160-470: The Quds Force ( Persian : نیروی قدس , romanized : niru-ye qods , lit. 'Jerusalem Force') is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War General Stanley McChrystal describes the Quds Force as an organization analogous to a combination of
320-569: A Presidential Finding authorizing the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command to conduct cross-border paramilitary operations from Iraq and Afghanistan into Iran. These operations would be against the Quds Force and "high-value targets." "The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," a person familiar with its contents said, and involved "working with opposition groups." According to an Iraqi intelligence study which discusses
480-441: A second round run-off vote , which was announced for 7 November 2009. On 2 November 2009 election officials announced the cancellation of the run-off race and declared Karzai the winner due to the withdrawal of Abdullah Abdullah , Karzai's run-off opponent, from the process. In November 2009 Afghanistan's attorney-general revealed that 15 current and former cabinet ministers are under investigation for alleged corruption. After
640-499: A 29-member governing committee. He was sworn in as leader on 22 December. The Loya Jirga of 13 June 2002, appointed Karzai Interim holder of the new position as President of the Afghan Transitional Administration . Karzai re-enacted the original coronation of Ahmad Shah Durrani at the shrine of Sher-i-Surkh outside of Kandahar where he had leaders of various Afghan tribes, including a descendant of
800-655: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to
960-463: A base in the former compound of the U.S. Embassy, which was overrun in 1979. According to Filkins and American General Stanley A. McChrystal , it was the Quds Force that "flooded" Iraq with " explosively formed projectiles " which fire a molten copper slug able to penetrate armor, and which accounted for "nearly 20%" of American combat deaths in Iraq (i.e. hundreds of soldiers). In September 2007,
1120-413: A complete government until parliament returns from a recess in seven weeks' time The Afghan parliament would begin a 45-day winter vacation from 5 January). On 4 January, Karzai requested the parliament to delay its winter recess, so members could consider new nominees. The parliament decided to take a short break of three days and demanded Karzai to come up with a list of names, including a candidate for
1280-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in
1440-729: A few years after the publication of American Hiroshima: The Reasons Why and a Call to Strengthen America's Democracy in July 2006, General David Petraeus reported to Congress that the Quds Force had left Iraq. Petraeus said, "The Quds Force itself, we believe, by and large, those individuals have been pulled out of the country, as have the Lebanese Hezbollah trainers that were being used to augment that activity." On 7 July 2008, journalist Seymour Hersh wrote an article in The New Yorker revealing that President Bush had signed
1600-505: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian
1760-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from
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#17327650424111920-942: A new cabinet approved by the parliament (see above), the International Afghanistan Conference in London on 28 January 2010, the announcement to hold a " Peace Jirga " , the Operation Moshtarak in Southern Afghanistan in February 2010, the International Conference on Afghanistan in Kabul in July 2010, and the spread of the Taliban insurgency to the northern provinces of the country. On 15 February 2010,
2080-570: A new campaign of attacks targeting not only the US and Israel but also other Western bodies. In January 2020, Quds Force commander Major General Qasem Soleimani was killed by a US airstrike on his convoy outside Baghdad International Airport . The Quds force is run from Tehran, and has ties with armed groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories. The LMU of
2240-491: A new crisis. According to analysts the new nominees represented a cross-section of Afghanistan's ethnic mix of Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara, but the common thread would be their inexperience. On 16 January, the parliament rejected more than half of the second slate of candidates. Among the approved nominees were Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasoul , Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib , Minister for Economy Arghandiwal and Minister for Counter-Narcotics Zarar Ahmad , but 10 out of
2400-536: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and
2560-541: A shipment, without question the Revolutionary Guard's core Quds Force, through a known Taliban facilitator. Three of the individuals were killed... 48 122 millimetre rockets were intercepted with their various components... Iranians certainly view as making life more difficult for us if Afghanistan is unstable. We don't have that kind of relationship with the Iranians. That's why I am particularly troubled by
2720-599: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are
2880-583: A special meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush. In October 2007, Karzai again rejected Western accusations against Iran, stating, "We have resisted the negative propaganda launched by foreign states against the Islamic Republic, and we stress that aliens' propaganda should not leave a negative impact on the consolidated ties between the two great nations of Iran and Afghanistan." Karzai added, "The two Iranian and Afghan nations are close to each other due to their bonds and commonalities, they belong to
3040-687: A subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation . Quds force Corps budget was leaked in a hack in February 2024 to be $ 7,700 billion toman. While it reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran , there are debates over how independently Quds Force operates. Mahan Abedin, director of research at the London-based Center for the Study of Terrorism (and editor of Islamism Digest ), believes
