The Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka 's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians . Much of it soon broke away and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom . They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in

14208-452: The Middle Paleolithic era. Popularly referred to as the graveyard of empires , the land has witnessed numerous military campaigns , including those by the Persians , Alexander the Great , the Maurya Empire , Arab Muslims , the Mongols , the British , the Soviet Union , and a US-led coalition . Afghanistan also served as the source from which the Greco-Bactrians and the Mughals , among others, rose to form major empires. Because of

14430-440: The Northern Alliance , later joined by others, to resist the Taliban. Dostum's forces were defeated by the Taliban during the Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1997 and 1998; Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf , began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance. By 2000, the Northern Alliance only controlled 10% of territory, cornered in the northeast. On 9 September 2001, Massoud

14652-463: The Principality of Qandahar , Emirate of Herat , Khanate of Qunduz , Maimana Khanate , and numerous other warring polities. The most prominent state was the Emirate of Kabul , ruled by Dost Mohammad Khan . With the collapse of the Durrani Empire, and the exile of the Sadozai Dynasty to be left to rule in Herat , Punjab and Kashmir were lost to Ranjit Singh , ruler of the Sikh Empire , who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March 1823 and captured

14874-402: The Punjab region The Durranis lost Multan in 1772 after Ahmad Shah's death. Following this victory, Timur Shah was able to lay siege to Multan and recapture it, incorporating it into the Durrani Empire once again, reintegrating it as a province until the Siege of Multan (1818) . Timur Shah was succeeded by his son Zaman Shah Durrani after his death in May 1793. Timur Shah's reign oversaw

15096-440: The Safavid Persia before 1709. Lord Auckland's plan was to drive away the besiegers and replace Dost Mohammad with Shuja Shah Durrani , who had once ruled Afghanistan and who was willing to ally himself with anyone who might restore him to the Afghan throne. At one point, Shuja had hired an American adventurer - Josiah Harlan - to overthrow Dost Mohammad Khan, despite the fact Harlan's military experience comprised only working as

15318-407: The Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse"). Historically, the ethnonym Afghān was used to refer to ethnic Pashtuns . The Arabic and Persian form of the name, Afġān , was first attested in the 10th-century geography book Hudud al-'Alam . The last part of the name, " -stan ", is a Persian suffix meaning "place of". Therefore, "Afghanistan" translates to "land of the Afghans", or "land of

15540-425: The Soviet Union and the Weimar Republic . He proclaimed himself King of Afghanistan on 9 June 1926, forming the Kingdom of Afghanistan . He introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi , an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution , which made elementary education compulsory. Slavery

15762-592: The Soviet withdrawal , the civil war ensued until the communist regime under People's Democratic Party leader Mohammad Najibullah collapsed in 1992. The Soviet–Afghan War had drastic social effects on Afghanistan. The militarization of society led to heavily armed police, private bodyguards, openly armed civil defense groups, and other such things becoming the norm in Afghanistan for decades thereafter. The traditional power structure had shifted from clergy, community elders, intelligentsia, and military in favor of powerful warlords . Another civil war broke out after

15984-638: The Third Anglo-Afghan War , and entering British India via the Khyber Pass . After the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi on 19 August 1919, Emir Amanullah Khan declared the Emirate of Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state . He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community, particularly with

16206-630: The Uppsala Conflict Data Program , at least 212,191 people were killed in the conflict. Though the state of war in the country ended in 2021, armed conflict persists in some regions amid fighting between the Taliban and the local branch of the Islamic State , as well as an anti-Taliban Republican insurgency . The Taliban government is led by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and acting prime minister Hasan Akhund , who took office on 7 September 2021. Akhund

16428-499: The creation of a dysfunctional coalition government between leaders of various mujahideen factions. Amid a state of anarchy and factional infighting, various mujahideen factions committed widespread rape, murder and extortion, while Kabul was heavily bombarded and partially destroyed by the fighting. Several failed reconciliations and alliances occurred between different leaders. The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as

16650-475: The rebuilding process , the Taliban began an insurgency to regain control. Afghanistan remained one of the poorest countries in the world because of a lack of foreign investment, government corruption , and the Taliban insurgency. The Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures, adopting a constitution in 2004 with the name Islamic Republic of Afghanistan . Attempts were made, often with

16872-506: The siege of Kandahar , the last Hotak stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotak . Soon after, the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India , Nader Shah had plundered Delhi, alongside his 16-year-old commander, Ahmad Shah Durrani who had assisted him on these campaigns. Nader Shah was assassinated in 1747. After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani had returned to Kandahar with

17094-541: The "Grand Army of the Indus" would now start the march on Kabul to depose Dost Mohammed and put Shuja Shah back on the Afghan throne, ostensibly because the latter was the rightful Emir, but in reality to place Afghanistan into the British sphere of influence. Speaking in the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington condemned the invasion, saying that the real difficulties would only begin after the invasion's success, predicting that

17316-592: The 19th century, Russia was viewed as "the enemy" in Britain; any Russian advance into Central Asia, into what is now Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, was always assumed (in London) to be directed towards the conquest of India, as the American historian David Fromkin observed, "no matter how far-fetched" such an interpretation might be. In 1832, the First Reform Bill lowering

17538-502: The 19th century, the East India Company ruled 90 million Indians and controlled 70 million acres (243,000 square kilometres) of land under its own flag while issuing its own currency, making it into the most powerful corporation in the world. The East India Company had been granted monopolies on trade by the Crown, but it was not owned by the Crown, though the shares in the East India Company were owned by numerous MPs and aristocrats, creating

17760-405: The 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan . The Taliban returned to power in 2021 after capturing Kabul , ending the 2001–2021 war . The Taliban government remains internationally unrecognized. Afghanistan is rich in natural resources, including lithium , iron, zinc , and copper. It is the second-largest producer of cannabis resin , and third largest of both saffron and cashmere . The country

17982-506: The 2nd Bengal horse faced many defy orders to charge with them, the British lost multiple men due to this and inevitably, the battle. Another theory to Dost Mohammad's surrender was his family being in custody with the British, and about to be exiled to British India. This theory is even less credible, however, due to the fact that the British promising to treat them honourably, as Dost was in no position regardless to change this. Nonetheless, whatever reason Dost Mohammad had surrendered for, it

18204-665: The 43rd Native Infantry and the 2nd Light Cavalry, which were all Company regiments while the 16th Lancers and the 13th Somersethire Light Infantry came from the British Army in India. The units from the Bombay Army chosen for the Grand Army of the Indus were the 19th Native Infantry and the Poona Local Horse, which were Company regiments, and the 2nd Queen's Regiment , the 17th Lincolnshire Regiment , and

18426-517: The 4th Dragoons, which were all British Army regiments. Of the two divisions of the Grand Army of the Indus, the Bombay division numbered fifty-six hundred men and the Bengal division numbered ninety-five hundred men. Shuja recruited 6,000 Indian mercenaries ("Shah Shujah's Levy") out of his pocket for the invasion. Ranjit Singh, the elderly and ailing Maharaja of the Punjab and the British assembled in

18648-519: The Afghan government and quickly advanced in front of collapsing Afghan government forces. The Taliban captured the capital city of Kabul on 15 August 2021, after regaining control over a vast majority of Afghanistan. Several foreign diplomats and Afghan government officials, including president Ashraf Ghani, were evacuated from the country, with many Afghan civilians attempting to flee along with them. On 17 August, first vice president Amrullah Saleh proclaimed himself caretaker president and announced