3200-482: A symbolically important "new start" for the war-torn nation. Notable guests at the inauguration included the country's former King, Zahir Shah , three former US presidents, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney . After winning a democratic mandate in the 2004 election and removing many of the former Northern Alliance warlords from his cabinet, it was thought that Karzai would pursue a more aggressively reformist path in 2005. However, Karzai proved to be more cautious than
3360-428: Is "rebounding" in his country, with militants infiltrating the borders to wage attacks on civilians. He stated, "This does not have its seeds alone in Afghanistan. Military action in the country will, therefore, not deliver the shared goal of eliminating terrorism." He demanded assistance from the international community to destroy terrorist sanctuaries inside and outside Afghanistan. "You have to look beyond Afghanistan to
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#17327650424113520-664: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian
3680-628: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of
3840-850: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian
4000-675: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting
4160-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of
4320-460: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with
4480-475: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),
4640-585: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became
4800-495: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting
4960-577: Is unstable. We don't have that kind of relationship with the Iranians. That's why I am particularly troubled by the interception of weapons coming from Iran. But we know that it's more than weapons; it's money; it's also according to some reports, training at Iranian camps as well. In March 2012, Najibullah Kabuli, leader of the National Participation Front (NPF) of Afghanistan, accused three senior leaders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards of plotting to assassinate him. Some members of
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5120-491: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes
5280-506: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on
5440-739: The 1979 Iranian Revolution . During the Iran-Iraq War , Major-General Mohsen Rezaee , then the Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Guards, ordered the formation of the 9th Badr Brigade , which consisted of Iraqi Shia fugitives who had fled from Saddam Hussein 's persecution and were fighting for Iran. The Badr Brigade was manned by Iraqis but led by Iranian officers. Among the Badr Brigade's earliest Iraqi members were Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis , Deputy Chief of
5600-529: The 2004 Afghan presidential election , he became the President of Afghanistan . In October 2001, U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan. About two months later, the Taliban government was overthrown. In December 2001, political leaders gathered in Germany to agree on new leadership structures. Under the 5 December Bonn Agreement they formed an interim Transitional Administration and named Karzai Chairman of
5760-496: The 2009 Afghan presidential election . Karzai staunchly defended the election balloting, stating that some statements criticizing the balloting and vote count were "totally fabricated." He told the media that, "There were instances of fraud, no doubt... There were irregularities... But the election as a whole was good and free and democratic." He further went on to say that, "Afghanistan has its separate problems and we have to handle them as Afghanistan finds it feasible... This country
5920-515: The Afghan Parliament accuses Iran of setting up Taliban bases in several Iranian cities, and that "Iran is directly involved in fanning ethnic , linguistic and sectarian tensions in Afghanistan." There are reports about Iran's Revolutionary Guards training Afghans inside Iran to carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. Currently, the Revolutionary Guards recruit young people for terrorist activities in Afghanistan and try to revive
6080-774: The Basij militia. The "Lebanon Corps" of the IRGC was established in June 1982 when Iran sent 1,500 Revolutionary Guard commandos to the Syrian -controlled Beqaa Valley of Eastern Lebanon to fight against Israel's invasion . This force was led by IRGC Brigadier-General Hossein Dehghan (later Defense Minister) and was tasked with training members of Hezbollah . Two other people who were influential in guiding and communicating with Hezbollah after Dehghan were IRGC Brigadier-General Ahmad Vahidi ,
6240-776: The Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian War . According to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram , former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad helped fund the Quds Force while he was stationed at the Ramazan garrison near Iraq, during the late 1980s. In January 2010, according to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy , the mission of the Quds Force was expanded and the Force along with Hezbollah started
6400-668: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of
6560-741: The CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the United States. Responsible for extraterritorial operations , the Quds Force supports non-state actors in many countries, including Hezbollah , Hamas , Palestinian Islamic Jihad , the Houthi movement , and Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. According to Michael Wigginton et al., the Al-Quds Force is "a classic example of state-sponsored terrorism ." The Quds Force reports directly to
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6720-517: The Government of Iran has been providing millions of dollars directly to his office. In the second presidential election, held on 20 August 2009, Karzai was announced to have received just over 50% of the votes. However the election was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and widespread ballot stuffing , intimidation, and other electoral fraud . Two months later, under heavy U.S. and ally pressure, Karzai accepted calls for
6880-532: The Hezb-i-Islami movement, who was accused before of having contacts with warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar . This choice could be in line with Karzai's desire fore reconciliation with insurgents willing to lay down their arms and join the political system. After the second list of candidates was offered, several parliament members expressed discontent about the quality of the nominees, and analysts predicted
7040-698: The Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan led by Gulbadin Hekmatyar and Taliban groups Following an attack on an Israeli diplomat in India in February 2012, Delhi Police at the time contended that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had some involvement. This was subsequently confirmed in July 2012, after a report by the Delhi Police found evidence that members of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had been involved in
7200-546: The Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
7360-621: The International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), estimated that the force has about 5,000 personnel. In 2020, Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute estimated the Quds Force had the " divisional strength military formation " of approximately 17,000 to 21,000 members, split regionally. Companies controlled by the Quds Force maintain banking relationships with the Bank of Kunlun,
7520-533: The Mahdi Army —"all" of which "had close ties to Iran, some dating back decades" as part of their struggle against Saddam Hussein 's oppressive Arab nationalist regime. The Quds Force trained the Shiite militias in the use of roadside bombs, known as IEDs , that were the largest cause of U.S. military deaths in Iraq. In November 2006, with sectarian violence in Iraq increasing, U.S. General John Abizaid accused
7680-449: The National Assembly of Venezuela , accused Nicolás Maduro in January 2020 of allowing Qasem Soleimani and his Quds Forces to incorporate their sanctioned banks and their companies in Venezuela . Guaidó also said that Soleimani "led a criminal and terrorist structure in Iran that for years caused pain to his people and destabilized the Middle East, just as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis did with Hezbollah." The Quds Force has been described as
7840-421: The National Reconciliation Charter that the Afghan parliament passed in 2007, granting immunity from prosecution to combatants in past conflicts since the Soviet's invasion in 1979 ([in 2005, Human Rights Watch documented one particularly grisly period in 1992–93 in its report "Blood Stained Hands: Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan's Legacy of Impunity" ). This law was not signed off by him because of
8000-428: The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan , led by Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani . One of the Ramadan Headquarters' senior commanders and its chief of staff in the 1980s was the IRGC Brigadier-General Iraj Masjedi , who from 2017 to 2022 served as Iran’s ambassador to Iraq. At the time, another commander of the Ramadan Headquarters was the IRGC Brigadier-General Mohammad Reza Naqdi , who was later appointed as commander of
8160-428: The Popular Mobilization Forces who was assassinated together with Soleimani in January 2020, and Brigadier-General Hadi al-Amiri , later Interior Minister of Iraq. Muhandis and Amiri took part in the 1986 Iranian Siege of Basra under the command of IRGC General Hassan Danaeifar . After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Danaeifar became the Iranian ambassador in Iraq between 2006 and 2010. Muhandis had fled Iraq to Kuwait in
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#17327650424118320-455: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of
8480-409: The Supreme Leader of Iran , Ayatollah Khamenei . After Qasem Soleimani was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike , his deputy, Esmail Qaani , replaced him. The U.S. Secretary of State designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 2019 based on the IRGC's "continued support to and engagement in terrorist activity around the world." This
8640-414: The Taliban insurgents against the NATO-backed Karzai administration . Iranian-made weapons, including powerful explosive devices are often found inside Afghanistan. We did interdict a shipment, without question the Revolutionary Guard 's core Quds Force, through a known Taliban facilitator. Three of the individuals were killed... Iranians certainly view as making life more difficult for us if Afghanistan
8800-439: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of
8960-500: The Uzbek warlord , Abdul Rashid Dostum . Karzai was expected to retain the heads of high-profile ministries including Defense and Interior, who were regarded in Washington as experienced professionals. In addition to that the finance, intelligence and education ministers were also to remain in office. All of them were given a U.S. approval by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, when she attended Karzai's inauguration in November 2009. Analysts said that Karzai also made promises to
9120-423: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
9280-431: The monarchy-era , and ethnic minorities. When Karzai was a candidate in the 9 October 2004, presidential election , he won 21 of the 34 provinces , defeating his 22 opponents and becoming the first democratically elected leader of Afghanistan. Although his campaigning was limited due to fears of violence, elections passed without significant incident. Following investigation by the UN of alleged voting irregularities,
9440-479: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,
9600-543: The 13 February bomb attack in the capital. On 11 October 2011, the Obama Administration revealed the United States Government's allegations that the Quds Force was involved with the plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir , which also entailed plans to bomb the Israeli and Saudi embassies located in Washington, D.C. In August 2022, plans to assassinate former US government officials John Bolton and Mike Pompeo were uncovered by US federal prosecutors, likely in retaliation for
9760-424: The 17 candidates were voted down. The only woman approved was Amena Afzali as minister for Public Works, Martyrs and the Disabled. On 17 January, the Afghan parliament prolonged uncertainty by shutting for its winter recess until 20 February, without waiting for President Karzai to fill the rest of his cabinet. On 26 January 2010, on the eve of the International Afghanistan Conference in London Karzai set