18870-484: The Afghan throne had vanished. The British historian Sir John William Kaye wrote that the failure of the Persians to take Herat "cut from under the feet of Lord Auckland all ground of justification and rendered the expedition across the Indus at once a folly and a crime". But at this point, Auckland was committed to putting Afghanistan into the British sphere of influence and nothing would stop him from going ahead with

19092-478: The Afghans and the British. The wife of one British officer, Lady Florentia Sale created an English style garden at her house in Kabul, which was much admired and in August 1841 her daughter Alexadrina was married at her Kabul home to Lieutenant John Sturt of the Royal Engineers. The British officers staged horse races, played cricket and in winter ice skating over the frozen local ponds, which astonished

19314-442: The Afghans who had never seen this before. Afghanistan had no army, and instead had a feudal system under which the chiefs would maintain a certain number of armed retainers, principally cavalry together with a number of tribesmen who could be called upon to fight in a time of war; when the Emir went to war, he would call upon his chiefs to bring out their men to fight for him. In 1840, the British strongly pressured Shuja to replace

19536-551: The Afghans, as well as accept Afghan sovereignty. Following this, Ahmad Shah sieged Nishapur once again, and captured it. Ahmad Shah invaded India eight times during his reign, beginning in 1748. Crossing the Indus River, his armies sacked and absorbed Lahore into the Durrani Realm . He met Mughal armies at the Battle of Manupur (1748) , where he was defeated and forced to retreat back to Afghanistan. He returned

19758-652: The American invasion. During the initial invasion, US and UK forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps, and later working with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban regime came to an end. In December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown, the Afghan Interim Administration under Hamid Karzai was formed. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist

19980-638: The Anglo-Indian force was repeatedly attacked by the Ghilzais, with one especially fierce Afghan attack being beaten off with a spirited bayonet charge by the 44th Foot. While trying to cross the Koord-Kabual pass in the Hindu Kush that was described as five miles long and "so narrow and so shut in on either side that the wintry sun rarely penetrates its gloomy recesses", the Anglo-Indian force

20202-491: The Anglo-Indian forces would rout the Afghan tribal levy, only to find themselves struggling to hold on, as the Hindu Kush mountains and Afghanistan had no modern roads, and calling the entire operation "stupid" since Afghanistan was a land of "rocks, sands, deserts, ice and snow". British India at this time was a proprietary colony run by the East India Company , which had been granted the right to rule India by

20424-433: The Bala Hissar, he held a secret court, with many coming to pay their respects to the former Amir. This had shown Dost Mohammad's popularity, and opposite to Shah Shuja's claims, Shah Shuja was seen as unpopular by many. In Macnaghten's letters, it was shown that he expressed sympathy for Dost Mohammad, showing a very clear contrast to what he referred to him now compared to two years prior, where he denounced Dost Mohammad in

20646-682: The British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, Lord Clanricarde , that Britain and Russia sign a treaty delimiting spheres of influence in Asia to end the "Great Game" once and for all. By 1840 Clanricarde was reporting to London that he was quite certain a mutually satisfactory agreement could be negotiated, and all he needed was the necessary permission from the Foreign Office to begin talks. From Calcutta, Lord Auckland pressed for acceptance of

20868-606: The British Crown. India was only one of several proprietary colonies in the British Empire around the world, where various corporations or individuals had been granted the right to rule by the Crown, with for instance Rupert's Land , which was a vast tract covering most of what is now Canada being ruled by the Hudson's Bay Company , but India was easily the most wealthy and profitable of all the proprietary colonies. By

21090-669: The British despite the First Anglo-Afghan War, and affirmed their status in the Second Anglo-Afghan treaty of 1857, while Bukhara and internal religious leaders pressured Dost Mohammad to invade India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 . Dost Mohammad died in June 1863, a few weeks after his successful campaign to Herat. Following his death, a civil war ensued among his sons, prominently Mohammad Afzal Khan , Mohammad Azam Khan , and Sher Ali Khan . Sher Ali won

21312-458: The British forces had crossed the Bolan Pass , reached the southern Afghan city of Quetta , and begun their march to Kabul. They advanced through rough terrain, across deserts and 4,000-metre-high mountain passes, but made good progress and finally set up camps at Kandahar on 25 April 1839. After reaching Kandahar, Keane decided to wait for the crops to ripen before resuming his march, so it

21534-499: The British government, in times of need”. Macnaghten was elated to hear the news, as according to Jonathan Lee, he stated: “The Afghans are gunpowder and the Dost is a lighted match”. Dost Mohammad was treated honourably, and even was housed in the Bala Hissar, with Dost Mohammad allowed to meet his family, and write to his sons that were in open resistance. Dost Mohammad was also allowed to ride on horse with an escort. During his stay in

21756-423: The British had vacated the fortress of Bala Hissar and relocated to a cantonment built to the northeast of Kabul. The chosen location was indefensible, being low and swampy with hills on every side. To make matters worse, the cantonment was too large for the number of troops camped in it and had a defensive perimeter almost two miles long. In addition, the stores and supplies were in a separate fort, 300 yards from

21978-426: The British were destined to rule between the Indus and more. Others claim according to Jonathan lee, that, after the defeat at Saighan, Dost Mohammad was free to surrender without loss of honour. Another theory being that Dost Mohammad surrendered due to the brave suicidal charge done by Captain Fraser and Dr Lord, where he could have recognized resistance as futile. This theory however, did not make any sense as where

22200-401: The British. The British cantonment at Kabul was only a few hours ride from Parwan Darra, and he had already received assurances that he would be treated honourably in captivity and exile. As a result, Dost Mohammad’s “surrender” is treated by Jonathan Lee and many other historians as nothing akin to surrender, rather seeking refuge with the British government through an old tradition of grabbing

22422-798: The British. Burnes wrote home after having dinner with Count Witkiewicz and Dost Mohammad in late December 1837: "We are in a mess home. The emperor of Russia has sent an envoy to Kabul to offer...money [to the Afghans] to fight Rajeet Singh!!! I could not believe my own eyes or ears." On 20 January 1838, Lord Auckland sent an ultimatum to Dost Mohammad telling him: "You must desist from all correspondence with Russia. You must never receive agents from them, or have aught to do with them without our sanction; you must dismiss Captain Viktevitch [Witkiewicz] with courtesy; you must surrender all claims to Peshawar". Burnes himself had complained that Lord Auckland's letter

22644-501: The East India Company would not pay a ransom for Indian women and children, Akbar refused to accept them, and so the Indian women and children died with the rest of the force in the Hindu Kush. The camp followers captured by the Afghans were stripped of all their clothing and left to freeze to death in the snow. Lady Sale wrote that as she was taken back to Kabul she noticed: "The road was covered with awful mangled bodies, all naked". In

22866-535: The East India Company would pay good ransoms for their freedom, and when Captain Skinner tried to resist, he was shot in the face. Command now fell to Brigadier Thomas Anquetil. The evacuees were killed in huge numbers as they made their way down the 30 miles (48 km) of treacherous gorges and passes lying along the Kabul River between Kabul and Gandamak , and were massacred at the Gandamak pass before

23088-511: The East India Company's army. Officers from the British Army serving in India tended to look down on officers serving in the company's army, and relations between the two armies were cool at best. The regiments chosen for the invasion of Afghanistan came from the Bengal and Bombay armies. The commander in India, Sir Henry Fane , chose the regiments by drawing lots. The units from the Bengal Army going into Afghanistan were Skinner's Horse,

23310-469: The Ghazis, which led him to temporize, at one moment threatening the harshest reprisals and the next moment, compromising by abandoning his demand for hostages. Macnaghten's alternating policy of confrontation and compromise was perceived as weakness, which encouraged the chiefs around Kabul to start rebelling. Shuja was so unpopular that many of his ministers and the Durrani clan joined the rebellion. On

23532-592: The Ghurids in 1186 , whose architectural achievements included the remote Minaret of Jam . The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1215. In 1219 CE, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region . His troops are said to have annihilated the Khwarazmian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan . The destruction caused by

23754-412: The Hindu Kush. The Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century. By the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni had defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region, with the exception of Kafiristan . Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such as the historian Al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi . The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by

23976-486: The Kabul-Ghazni road led to the death of British Lieutenant Colonel Herring. Beyond the Hindu Kush, diplomats of Dost Mohammad were sent to the rulers of Balkh and Bukhara to appeal to them for aid against the British. These risks forced the British to continue to keep troops they were planning to send back to India. Dost Mohammad's request for aid, however, did not come lightly received, as Dost Mohammad had invaded

24198-494: The King of the French was a man whom Nicholas hated as an "usurper". The duc d'Orleans had once been Nicholas's friend, but when he assumed the throne of France after the revolution of 1830, Nicholas was consumed with hatred for his former friend who, as he saw it, had gone over to what he perceived as the dark side of liberalism. The idea that Russia was a threat to the East India Company is one version of events. Scholars now favour

24420-748: The Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khalji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur (aka Tamerlane), who established the Timurid Empire in 1370. Under the rule of Shah Rukh , the city of Herat served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance , whose glory matched Florence of

24642-464: The Pakistani government ordered the expulsion of Afghans from Pakistan . Iran also decided to deport Afghan nationals back to Afghanistan. Taliban authorities condemned the deportations of Afghans as an "inhuman act". Afghanistan faced a humanitarian crisis in late 2023. On 10 November 2024, Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry confirmed that Taliban representatives would attend the COP29 summit , marking

24864-613: The Pashtuns" in a historical sense. According to the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam : The name Afghanistan (Afghānistān, land of the Afghans / Pashtuns, afāghina , sing. afghān ) can be traced to the early eighth/fourteenth century, when it designated the easternmost part of the Kartid realm. This name was later used for certain regions in the Ṣafavid and Mughal empires that were inhabited by Afghans. While based on

25086-455: The Punjab or Afghanistan, but not both at the same time. When Governor-General of India Lord Auckland heard about the arrival of Russian envoy Count Jan Prosper Witkiewicz (better known by the Russian version of his name as Yan Vitkevich ) in Kabul and the possibility that Dost Mohammad might turn to Russia for support, his political advisers exaggerated the threat. Alexander Burnes ,

25308-544: The Qajar shahs had long desired to take it back. It is located in a plain so fertile that is known as the "Granary of Central Asia"; whoever controls Herat and the surrounding countryside also controls the largest source of grain in all of Central Asia. Russia, wanting to increase its presence in Central Asia, had formed an alliance with Qajar Persia , which had territorial disputes with Afghanistan as Herat had been part of

25530-466: The Russian offer to end the "Great Game" as he believed that as long as the "Great Game" continued, Britain could inconvenience Russia in Asia to better achieve her foreign policy goals in Europe much more than Russia could inconvenience Britain in Asia to achieve her foreign policy goals in Europe. Palmerston noted that because the British had more money to bribe local rulers in Central Asia, this gave them

25752-574: The Russian offer, writing "I would look forward to a tripartite Treaty of the West under which a limit shall be placed to the advance of England, Russia and Persia and under which all shall continue to repress slave dealing and plunder". Though Britain rejected the Russian offer, after 1840 there was a marked decline in Anglo-Russian rivalry and a "fair working relationship in Asia" had developed. The British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston rejected

25974-597: The Scotsman who served as the East India Company's chief political officer in Afghanistan, described Witkiewicz: "He was a gentlemanly and agreeable man, of about thirty years of age, spoke French, Turkish and Persian fluently, and wore the uniform of an officer of the Cossacks". The presence of Witkiewicz had thrown Burnes into a state of despair, leading one contemporary to note that he "abandoned himself to despair, bound his head with wet towels and handkerchiefs and took to

26196-543: The Simla declaration. Macnaghten even asked the Governor General to treat Dost Mohammad better than when they had Shah Shuja in his exile, since to his statement: “We ejected the Dost, who never offended us, in support of our policy, of which he was the victim”. The majority of the British troops returned to India, leaving 8,000 in Afghanistan, but it soon became clear that Shuja's rule could only be maintained with

26418-592: The Taliban. A report titled Body Count concluded that 106,000–170,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan at the hands of all parties to the conflict. On 19 February 2020, the US–Taliban deal was made in Qatar. The deal was one of the critical events that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF); following the signing of the deal,

26640-523: The US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency , leading to the Taliban takeover of Kabul. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on 14 April 2021 that the alliance had agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan by 1 May. Soon after NATO troops began withdrawing, the Taliban launched an offensive against

26862-631: The United Kingdom, join them and attack British India, as part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy . The effort to bring Afghanistan into the Central Powers failed, but it sparked discontent among the population about maintaining neutrality with the British. Habibullah was assassinated in February 1919, and Amanullah Khan eventually assumed power. A staunch supporter of the 1915–1916 expeditions, Amanullah Khan invaded British India, beginning

27084-432: The advantage in this "game", and it was thus better to keep the "Great Game" going. Palmerston believed it was Britain that held the advantage in the "Great Game", that the Russian offer to definitely mark out spheres of influence in Asia was a sign of weakness and he preferred no such treaty be signed. From Palmerston's viewpoint accepting the Russian offer would be unwelcome as the end of the "Great Game" in Asia would mean

27306-744: The area north of the Caspian Sea . The region at the time was referred to as Ariana . By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia , Aria , and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. The region of Arachosia , around Kandahar in modern-day southern Afghanistan, used to be primarily Zoroastrian and played

27528-463: The assistance of his uncle, who held the post of prime minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another uncle, Shah Mahmud Khan , became prime minister in 1946 and experimented with allowing greater political freedom. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan , a Pashtun nationalist who sought the creation of a Pashtunistan , leading to highly tense relations with Pakistan. Daoud Khan pressed for social modernization reforms and sought

27750-633: The attempted stabilization and consolidation of the empire. However, Timur Shah had over 24 sons, which plunged the empire in civil war over succession crises. Zaman Shah Durrani succeeded to the Durrani Throne following the death of his father, Timur Shah Durrani. His brothers Mahmud Shah Durrani and Humayun Mirza revolted against him, with Humayun centered in Kandahar and Mahmud Shah centered in Herat . Zaman Shah would defeat Humayun and force

27972-690: The blessings associated with this auspicious date of 17 Ramadan. The call to jihad was given on the morning of 2 November from the Pul-i-khisti mosque in Kabul Lady Sale wrote in her diary on 2 November 1841: "This morning early, all was in commotion in Kabul. The shops were plundered and the people all fighting." That same day, a mob "thirsting for blood" appeared outside of the house of the East India Company's second political officer, Sir Alexander 'Sekundar' Burnes, where Burnes ordered his sepoy guards not to fire while he stood outside haranguing