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#17327650424119920-402: The 1980s against the government of Mohammad Najibullah . It then began funding and supporting Ahmad Shah Massoud 's Northern Alliance against the Taliban . However, in recent years, the Quds Force is alleged to have been helping and guiding the Taliban insurgents against the NATO-backed Karzai administration . There were also reports of the unit lending support to Bosnian Muslims fighting
10080-496: The Afghan parliament voted on the candidates in two sessions. The sessions were attended by 232 out of the 239 MPs. According to the law 50+1 (117) votes were necessary for acceptance. On 2 January 2010, a crisis emerged, when the count of the votes made clear that the parliament rejected two-thirds of the nominated persons. Of the 24 nominees introduced to parliament, only seven were accepted. The rejected nominees could not be put forward again and Afghanistan could remain without
10240-407: The Afghan parliament, after three days of debating, decided against giving trust vote to ministers with dual citizenship. When Karzai finally presented his list of 24 cabinet nominees to the Afghan parliament on 19 December, since according to the Afghan Constitution each nominee of ministerial appointments has to win a vote of confidence from the Lower House, it retained some leaders supported by
10400-454: The American newspaper Washington Post published an obtained draft of changes to the Afghan election law that was presented at a cabinet meeting earlier that month. This thorough rewriting of the current law dating from 2005 proposed to remove all three foreign members from the Electoral Complaints Commission: one member would be chosen by the Supreme Court, two by the parliament, one by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and one by
10560-572: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to
10720-596: The IRGC was established in 1981 by Mohammad Montazeri , son of Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri , and Mehdi Hashemi , then a member of the IRGC Command Council and brother of Ayatollah Montazeri’s son-in-law. This unit was tasked with providing military assistance to "Islamic liberation movements" abroad, especially in Shia -majority countries ruled by Sunni minorities, including Bahrain , Iraq and Lebanon . Both Montazeri and Hashemi had themselves received irregular warfare training in Palestinian Liberation Organization -run training camps in Southern Lebanon before
10880-426: The IRGC’s intelligence chief at the time and later the first commander of the Quds Force from its establishment in 1988 to 1998, and Fereydoun Vardinejad, later the Political Deputy of the Office of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani . Both Vahidi and Vardinejad were tasked in 1985 by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the IRGC to negotiate with Robert McFarlane , U.S. President Ronald Reagan ’s special envoy to Iran, on
11040-438: The Iranian "unit deployed to challenge the United States presence" in Iraq following the U.S. invasion of that country, which put "165,000 American troops along Iran 's western border," adding to the American troops already in Iran's eastern neighbor Afghanistan . The force "operated throughout Iraq, arming, aiding, and abetting Shiite militias"—i.e., the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq , Dawa , and
11200-463: The January 2020 death of Soleimani. It's been reported that Iran has been increasing its presence in Latin America through Venezuela . Little is known publicly what their objectives are in the region, but in 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates denounced Iran for meddling in "subversive activities" using Quds Forces. However, Iran claims it is merely "ensuring the survival of the regime" by propagating regional influence. Juan Guaidó , President of
11360-500: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it
11520-638: The Northern Alliance against the Taliban, who were backed by Pakistan and the Arab world . In 1999, after several Iranian diplomats were killed by the Taliban in Mazar-e Sharif , Iran nearly got into a war with the Taliban. The Quds Force reportedly fought alongside the United States and the Northern Alliance in the Battle for Herat . However, in recent years Iran is accused of helping and training
11680-543: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
11840-530: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
12000-481: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in
12160-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under
12320-826: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
12480-516: The Quds Force is classified and unknown. In 2007, Mahan Abedin of Center for the Study of Terrorism said that Quds Force numbers no more than 2,000 people, with 800 core operatives. Scott Shane , who interviewed several American scholars later that year, wrote that estimates range from 3,000 to 50,000. In 2013, Dexter Filkins wrote that the Quds Force has 10,000–20,000 members, "divided between combatants and those who train and oversee foreign assets". The 2020 edition of The Military Balance, published by
12640-725: The Quds Force of supporting "Shi'a death squads", while the government of Iran was pledging support in stabilization. Similarly, in July 2007, Major General Kevin Bergner of the U.S. Army alleged that members of the Quds Force aided in the planning of a raid on U.S. forces in the Iraqi city of Karbala in January 2007. Former CIA officer Robert Baer asserts the Quds Force uses couriers for all sensitive communications. On 24 December 2006, The New York Times reported that at least four Iranians had been captured by American troops in Iraq in
12800-579: The Quds Force was established as an independent service branch . It has the mission of liberating "Muslim land", especially al-Quds , from which it takes its name—"Jerusalem Force" in English. Both during and after the war, it provided support to the Kurds fighting Saddam Hussein . In 1982, a Quds unit was deployed to Lebanon , where it assisted in the genesis of Hezbollah . The Force also expanded its operations into neighboring Afghanistan, including assistance for Abdul Ali Mazari 's Shi'a Hezbe Wahdat in
12960-534: The Russian government called the detainments unacceptable. Alireza Nourizadeh , a political analyst at Voice of America , stated that their arrests were causing concern in Iranian intelligence because the five alleged officials were knowledgeable of a wide range of Quds Force and Iranian activities in Iraq. According to American ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad , one of the men in custody was Quds Force's director of operations. Iranian and Iraqi officials maintained that
13120-484: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
13280-588: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)
13440-518: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of
13600-577: The Shi'a Hezbe Wahdat forces against the Afghan government of Mohammad Najibullah . When Najibullah stepped down as President in 1992, Iran continued supporting Hezbe Wahdat against other Afghan militia groups. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996, Hezbe Wahdat had lost its founder and main leader, Abdul Ali Mazari , so the group joined Ahmad Shah Massoud 's Northern Alliance . Iran began supporting
13760-475: The U.S. Iraq Study Group , and had concluded that they must increase efforts with Sunni and Shiite groups in order to counter the influence of Sunni states. On 11 January 2007, U.S. forces raided and detained five employees of the Iranian liaison office in Erbil , Iraq. The U.S. military said the five detainees were connected to the Quds Force. The operation drew protests from the regional Kurdish government while
13920-417: The U.S. was the leading nation helping to rebuild Afghanistan. The United States helped put him in office in late 2001 to lead his nation. Karzai's relations with Pakistan were also strong, especially with Pakistan's Awami National Party (ANP). In December 2007, Karzai and his delegates travelled to Islamabad , Pakistan, for a usual meeting with Pervez Musharraf on trade ties and intelligence sharing between
14080-467: The West, but also several viewed as incompetent and even two that had been accused of involvement in the fraud that tainted the election. In August 2009 Karzai replaced Muhammad Ibrahim Adel, the minister of mines, who was being investigated for allegedly taking more than $ 20 million in bribes to help a Chinese firm win a lucrative contract. Karzai also replaced Sadiq Chakari, the religious affairs minister who
14240-498: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before
14400-411: The attackers were trained by Iranian officials; however, no evidence besides the sophistication of the attack has yet been presented. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of
14560-581: The best people in the IRGC". The Quds Force trains and equips foreign Islamic revolutionary groups around the Middle East. The paramilitary instruction provided by the Quds Force typically occurs in Iran or Sudan . Foreign recruits are transported from their home countries to Iran to receive training. The Quds Force sometimes plays a more direct role in the military operations of the forces it trains, including pre-attack planning and other operation-specific military advice. Since 1979, Iran had supported
14720-468: The bid to explore its resources. He stated, "morally, Afghanistan should give access as a priority to those countries that have helped Afghanistan massively in the past few years." While in Japan, Karzai also made his first visit to Hiroshima to pray for the atomic bomb victims. Japan has provided billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan since the beginning of 2002. In October 2010, Karzai acknowledged that
14880-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being
15040-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by
15200-466: The country, which helps fuel the ongoing insurgency . He has repeatedly demanded that NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces take more care when conducting military operations in residential areas to avoid civilian casualties which undermine his government's already weak standing in parts of the country. During the Karzai administration, public discontent grew about corruption and the civilian casualties in
15360-427: The detained men were part of a diplomatic mission in the city of Erbil , Iraq . The five Iranian detainees were still being held at a U.S. prison in Iraq as of 8 July 2007. The U.S. said they were "still being interrogated" and that it had "no plans to free them while they are seen as a security risk in Iraq." Iran said that the detainees were "kidnapped diplomats" and that they were "held as hostages." On 9 July 2009,
15520-620: The early 1980s and allegedly collaborated with Lebanese Hezbollah 's Chief of Military Operations Imad Mughniyeh in bombing the US embassy in Kuwait in 1983, after which he fled to Iran. In 1986 the Ramadan Headquarters of External Operations was created within the IRGC. This headquarters was responsible for Iran's links to Iraqi Kurdish groups, including the forces of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and
15680-399: The evidence against the men was only circumstantial, but on 29 December, and under U.S. pressure, the Iraqi government ordered the men to leave Iraq. They were driven back to Iran that day. In mid-January 2007 it was reported that the two alleged Quds force officers seized by American forces were Brig. Gen. Mohsen Chizari and Col. Abu Amad Davari. According to The Washington Post . Chizari is
15840-600: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak
16000-402: The fight against the Taliban insurgency . In May 2006, riots broke out in Kabul, when after a fatal traffic accident in the town involving a US military convoy security forces opened fire on protesters. During the rush, a truck went out of control and crashed into a dozen vehicles in Kabul's northern outskirts, killing at least one person and injuring six. Angry Afghans then threw stones, smashing