28194-426: The brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women . During their rule, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth , burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes. After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum formed

28416-511: The call of jihad proved stronger. Macnaghten did not take the threat seriously at first, writing to Henry Rawlinson in Kandahar on 7 October 1841: "The Eastern Ghilzyes are kicking up a row about some deductions which have been made from their pay. The rascals have completely succeeded in cutting communications for the time being, which is very provoking to me at this time; but they will be well trounced for their pains. One down, t'other come on,

28638-412: The captured supplies if he stopped the retreat on 8 January. Adding to the misery of the British, that night a ferocious blizzard blew in, causing hundreds to freeze to death. On 9 January 1842, Akbar sent out a messenger saying he was willing to take all of the British women as hostages, giving his word that they would not be harmed, and said that otherwise his tribesmen would show no mercy and kill all

28860-471: The city of Peshawar following the Battle of Nowshera . In 1834, Dost Mohammad Khan led numerous campaigns, firstly campaigning to Jalalabad , and then allying with his rival brothers in Kandahar to defeat Shah Shuja Durrani and the British in the Expedition of Shuja ul-Mulk . In 1837, Dost Mohammad Khan attempted to conquer Peshawar and sent a large force under his son Wazir Akbar Khan , leading to

29082-742: The cold in Jalalabad. On 13 November 1839, while en route to India, the Bombay column of the British Indian Army attacked, as a form of reprisal, the Baloch tribal fortress of Kalat , from where Baloch tribes had harassed and attacked British convoys during the move towards the Bolan Pass. With Shah Shuja's regime continuing to grow in unpopularity, resistance already began formulating in Autumn 1839, with raids from Ghilzais attacking

29304-409: The corpses of the camp followers with heavy losses to themselves. From a hill, Akbar Khan and his chiefs watched the slaughter while sitting on their horses, being apparently very much amused by the carnage. Captain Shelton and a few soldiers from the 44th regiment held the rear of the column and fought off successive Afghan attacks, despite being outnumbered. Johnson described Shelton as fighting like

29526-464: The country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest , which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's capital and largest city. According to the World Population review, as of 2023 , Afghanistan's population is 43 million. The National Statistics Information Authority of Afghanistan estimated the population to be 32.9 million as of 2020 . Human habitation in Afghanistan dates to

29748-549: The country remained dominated by Buddhist culture. Arab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. Before the arrival of Islam , the region used to be home to various beliefs and cults, often resulting in Syncretism between the dominant religions such as Zoroastrianism , Buddhism or Greco-Buddhism , Ancient Iranian religions , Hinduism , Christianity, and Judaism. An exemplification of

29970-410: The country taking sides in a succession dispute between emir Dost Mohammad Khan ( Barakzai ) and former King Shah Shujah ( Durrani ), whom they reinstalled upon occupying Kabul in August 1839. The main British Indian force occupied Kabul and endured harsh winters. The force and its camp followers were almost completely massacred during the 1842 retreat from Kabul . The British then sent what

30192-510: The defeat of his brother, Suleiman Mirza. Timur Shah Durrani ascended to the throne in November 1772, having defeated a coalition under Shah Wali Khan and Humayun Mirza. Timur Shah began his reign by consolidating power toward himself and people loyal to him, purging Durrani Sardars and influential tribal leaders in Kabul and Kandahar . One of Timur Shah's reforms was to move the capital of the Durrani Empire from Kandahar to Kabul . Timur Shah fought multiple series of rebellions to consolidate

30414-432: The early morning of 10 January, the column resumed its march, with everyone tired, hungry, and cold. Most of the sepoys by this time had lost a finger or two to frostbite, and could not fire their guns. At the narrow pass of Tunghee Tareekee, which was 50 yards long, and only 4 yards wide, the Ghizye tribesmen ambushed the column, killing without mercy all of the camp followers. The Anglo-Indian soldiers fought their way over

30636-415: The edge of mutiny, as well as Sale losing hundreds of men and many more wounded with nothing to show for it. With supplies running low as well, he obliged and returned to Charikar, crossing the Panjshir river, with those villages he had campaigned for at great cost quickly being reoccupied. Despite Sale having little to show for the campaign and the trail of devastation left by him, Sale called Parwan Darra

30858-409: The empire, and he also led campaigns into Punjab against the Sikhs like his father, though more successfully. The most prominent example of his battles during this campaign was when he led his forces under Zangi Khan Durrani – with over 18,000 men total of Afghan, Qizilbash, and Mongol cavalrymen – against over 60,000 Sikh men. The Sikhs lost over 30,000 in this battle and staged a Durrani resurgence in

31080-562: The end, a running battle through two feet of snow. The ground was frozen, the men had no shelter and had little food for weeks. Of the weapons remaining to the survivors at Gandamak, there were approximately a dozen working muskets, the officers' pistols, and a few swords. The British formed a square and defeated the first couple of the Afghan attacks, "driving the Afghans several times down the hill" before running out of ammunition. They then fought on with their bayonets and swords before being overwhelmed. The Afghans took only 9 prisoners and killed

31302-420: The entire force's officers defected to the resistance's side, while the remaining Afghan levies were captured and disarmed. Dost Mohammad followed up this success by marching on Bamiyan, however he encountered Colonel Dennie, who had an army of Gurkhas and native cavalrymen. Despite being outnumbered, Dennie ordered his Gurkhas to storm the enemy positions, successfully routing the Uzbek army. Dennie then pursued

31524-477: The entire rationale for the occupation of Afghanistan was changed by the Oriental Crisis when Mohammad Ali the Great, the vali (governor) of Egypt who was a close French ally, rebelled against the Sublime Porte; during the subsequent crisis, Russia and Britain co-operated against France, and with the improvement in Anglo-Russian relations, the need for a buffer state in Central Asia decreased. The Oriental Crisis of 1840 almost caused an Anglo-French war, which given

31746-453: The ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line , which forms the modern-day border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Shia -dominated Hazarajat and pagan Kafiristan remained politically independent until being conquered by Abdur Rahman Khan in 1891–1896. He was known as the "Iron Amir" for his features and his ruthless methods against tribes. He died in 1901, succeeded by his son, Habibullah Khan . How can

31968-404: The fallen soldiers were brought up by Afghan families as their own children. At the same time as the attacks on the garrison at Kabul, Afghan forces beleaguered the other British contingents in Afghanistan. These were at Kandahar (where the largest British force in the country had been stationed), Jalalabad (held by a force which had been sent from Kabul in October 1841 as the first stage of

32190-467: The ferociously warlike Pashtuns were forever fighting each other, when not being called up for service for the tribal levy by the Emir, meaning most Pashtun men had at least some experience of warfare. The Pashtun tribes lived by their strict moral code of Pashtunwali ("the way of the Pashtuns") stating various rules for a Pashtun man to live by, one of which was that a man had to avenge any insult, real or imagined, with violence, in order to be considered

32412-470: The feudal system with a standing army , which threatened to do away with the power of the chiefs, and which the Emir rejected under the grounds that Afghanistan lacked the financial ability to fund a standing army. Dost Mohammad successfully defeated the British at the battle of Parwan Darra on 2 November 1840. However, following his victory, he surrendered and was sent to India in exile after hearing rumours of assassination plots against him. In 1839–40,

32634-468: The first president of Afghanistan , abolishing the monarchy. In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a bloody coup d'état against then-President Mohammed Daoud Khan , in what is called the Saur Revolution . The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan , with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party General Secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki . This would trigger

32856-470: The first time the country participated since the Taliban's return to power in 2021. Afghanistan had been barred from previous summits due to the lack of global recognition of the Taliban regime. However, the Taliban's environmental officials stressed that climate change is a humanitarian issue, not a political one, and should be addressed regardless of political differences. Afghanistan is located in Southern-Central Asia. The region centered at Afghanistan

33078-467: The formation of an anti-Taliban front with a reported 6,000+ troops in the Panjshir Valley , along with Ahmad Massoud . However, by 6 September, the Taliban had taken control of most of Panjshir province , with resistance fighters retreating to the mountains. Clashes in the valley ceased mid-September. According to the Costs of War Project , 176,000 people were killed in the conflict, including 46,319 civilians, between 2001 and 2021. According to

33300-412: The franchise requirements to vote and hold office in the United Kingdom was passed, which the ultra-conservative Emperor Nicholas I of Russia openly disapproved of, setting the stage for an Anglo-Russian "cold war", with many believing that Russian autocracy and British democracy were bound to clash. In 1837, Lord Palmerston and John Hobhouse , fearing the instability of Afghanistan , the Sindh , and

33522-439: The increasing power of the Sikh kingdom to the northwest, raised the spectre of a possible Russian invasion of British India through Afghanistan. The British tended to misunderstand the foreign policy of the Emperor Nicholas I as anti-British and intent upon an expansionary policy in Asia; whereas in fact though Nicholas disliked Britain as a liberal democratic state that he considered to be rather "strange", he always believed it

33744-543: The invasion. On 25 November 1838, the two most powerful armies on the Indian subcontinent assembled in a grand review at Ferozepore as Ranjit Singh , the Maharajah of the Punjab brought out the Dal Khalsa to march alongside the sepoy troops of the East India Company and the British troops in India with Lord Auckland himself present amid much colorful pageantry and music as men dressed in brightly colored uniforms together with horses and elephants marched in an impressive demonstration of military might. Lord Auckland declared that

33966-459: The killings as "truly wicked." The combined British forces defeated all opposition before taking Kabul in September. A month later, having rescued the prisoners and demolished the city's main bazaar as an act of revenge for the destruction of Elphinstone's column, they withdrew from Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass. Dost Muhammad was released and re-established his authority in Kabul. He died on 9 June 1863. During his lifetime no Russian mission

34188-443: The largest armies in the entire world, and was an army larger than those maintained by most European states. The majority of the men serving in the presidency armies were Indian, but the officers were all British, trained at the East India Company's own officer school at the Addiscombe estate outside of London. Furthermore, the politically powerful East India Company had regiments from the British Army sent to India to serve alongside

34410-446: The largest were the Pashtuns, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, and the Hazaras, who were all in their turn divided into numerous tribes and clans. Islam was the sole unifying factor binding these groups together, though the Hazaras were Shia Muslims while the rest were Sunni Muslims. The Pashtuns were the dominant ethnic group, and it was with the Pashtun tribes that the British interacted the most. The Pashtun tribesmen had no military training, but

34632-453: The late 2nd century BCE. The Silk Road appeared during the first century BCE, and Afghanistan flourished with trade, with routes to China, India, Persia, and north to the cities of Bukhara , Samarkand , and Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan. Goods and ideas were exchanged at this center point, such as Chinese silk, Persian silver and Roman gold, while the region of present Afghanistan was mining and trading lapis lazuli stones mainly from

34854-431: The long-standing Franco-Russian rivalry caused by Nicholas's detestation of Louis-Philippe as a traitor to the conservative cause, inevitably improved relations between London and St. Petersburg, which ultimately led to the Emperor Nicholas making an imperial visit to London in 1844 to meet Queen Victoria and the Prime Minister Lord Peel. As early as 1838, Count Karl Nesselrode , the Russian Foreign Minister, had suggested to

35076-491: The loyalty of Mahmud Shah Durrani. Securing his position on the throne, Zaman Shah led three campaigns into Punjab . The first two campaigns captured Lahore , but he retreated due to intel about a possible Qajar invasion. Zaman Shah embarked on his third campaign for Punjab in 1800 to deal with a rebellious Ranjit Singh. However, he was forced to withdraw, and Zaman Shah's reign was ended by Mahmud Shah Durrani. However, just under two years into his reign, Mahmud Shah Durrani

35298-484: The main cantonment. The British commander, Major-General George Keith Ephinstone who arrived in April 1841 was bed-ridden most of the time with gout and rheumatism. Between April and October 1841, disaffected Afghan tribes were flocking to support resistance against the British in Bamiyan and other areas north of the Hindu Kush mountains. They were organised into an effective resistance by chiefs such as Mir Masjidi Khan and others. In September 1841, Macnaghten reduced

35520-454: The mob in Pashto, attempting unconvincingly to persuade the assembled men that he did not bed their daughters and sisters. Captain William Broadfoot who was with Burnes saw the mob march forward, leading him to open fire with another officer writing in his diary that he "killed five or six men with his own hand before he was shot down". The mob smashed in to Burnes's house, where he, his brother Charles, their wives and children, several aides and

35742-583: The more moderate Parcham . In October 1979, PDPA General Secretary Taraki was assassinated in an internal coup orchestrated by then-prime minister Hafizullah Amin , who became the new general secretary of the People's Democratic Party . The situation in the country deteriorated under Amin, and thousands of people went missing. Displeased with Amin's government, the Soviet Army invaded the country in December 1979, heading for Kabul and killing Amin. A Soviet-organized regime, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions (Parcham and Khalq), filled

35964-467: The new ruler of Kabul , a de facto puppet of the British. Following an uprising that saw the assassination of Shah Shuja , the 1842 retreat from Kabul of British-Indian forces and the annihilation of Elphinstone 's army, and the punitive expedition of The Battle of Kabul that led to its sacking, the British gave up on their attempts to try to subjugate Afghanistan, allowing Dost Mohammad Khan to return as ruler. Following this, Dost Mohammad pursued

36186-462: The new Amir, leading to Britain gaining control of Afghanistan's foreign relations as part of the Treaty of Gandamak of 1879, making it an official British Protected State . An uprising however, re-started the conflict, and Yaqub Khan was deposed. During this tumultuous period, Abdur Rahman Khan began his rise to power, becoming an eligible candidate to become Amir after he seized much of Northern Afghanistan . Abdur Rahman marched on Kabul , and

36408-471: The next year in 1749 and captured the area around Lahore and Punjab , presenting it as an Afghan victory for this campaign. From 1749 to 1767, Ahmad Shah led six more invasions, the most important being the last; the Third Battle of Panipat created a power vacuum in northern India, halting Maratha expansion. Ahmad Shah Durrani died in October 1772, and a civil war over succession followed, with his named successor, Timur Shah Durrani succeeding him after

36630-492: The night of 1 November 1841, a group of Afghan chiefs met at the Kabul house of one of their number to plan the uprising, which began in the morning of the next day. In a flammable situation, the spark was provided unintentionally by the East India Company's second political officer, Sir Alexander 'Sekundar' Burnes. A Kashmiri slave girl who belonged to a Pashtun chief Abdullah Khan Achakzai living in Kabul ran away to Burne's house. When Ackakzai sent his retainers to retrieve her, it