16160-666: The five detainees were released from U.S. custody to Iraqi officials. On 20 January 2007, a group of gunmen attacked the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala , captured four American soldiers, and subsequently killed them. The attackers passed through an Iraqi checkpoint at around 5 pm, a total of five black GMC Suburbans , similar to those driven by U.S. security and diplomatic officials. They were also wearing American military uniforms and spoke fluent English. Because of
16320-537: The following phylogenetic classification: Presidency of Hamid Karzai The Karzai administration was the government of Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai , who became the head of state of Afghanistan in December 2001 after the Taliban government was overthrown . Karzai was appointed at the 2002 Loya Jirga as the Interim President of the Afghan Transitional Administration . After
16480-678: The force is divided into branches focusing on "intelligence, finance, foreign languages, politics, sabotage, and special operations." Members are chosen both for their skill and "allegiance to the doctrine of the Islamic Revolution." In addition, Dionisi asserts in his book American Hiroshima that the Iranian Quds Force headquarters for operations in Iraq was moved in 2004 to the Iran-Iraq border in order to better supervise activities in Iraq. The Quds Force also operates
16640-577: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to
16800-476: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like
16960-469: The former warlords and tribal leaders who backed his campaign and expected government positions in return. The governor of Nangahar, Gul Agha Sherzai would have been seduced to become a supporter in his re-election by the promise of an influential position: he could become the new mayor of Kabul. The new names on the cabinet list included several relatively unknown figures in less influential jobs, and one parliament member said some were associates of some of
17120-472: The foundation of the Quds Force after the end of the Iran-Iraq War and Khomeini ’s death, the IRGC-QF has four main command centers to direct its intelligence and operational activities in neighboring countries in order to achieve its goals in these countries: Besides these main command centers, the document indicates that there are also six corps for each country or area in which they operate: The size of
17280-404: The framework for dialogue with Taliban leaders when he called on the group's leadership to take part in a " Loya Jirga " – or large assembly of elders—to initiate peace talks. A Taliban spokesman declined to talk in detail about Karzai's plans and only said the militants would make a decision "soon" about his offer. The beginning of the second term of Karzai was marked by his problems with forming
17440-457: The fraud-plagued election, and with these allegations Karzai desperately needed to restore his legitimacy at home and abroad. Karzai's inauguration on 19 November 2009 was an austere event, without overt celebrations. During his inauguration speech, he pledged to "end the culture of impunity and violation of law and bring to justice those involved in spreading corruption and abuse" and make it "obligatory for senior government officials to identify
17600-483: The interception of weapons coming from Iran. But we know that it's more than weapons; it's money; it's also according to some reports, training at Iranian camps as well. – General David Petraeus , Commander of US-NATO forces in Afghanistan, 16 March 2011 In 2007, Karzai said that Iran, so far, has been a helper in the reconstruction process. On 5 August 2007, Karzai was invited to Camp David in Maryland, USA , for
17760-466: The issue of the Lebanon hostage crisis . The force is described as "active in dozens of countries." According to former U.S. Army intelligence officer David Dionisi, the Quds Force is organized into eight different directorates based on geographic location: According to journalist Dexter Filkins , the force's members are "divided between combatants and those who train and oversee foreign assets," and
17920-466: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed
18080-472: The local level. This came weeks after he replaced Afghan security officials to take better control of state machinery and key ministries. One of the fired governors was Mohammad Gulab Mangal , who was in charge of the Taliban -filled Helmand Province and had both American and British support. Afghan's international supporters have previously requested improvements in the local administrations. Karzai's second term as president ended on 29 September 2014. He
18240-406: The many objections that were raised by domestic and international rights groups. The resolution which was passed earlier by the lower house of Parliament, Wolesi Jirga, on 31 January 2007 provided impunity to the war criminals including Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar . In September 2012, Karzai fired and hired 10 provincial governors in an attempt to improve governance and stop corruption on
18400-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following
18560-531: The minister of electricity and water. Karzai asked the parliament to create a new Ministry for Martyr and Disabled Affairs . At a news conference with the Belgian prime minister Leterme he also announced that he planned to create a ministry to fight illiteracy , and that he intended to nominate a woman to head it. Female politicians would also be appointed to preside several independent commissions and deputy minister's posts. The Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of
18720-455: The money wasted on the Iraq War was actually spent on rebuilding Afghanistan, his country would "be in heaven in less than one year". In May 2007, after as many as 51 Afghan civilians were killed in a bombing, Karzai asserted that his government "can no longer accept" casualties caused by the US and NATO operations. Karzai's relations with the United States were the strongest, because
18880-536: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as
19040-478: The national election commission on 3 November declared Karzai winner, without runoff, with 55.4% of the vote. This represented 4.3 million of the total 8.1 million votes cast. The election took place safely in spite of a surge of insurgent activity. Karzai was sworn in as President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on 7 December 2004, at a formal ceremony in Kabul. Many interpreted the ceremony as
19200-466: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created
19360-499: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal
19520-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian
19680-732: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became
19840-542: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in
20000-527: The post of Foreign Affairs. On 9 January 2010, Karzai presented his second list of candidates to the Wolesi Jirga, including one to replace the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Spanta. Three of the new nominees were women, for the posts of Women's Affairs, Public Health, and Disabled and Martyr portfolios – the only woman on the first list of candidates was rejected. Pelwasha Hassan , a prominent activist,
20160-411: The power brokers who supported Karzai's re-election. No senior positions would be given to supporters of opposition leader and rival Abdullah Abdullah. It is alleged that Karzai planned to keep the disputed Foreign Minister Spanta until the International Afghanistan Conference in London on 28 January 2010. Shortly before Karzai presented his list with nominees, the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of
20320-638: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
20480-429: The president. In the presidential elections of 2009, the five-member ECC—including three international members appointed by the U.N. envoy to Afghanistan – calculated that Karzai lost his first-round majority by the amount of vote-rigging and would need to face a run-off. The proposal would also limit the fixed number of women in Wolesi Jirga (Lower House) to a maximum of two per each of the country's 34 provinces. Further
20640-451: The presidential palace. Several hundred more congregated at an intersection near the US embassy. A few dozen people forced their way past a police cordon guarding the road to the US embassy and threw stones at vehicles carrying foreigners into the compound, prompting the occupants to fire into the air before turning back. The unrest left at least seven people dead and 40 injured. In a video broadcast on 24 September 2006, Karzai stated that if
20800-449: The previous few days. According to the article, the U.S. government suspected that two of them were members of Quds Force, which would be some of the first physical proof of Quds Force activity in Iraq. According to The Pentagon , the alleged Quds Force members were "involved in the transfer of IED technologies from Iran to Iraq." The two men had entered Iraq legally, although they were not accredited diplomats. Iraqi officials believed that
20960-406: The proposal intended to establish restrictive qualifications for presidential candidates: they should have a bachelor's degree and a "good reputation" and be a "wise and brave person" and not been "affected by psychic diseases." Presidential candidates would also have to deposit a bail of 5 million Afghanis (about $ 100,000), to be refunded only if the candidate wins or receives at least 20 percent of
21120-588: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
21280-602: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali
21440-489: The religious leader that originally chose Ahmad Shah Durrani, as key players in this event. Further evidence that Karzai views himself fulfilling a Durrani monarch's role arise from statements furnished by close allies within his government. Karzai tried to make peace and rebuild trust between communities in Afghanistan after years of war, by representing everyone in a big tent government, including Islamists (many of which were former rivals), former Communists, royalists from
21600-412: The same house, and they will live alongside each other for good." However, just a year prior Karzai warned that, "Iran, Pakistan, and others are not fooling anyone." If they don't stop, the consequences will be ... that the region will suffer with us equally. In the past we have suffered alone; this time everybody will suffer with us.... Any effort to divide Afghanistan ethnically or weaken it will create
21760-460: The same thing in the neighboring countries. All the countries in the neighborhood have the same ethnic groups that we have, so they should know that it is a different ball game this time. --Hamid Karzai, 17 February 2006 Some international criticism has centered around the government of Karzai in early 2009 for failing to secure the country from Taliban attacks, systemic governmental corruption, and most recently, widespread claims of electoral fraud in
21920-613: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
22080-523: The sophistication of the attack, some analysts have suggested that only a group like the Quds Force would be able to plan and carry out such an action. Former CIA officer Robert Baer also suggested that the five Americans were killed by the Quds Force in revenge for the Americans holding five Iranians since the 11 January raid in Irbil. It was reported that the U.S. military is investigating whether or not
22240-526: The sources of terrorism," he told the UN General Assembly, and "destroy terrorist sanctuaries beyond" the country, dismantle the elaborate networks in the region that recruit, indoctrinate, train, finance, arm, and deploy terrorists. These activities are also robbing thousands of Afghan children of their right to education, and prevent health workers from doing their jobs in Afghanistan. In addition he promised to eliminate opium-poppy cultivation in
22400-497: The sources of their assets and to declare their properties in a transparent manner" . Western officials publicly said his lineup of minister candidates would be a first vital test to show whether he was serious about combating corruption, which undermined his government's credibility and fed the Taliban insurgency. The Obama administration urged Karzai to exclude ineffective or corrupt officials, while powerful Afghans who helped deliver his re-election were demanding positions, including
22560-573: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses
22720-717: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