36852-429: The oriental other, the East India Company played up the threat of the Russian bear". In 1834, Shah Shuja Durrani invaded Kandahar with the aid of the British, but was defeated. The Company sent an envoy to Kabul to form an alliance with Afghanistan's Amir, Dost Mohammad Khan against Russia. Amidst the Afghan civil war, the Sikhs seized Peshawar from the Peshawar sardars and subjugated them. The British feared

37074-428: The poor defensibility of the cantonment, an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependents from Afghanistan. Five days later, the withdrawal began. The departing British contingent numbered around 16,500, of which about 4,500 were military personnel, and over 12,000 were camp followers . Lieutenant Vincent Eyre commented about the camp followers that "These proved from

37296-421: The presence of a stronger British force. The Afghans resented the British presence and the rule of Shah Shuja. As the occupation dragged on, the East India Company's first political officer William Hay Macnaghten allowed his soldiers to bring their families to Afghanistan to improve morale; this further infuriated the Afghans, as it appeared the British were setting up a permanent occupation. Macnaghten purchased

37518-443: The realm of Balkh just before the British invasion. As from this invasion, Dost Mohammad had annexed Saighan, Balkh, Kahmard, and Duab. In the winter of 1839, against the advice of Jabbar Khan, Dost Mohammad traveled to Bukhara to be received in person to appeal to the ruler of Bukhara in person. Dost Mohammad along with his sons, Akram Khan and Afzal Khan were initially well received, respected as guests. However, it came clear that

37740-447: The redeployment of Russian power to Europe, the place that really counted for him, and it was better to keep the "Great Game" going, albeit at a reduced rate given the tensions with France. At the same time, the lowering of Anglo-Russian tension in the 1840s made holding Afghanistan more of an expensive luxury from the British viewpoint as it no longer seemed quite as essential to have a friendly government in Kabul anymore. By this time,

37962-531: The rest. The remnants of the 44th were all killed except Captain James Souter, Sergeant Fair, and seven soldiers who were taken prisoner. The only soldier to reach Jalalabad was Dr. William Brydon and several sepoys over the following nights. Another source states that over one hundred British were taken prisoner. One British NCO fled from Gandamak to Gujrat India on foot according to a source cited from The Times of 2 March 1843 by Farrukh Husain who writes: "The oddest account of escape from Gundamuck concerns that of

38184-440: The resulting Afghan Civil War (1863–1869) and ruled Afghanistan until his death in 1879. In his final years, the British returned to Afghanistan in the Second Anglo-Afghan War to fight perceived Russian influence in the region. Sher Ali retreated to northern Afghanistan, intending to create a resistance there similar to his predecessors, Dost Mohammad Khan, and Wazir Akbar Khan. His untimely death however, saw Yaqub Khan declared

38406-415: The retreating army with his cavalrymen, slaying those who had defected and the rest of the Uzbek army. Following this victory, Dr Lord, the political officer in Bamiyan, offered Dost Mohammad honourable exile in India if he surrendered. Only to be informed that Dost Mohammad was “determined to conquer or fall in the attempt”. The Mir Wali and Murad Beg had sought co-operation, as they believed Dennie posed

38628-431: The ridge, to their dismay where they saw Dost Mohammad withdraw his forces in good order. Both sides withdrew, and later, the Afghans re-occupied the ridge, which was left undefended. With the ridge position, they fired onto the British camp below. As the following day came, Timur Mirza and Burnes urged Sale to abandon the campaign. This was due to the Afghan troops loyal to Shah Shuja who had not deserted, already being on

38850-468: The ritual bath that follows it: but we have to put a stop right here and now, otherwise these English will ride the donkey of their desires into the field of stupidity, to the point of having all of us arrested and deported to a foreign field". At the end of his speech, all of the chiefs shouted " Jihad ". November 2, 1841 actually fell on 17 Ramadan which was the anniversary date for the battle of Badr. The Afghans decided to strike on this date for reasons of

39072-493: The ruler of Bukhara was not willing to support Dost Mohammad. Instead, Dost Mohammad was essentially put under house arrest, and later treated as a prisoner. Suspicions even rose that the ruler of Bukhara would try to have Dost Mohammad and his sons poisoned. It was not until the following summer did Dost Mohammad escape, and through a series of events, made his way to Khulm. However, following this, he found out that Jabbar Khan had accepted Mcnaghten's offer of amnesty and took back

39294-431: The second day all of the men of the Royal Afghan Army's 6th regiment deserted, heading back to Kabul, marking the end of the first attempt to give Afghanistan a national army. For several months afterwards, what had once been Shuja's army was reduced to begging on the streets of Kabul as Akbar had of all of Shuja's mercenaries mutilated before throwing them on the streets to beg. Despite Akbar Khan's promise of safe conduct,

39516-630: The sepoys were all torn to pieces. The mob then attacked the home of the paymaster Johnston who was not present, leading to later write when he surveyed the remains of his house that they "gained possession of my treasury by undermining the wall...They murdered the whole of the guard (one officer and 28 sepoys), all my servants (male, female, and children), plundered the treasury...burnt all my office records...and possessed themselves of all my private property". The British forces took no action in response despite being only five minutes away, which encouraged further revolt. The only person who took action that day

39738-465: The siege of Mashhad , however, he was forced to retreat after four months. In November 1750, he moved to siege Nishapur , but he was unable to capture the city and was forced to retreat in early 1751. Ahmad Shah returned in 1754 ; he captured Tun , and on 23 July, he sieged Mashhad once again. Mashhad had fallen on 2 December, but Shahrokh was reappointed in 1755. He was forced to give up Torshiz , Bakharz , Jam , Khaf , and Turbat-e Haidari to

39960-459: The smelling bottle". Dost Mohammad had in fact invited Count Witkiewicz to Kabul as a way to frighten the British into making an alliance with him against his archenemy Ranjit Singh , the Maharaja of the Punjab, not because he really wanted an alliance with Russia. The British had the power to compel Singh to return the former Afghan territories he had conquered whereas the Russians did not, which explains why Dost Mohammad Khan wanted an alliance with

40182-454: The south, while Ranjit Singh's troops went through the Khyber Pass and took part in the victory parade in Kabul. Accompanying the invasion force were 38,000 Indian camp followers and 30,000 camels to carry supplies. The Emirate of Afghanistan had no army, and instead under the Afghan feudal system, the tribal chiefs contributed fighting men when the Emir called upon their services. The Afghans were divided into numerous ethnic groups, of which

40404-408: The stirrup. An old Turco-Mongolian tradition called rikab giriftan. Atkinson states that Dost Mohammad was seeking the protection of the British government through this action, and as a result, a famous sketch was produced showing Macnaghten and Dost Mohammad shaking hands as a sign of friendship. According to Jonathan Lee, Akbar Khan had later stated that his father “Thrown himself upon the honour of

40626-413: The subsidies paid out to Ghilzai tribal chiefs in exchange for accepting Shuja as Emir and to keep the passes open, which immediately led to the Ghazis rebelling and a jihad being proclaimed. The monthly subsidies, which were effectively bribes for the Ghazi chiefs to stay loyal, was reduced from 80,000 to 40,000 rupees at a time of rampant inflation, and as the chiefs' loyalty had been entirely financial,

40848-428: The support of foreign donor countries, to improve the country's economy, healthcare, education, transport, and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan National Security Forces . Following 2002, nearly five million Afghans were repatriated. The number of NATO troops present in Afghanistan peaked at 140,000 in 2011, dropping to about 16,000 in 2018. In September 2014 Ashraf Ghani became president after

41070-401: The syncretism in the region would be that people were patrons of Buddhism but still worshipped local Iranian gods such as Ahura Mazda , Lady Nana , Anahita or Mihr (Mithra) and portrayed Greek gods as protectors of Buddha. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of

41292-469: The territory. During the medieval period, the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan , which was commonly used up to the 19th century among natives to describe their country. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak , a local Ghilzai tribal leader, successfully rebelled against the Safavids . He defeated Gurgin Khan , the Georgian governor of Kandahar under the Safavids, and established his own kingdom. Mirwais died in 1715, and

41514-557: The vacuum. Soviet troops in more substantial numbers were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal, marking the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War . Lasting nine years, the war caused the deaths of between 562,000 and 2 million Afghans, and displaced about 6 million people who subsequently fled Afghanistan, mainly to Pakistan and Iran . Heavy air bombardment destroyed many countryside villages, millions of landmines were planted, and some cities such as Herat and Kandahar were also damaged from bombardment. After

41736-411: The various conquests and periods in both the Iranian and Indian cultural spheres, the area was a center for Zoroastrianism , Buddhism, Hinduism, and later Islam. The modern state of Afghanistan began with the Durrani Afghan Empire in the 18th century, although Dost Mohammad Khan is sometimes considered to be the founder of the first modern Afghan state . Afghanistan became a buffer state in

41958-466: The very first mile a serious clog on our movements". Lady Sale brought with her 40 servants, none of whom she named in her diary while Eyre's son was saved by a female Afghan servant, who rode through an ambush with the boy on her back, but he never gave her name. The American author James M. Perry noted: "Reading the old diaries and journals, it is almost as if these twelve thousand native servants and sepoy wives and children didn't exist individually. In

42180-466: The war as rash and insensate. The perceived threat from Russia was vastly exaggerated, given the distances, the almost impassable mountain barriers, and logistical problems that an invasion would have to solve. In the three decades after the First Anglo-Afghan War, the Russians did advance steadily southward towards Afghanistan. In 1842, the Russian border was on the other side of the Aral Sea from Afghanistan. By 1865 Tashkent had been formally annexed, as

42402-439: The war to an end following a change of government in Britain. Ellenborough ordered the forces at Kandahar and Jalalabad to leave Afghanistan after inflicting reprisals and securing the release of prisoners taken during the retreat from Kabul. In August 1842 General William Nott advanced from Kandahar, capturing Ghazni and partially demolishing the city's fortifications. Meanwhile, General George Pollock , who had taken command of

42624-407: The war, to write this act of "wanton barbarity", the "shrill cry" of the Ghazis , would be remembered as the "funeral wail" of the government's "unholy policy". On 23 July 1839, in a surprise attack, the British-led forces captured the fortress of Ghazni , which overlooks a plain leading eastward into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . The British troops blew up one city gate and marched into the city in

42846-405: The west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Fateh Khan , leader of the Barakzai tribe , installed many of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire. Fateh Khan was brutally murdered in 1818 by Mahmud Shah . As a result, the brothers of Fateh Khan and the Barakzai tribe rebelled, and a civil war brewed. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan fractured into many states, including

43068-411: The women and children of Dost Mohammad's camp. Despite his family being in British hands, Dost Mohammad did not show any intent to surrender. The Mir Wali raised a force of over 6,000 Uzbeks, and in September 1840, marched up to Surkhab, forcing the British to abandon their outposts of Ajar, Kahmard, and Bajgah, falling back on Bamiyan. During the encounter at Bajgah, half of Shah Shuja's cavalry while

43290-438: The women and children. One of the British officers sent to negotiate with Akbar heard him say to his tribesmen in Dari (Afghan Farsi) – a language spoken by many British officers – to "spare" the British while saying in Pashto, which most British officers did not speak, to "slay them all". Lady Sale, her pregnant daughter Alexandria and the rest of British women and children accepted Akbar's offer of safe conduct back to Kabul. As

43512-410: Was Samarkand three years later. A peace treaty in 1873 with Amir Alim Khan of the Manghit Dynasty , the ruler of Bukhara , virtually stripped him of his independence. Russian control then extended as far as the northern bank of the Amu Darya. The war would also be renowned as the "greatest military humilation of the nineteenth century" for the British. In 1878, the British invaded again, beginning

43734-422: Was "popular throughout Afghanistan" and would enter his former realm "surrounded by his own troops and be supported against foreign interference and factious opposition by the British Army". As the Persians had broken off the siege of Herat and the Emperor Nicholas I of Russia had ordered Count Vitkevich home (he was to commit suicide upon reaching St. Petersburg), the reasons for attempting to put Shuja Shah back on

43956-475: Was "so dictatorial and supercilious as to indicate the writer's intention that it should give offense", and tried to avoid delivering it for long as possible. Dost Mohammad was indeed offended by the letter, but in order to avoid a war, he had his special military advisor, the American adventurer Josiah Harlan , engage in talks with Burnes to see if some compromise could be arranged. Burnes in fact had no power to negotiate anything, and Harlan complained that Burnes

44178-506: Was Shuja who ordered out one of his regiments from the Bala Hissar commanded by a Scots mercenary named Campbell to crush the riot, but the old city of Kabul with its narrow, twisting streets favored the defenders, with Campbell's men coming under fire from rebels in the houses above. After losing about 200 men killed, Campbell retreated back to the Bala Hissar. After hearing of the defeat of his regiment, Shuja descended into what Kaye called "a pitiable state of dejection and alarm", sinking into

44400-409: Was Sultan Muhammad Khan of Nijrab. As a result, Dost Mohammad’s options were limited, as the Mir Wali and Murad Beg signed a treaty with Shah Shuja, no longer offering sanctuary for Dost Mohammad. His experience in Bukhara and how he had to escape swayed Dost Mohammad from trying to seek refuge in Balkh, as he could be imprisoned, or even killed. Therefore, he went to the only choice he could think of,

44622-412: Was a period of diplomatic competition between the British and Russian empires for spheres of influence in South Asia known as the " Great Game " to the British and the "Tournament of Shadows" to the Russians. With the exception of Emperor Paul (whose 1800 order to invade India was cancelled after his assassination in 1801), no Russian tsar ever seriously considered invading India. However, for most of

44844-602: Was abolished in 1923. King Amanullah's wife, Queen Soraya , was an important figure during this period in the fight for woman's education and against their oppression. Some of the reforms, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of co-educational schools, alienated many tribal and religious leaders, leading to the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929) . King Amanullah abdicated in January 1929, and soon after Kabul fell to Saqqawist forces led by Habibullah Kalakani . Mohammed Nadir Shah , Amanullah's cousin, defeated and killed Kalakani in October 1929, and

45066-508: Was ambushed by the Ghilzai tribesmen. Johnson described "murderous fire" that forced the British to abandon all baggage while camp followers regardless of sex and age were cut down with swords. Lady Sale wrote: "Bullets kept whizzing by us" while some of the artillerymen smashed open the regimental store of brandy to get drunk amid the Afghan attacks. Lady Sale wrote she drank a tumbler of sherry "which at any other time would have made me very unlady-like, but now merely warmed me." Lady Sale took