22880-400: The third highest officer of Quds Force, making him the allegedly highest-ranked Iranian to ever be held by the United States. The New York Sun reported that the documents described the Quds Force as not only cooperating with Shi'a death squads, but also with fighters related to al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sunna . It said that the Quds Force had studied the Iraq situation in a similar manner to
23040-445: The two Islamic states. Karzai also met and had a 45-minute talk with Benazir Bhutto on the morning of 27 December, hours before her trip to Liaquat National Bagh , where she was assassinated after her speech. After Bhutto's death, Karzai called her his sister and a brave woman who had a clear vision "for her own country, for Afghanistan, and for the region – a vision of democracy, prosperity, and peace." In September 2008, Karzai
23200-510: The unit is not independent: "Quds Force, although it's a highly specialized department, it is subject to strict, iron-clad military discipline. It's completely controlled by the military hierarchy of the IRGC, and the IRGC is very tightly controlled by the highest levels of the administration in Iran." According to a Los Angeles Times report, in Abedin's view, "[I]t's a very capable force—their people are extremely talented, [and] they tend to be
23360-485: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in
23520-475: The vote (of the 32 candidates listed by the election commission in 2009, only two cleared this threshold). Karzai's spokesman Wahid Omar said that amendments were approved by the cabinet and sent to the Ministry of Justice. Karzai could sign a decree on the changes while the parliament had its winter recess. In March 2010 the president's office admitted that it had entered into force without Karzai's signature
23680-435: The windows of the convoy vehicles. Afghan police also opened fire when they came to the assistance of the US troops. Rioters set two police cars alight. At least seven civilians were killed during the protest and 40 wounded. Thousands of protesters marched through the capital shouting slogans against Karzai and the US. By early afternoon, up to 2,000 protesters had gathered in central Kabul, some marching on parliament and some on
23840-400: Was accused in taking part in a kickback scam involving Afghan pilgrims to Mecca . According to political analysts, the list was "not encouraging", but it reflected realpolitik . Slightly more than half were ministers who would stay in their current positions or who had served previously in Karzai's government. At least one known former warlord, Ismail Khan , was nominated to serve again as
24000-597: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of
24160-576: Was completely destroyed... Today, we are talking about fighting corruption in Afghanistan, improved legal standards... You see the glass half empty or half full. I see it as half full. Others see it as half empty." In June 2010, Karzai travelled to Japan for a five-day visit where the two nations discussed a new aid provided by the hosting nation and the untapped mineral resources recently announced. Karzai invited Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi and others to invest in Afghan mining projects. He told Japanese officials that Japan would be given priority in
24320-505: Was expected. Ever since Karzai's new administration took over in 2004, the economy of Afghanistan has been growing rapidly for the first time in many years. Government revenue is increasing every year, although it is still heavily dependent on foreign aid. On 20 September 2006, Karzai told the United Nations General Assembly that Afghanistan has become the "worst victim" of terrorism. Karzai said terrorism
24480-534: Was invited on a special visit to witness the swearing in ceremony of Asif Ali Zardari , who became the new President of Pakistan . Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have improved since PPP members Zardari and Yousaf Raza Gillani took office. The two nations often make contacts with one another concerning the war on terrorism and trade. Pakistan even allowed NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan to launch attacks on illegal militant groups in Pakistan. This
24640-402: Was now chosen by him as minister of women's affairs. Karzai had been sharply criticized when his previous line-up had only one woman. Only names for the Ministry of Energy and Water or the Ministry of Telecommunications were still lacking. Among the new nominees was Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal , as candidate for the post of economics. Arghandiawal is the chairman of a party that is an offshoot of
24800-535: Was originally titled Corps but changed to Force by Khamenei. The predecessor of the Quds Force, known as 'Department 900', was created during the Iran–Iraq War as a special intelligence unit, while the IRGC was allegedly active abroad in Afghanistan before the war. The department was later merged into 'Special External Operations Department'. After the Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988, the IRGC was reorganized and
24960-597: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in
25120-478: Was something strongly opposed by the previous government of Pakistan. The two states finally signed into law the long-awaited Afghanistan–Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement in 2011, which among other things allow shipment truck to travel from one state to the other. Although the U.S. and others often charge that Iran is meddling in Afghanistan's affairs, Karzai stated that Iran is a friend despite Iranian-made weapons being found in his country. We did interdict
25280-613: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in
25440-546: Was the first time that the U.S. ever designated another government's department as a FTO. While the formation's official name is Quds Force ( lit. ' Jerusalem Force ' ), it has also been referred to as the 'Quds Corps' ( Persian : سپاه قدس , romanized : sepah-e qods ) in Persian media. In Arabic, Jerusalem is most commonly known as القُدس al-Quds , meaning "The Holy" or "The Holy Sanctuary", cognate with Hebrew : הקדש , romanized : Ha-Qodesh , lit. 'The Holy'. It
25600-492: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راهآهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in
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