45288-463: Was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir Valley . Around 400,000 Afghans died in internal conflicts between 1990 and 2001. In October 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power after they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden , the prime suspect of the September 11 attacks , who was a "guest" of the Taliban and was operating his al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The majority of Afghans supported

45510-422: Was barely remembered by most of his former subjects and those that did viewed him as a cruel, tyrannical ruler who, as the British were soon to learn, had almost no popular support in Afghanistan. On 1 October 1838, Lord Auckland issued the Simla Declaration attacking Dost Mohammed Khan for making "an unprovoked attack" on the empire of "our ancient ally, Maharaja Ranjeet Singh", going on to declare that Shuja Shah

45732-429: Was clear he was not surrendering as a defeated man, as he had successfully defeated the British at Parwan Darra, and even forced their withdrawal from Bamiyan. The revolt in Kohistan also put the military favor within Dost Mohammad's reach, yet for some reason, he decided to give up resistance. Mohan Lal gives the most clear and coherent theory was to why Dost Mohammad surrendered, as according to Lal, Dost Mohammad Khan

45954-432: Was declared Amir, being recognized by the British as well. Another uprising by Ayub Khan threatened the British, where rebels confronted and defeated British forces in the Battle of Maiwand . Following up on his victory, Ayub Khan unsuccessfully besieged Kandahar , and his decisive defeat saw the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, with Abdur Rahman secured firmly as Amir. In 1893, Abdur Rahman signed an agreement in which

46176-520: Was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of King Amanullah in favor of a more gradual approach to modernization, but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq . Mohammed Zahir Shah succeeded to the throne and reigned as king from 1933 to 1973. During the tribal revolts of 1944–1947 , King Zahir's reign was challenged by Zadran , Safi , Mangal , and Wazir tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran , Salemai , and Mirzali Khan , among others – many of whom were Amanullah loyalists . Afghanistan joined

46398-403: Was deposed by his brother Shah Shuja Durrani on 13 July 1803. Shah Shuja attempted to consolidate the Durrani Realm but was deposed by his brother at the Battle of Nimla (1809) . Mahmud Shah Durrani defeated Shah Shuja and forced him to flee, usurping the throne again. His second reign began on 3 May 1809. By the early 19th century, the Afghan empire was under threat from the Persians in

46620-419: Was discovered that Burnes had taken the slave girl to his bed, and he had one of Azkakzai's men beaten. A secret jirga (council) of Pashtun chiefs was held to discuss this violation of pashtunwali , where Ackakzai holding a Koran in one hand stated: "Now we are justified in throwing this English yoke; they stretch the hand of tyranny to dishonor private citizens great and small: fucking a slave girl isn't worth

46842-405: Was established in Afghanistan. Dost Mohammad is reported to have said: I have been struck by the magnitude of your resources, your ships, your arsenals, but what I cannot understand is why the rulers of so vast and flourishing an empire should have gone across the Indus to deprive me of my poor and barren country. Many voices in Britain, from Lord Aberdeen to Benjamin Disraeli , had criticized

47064-616: Was facing widespread famine due to an economic and banking crisis. The Taliban have significantly tackled corruption, now being placed as 150th on the corruption watchdog perception index. The Taliban have also reportedly reduced bribery and extortion in public service areas. At the same time, the human rights situation in the country has deteriorated. Following the 2001 invasion, more than 5.7 million refugees returned to Afghanistan; however, in 2021, 2.6 million Afghans remained refugees, primarily in Iran and Pakistan, and another 4 million were internally displaced. In October 2023,

47286-421: Was followed by another lone horsemen, who came up to Macnaghten. This horsemen was no other than Dost Mohammad Khan . Dost Mohammad's surrender has been given much speculation by historians as to why he surrendered. A number of explanations range from Dost Mohammad's surrender, oddly even after his victory at Parwan Darra. According to Jonathan lee, some of these depictions include Dost Mohammad believing that

47508-438: Was just stalling, which led to Dost Mohammad expelling the British diplomatic mission on 26 April 1838. British fears of a Persian and Afghan invasion of India took one step closer to becoming a reality when negotiations between the Afghans and Russians broke down in 1838. The Qajar dynasty of Persia, with Russian support, attempted the Siege of Herat . Herat, in Afghanistan, is a city that had historically belonged to Persia;

47730-402: Was killed amongst this fighting that broke out. According to British historian William Dalrymple , Lord led a cavalry charge which was too late to realize that the rest of the force fled from the field. Fortunately, Fraser survived this charge and returned to British lines, however, with his sabre nearly severed at the wrist. Dost Mohammad, seeing what had happened ordered his cavalry to lead

47952-424: Was not until 27 June that the Grand Army of the Indus marched again. Keane left behind his siege engines in Kandahar, which turned out to be a mistake as he discovered that the walls of the Ghazni fortress were far stronger than he expected. A deserter, Abdul Rashed Khan, a nephew of Dost Mohammad Khan, informed the British that one of the gates of the fortress was in bad state of repair and might be blasted open with

48174-444: Was plotted against, and in battle, a sniper planned to assassinate him. As further explained by Lal, this was plotted out by Kohistani Amirs, who would then blame the British for this. Lal's accounts and claims are supported by letters to Dost Mohammad Khan from Sultan Muhammad Khan of Nijrab, who had warned the Amir of a plot that was circulating from Maliks who were planning to betray and assassinate him. Abd al-Karim Alawi, who wrote

48396-419: Was possible to reach an understanding with Britain on spheres of influence in Asia, believing that the essentially conservative nature of British society would retard the advent of liberalism. The main goal of Nicholas's foreign policy was not the conquest of Asia, but rather upholding the status quo in Europe, especially by co-operating with Prussia and Austria , and in isolating France, as Louis Philippe I ,

48618-425: Was promptly turned down. In August 1839, after thirty years, Shuja was again enthroned in Kabul. Shuja promptly confirmed his reputation for cruelty by seeking to wreak vengeance on all who had crossed him as he considered his own people to be "dogs" who needed to be taught to obey their master. In the absence of the traditional winter capital of Peshawar, on November 2 Shuja left the Bala Hissar to seek refuge from

48840-558: Was reported to Akbar Khan. A meeting for direct negotiations between Macnaghten and Akbar was held near the cantonment on 23 December, but Macnaghten and the three officers accompanying him were seized and slain by Akbar Khan. Macnaghten's body was dragged through the streets of Kabul and displayed in the bazaar. Elphinstone had partly lost command of his troops already and his authority was badly damaged. On 1 January 1842, following some unusual thinking by Major-General William George Keith Elphinstone , which may have had something to do with

49062-466: Was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz , who was soon killed by Mirwais's son Mahmud for possibly planning to sign a peace with the Safavids. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan , and captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan . In 1738, Nader Shah and his forces captured Kandahar in

49284-424: Was widely termed an " Army of Retribution " to Kabul to avenge the destruction of the previous forces. After recovering prisoners, they left Afghanistan by the end of the year. Dost Mohammed returned from exile in India to resume his rule. It was one of the first major conflicts during the Great Game , the 19th century competition for power and influence in Central Asia between Britain and Russia. The 19th century

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