In 1709, Mirwais Hotak, a local Ghilzai tribal leader, successfully rebelled

against the Safavids. He defeated Gurgin Khan and made Afghanistan

independent.[33] Mirwais died of a natural cause in 1715 and was succeeded by
his brother Abdul Aziz, who was soon killed by Mirwais'
son Mahmud for treason. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian
capital of Isfahan, captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed
himself King of Persia.[33] 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, the last Hotak
stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotak, at which point the incarcerated 16-year-
old Ahmad Shah Durrani was freed and made the commander of an Afghan
regiment. Soon after the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India. By 1747, the
Afghans chose Durrani as their head of state.[34]Durrani and his Afghan army
conquered much of present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan,
the Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, and Delhi in India.[35] He defeated
the Indian Maratha Empire, and one of his biggest victories was the 1761 Battle
of Panipat.

In October 1772, Durrani died of a natural cause and was buried at a site now
adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar. He was succeeded by his
son, Timur Shah, who transferred the capital of Afghanistan from Kandahar to
Kabul in 1776. After Timur's death in 1793, the Durrani throne passed down to
his son Zaman Shah, followed by Mahmud Shah, Shuja Shah and others.[36]

The Afghan Empire was under threat in the early 19th century by the Persians in
the west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Fateh Khan, leader of the Barakzai
tribe, had installed 21 of his brothers in positions of power throughout the
empire. After his death, they rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire
between themselves. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan had many
temporary rulers until Dost Mohammad Khan declared himself emir in 1826.

1
[37]
The Punjab region was lost to Ranjit Singh, who invaded Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa and in 1834 captured the city of Peshawar.[38] In 1837, during
the Battle of Jamrud near the Khyber Pass, 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 and the first major conflict during the
"Great Game" was initiated.

In 1838, the British marched into Afghanistan and arrested Dost Mohammad,
sent him into exile in India and replaced him with the previous ruler, Shah
Shuja.[40][41]Following an uprising, the 1842 retreat from Kabul of British-Indian
forces, and the Battle of Kabul that led to its recapture, the British placed Dost
Mohammad Khan back into power and withdrew their military forces from
Afghanistan. In 1878, the Second Anglo-Afghan War was fought over perceived
Russian influence, Abdur Rahman Khan replaced Ayub Khan, and Britain
gained controlled Afghanistan's foreign relations as part of the Treaty of
Gandamak of 1879. In 1893, Mortimer Durand made Amir Abdur Rahman
Khan sign a controversial agreement in which the
ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line. This was
a standard divide and rule policy of the British and would lead to strained
relations, especially with the later new state of Pakistan.

After the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of
Rawalpindi on 19 August 1919, King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan
a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's
traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international
community and, following a 1927–28 tour of Europe and Turkey, 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

2
fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution, which made elementary
education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in 1923.

Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the
traditional burqa for women and the opening of a number of co-educational
schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with
overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah Khan was forced to abdicate in
January 1929 after Kabul fell to rebel forces led by Habibullah Kalakani.
Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed
Kalakani in November 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned
the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to
modernisation but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq, a Hazara school
student.

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne
and reigned from 1933 to 1973.

The root cause of the Third Anglo-Afghan War lies many years before the actual
fighting commenced. For the British in India, Afghanistan was long seen as a
potential source of threat. For a long time the British worried
about Russian intentions in the region, concerned that a possible invasion of
India could be launched by Tsarist forces through Afghanistan. [9] This period
became known as the Great Game. In an effort to negate this threat, the British
made numerous attempts at imposing their will upon Kabul, and over the course
of the 19th Century fought two wars: the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42)
and the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80).

The end of the Second Afghan War in 1880 marked the beginning of almost 40
years of good relations between Britain and Afghanistan under the leadership
of Abdur Rahman Khan and Habibullah Khan, during which time the British
attempted to manage Afghan foreign policy through the payment of a large
subsidy.[12] Ostensibly, the country remained independent, however under

3
the Treaty of Gandamak (1879) it accepted that in external matters it would
"...have no windows looking on the outside world, except towards India".

The death in 1901 of Emir Abdur Rahman Khan led indirectly to the war that
began 18 years later. His successor, Habibullah, was a pragmatic leader who
sided with Britain or Russia, depending on Afghan interests.[13][14] Despite
considerable resentment over not being consulted over the Anglo-Russian
Convention of 1907 (Convention of St. Petersburg), Afghanistan remained
neutral during the First World War (1914–18), resisting considerable pressure
from the Ottoman Empire when it entered the conflict on the side of Imperial
Germany and the Sultan (as titular leader of Islam) called for a holy war against
the Allies.

Despite remaining neutral in the conflict, however, Habibullah did in fact accept
a Turkish-German mission in Kabul and military assistance from the Central
Powers as he attempted to play both sides of the conflict for the best deal. [14]
[16]
Through continual prevarication he resisted numerous requests for assistance,
however he failed to keep in check troublesome tribal leaders, intent on
undermining British rule in India, as Turkish agents attempted to foment trouble
along the frontier.[15]The departure of a large part of the British Indian Army to
fight overseas and news of British defeats at the hands of the Turks aided
Turkish agents in efforts at sedition, and in 1915 there was unrest amongst
the Mohmands and then the Mahsuds. Notwithstanding these outbreaks, the
frontier generally remained settled at a time when Britain could ill afford
trouble.

A Turco-German mission left Kabul in 1916. By that time, however, it had

successfully convinced Habibullah that Afghanistan was an independent nation
and that it should be beholden to no one. With the end of the First World War,
Habibullah sought to gain reward from the British government for his assistance
during the war. Looking for British recognition of Afghanistan's independence

4
in foreign affairs, he demanded a seat at the Versailles Peace Conference in
1919. This request was denied by the Viceroy, Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount
Chelmsford, on the grounds that attendance at the conference was confined to
the belligerents. Further negotiations were scheduled, but before they could
begin Habibullah was assassinated on 19 February 1919.

This resulted in a power struggle as Habibullah's brother Nasrullah

Khan proclaimed himself as Habibullah's successor, while in Kabul Amanullah,
Habibullah's third son, had also proclaimed himself Amir. However, the Afghan
army suspected Amanullah's complicity in the death of his father. Needing a
way of cementing his power, upon seizing the throne in April 1919 Amanullah
posed as a man of democratic ideals, promising reforms in the system of
government. He stated that there should be no forced labour, tyranny or
oppression, and that Afghanistan should be free and independent and no longer
bound by the Treaty of Gandamak.

Upon seizing the throne, Amanullah had his uncle Nasrullah arrested for
Habibullah's murder and had him sentenced to life imprisonment. Nasrullah had
been the leader of a more conservative element in Afghanistan and his treatment
rendered Amanullah's position as Amir somewhat tenuous. By April 1919 he
realised that if he could not find a way to placate the conservatives he would be
unlikely to maintain his hold on power. Looking for a diversion from the
internal strife in the Afghan court and sensing advantage in the rising civil
unrest in India following the Amritsar massacre, Amanullah decided to invade
British India.

In 1919 the Afghan regular army was not a very formidable force, and was only
able to muster some 50,000 men. These men were organised into
21 cavalry regiments and 75 infantry battalions, with about 280
modern artillery pieces, organised into 70 batteries, in support.[21] In addition to
5
this, however, in a boost to the army's strength, the Afghan command could call
upon the loyalty of up to 80,000 frontier tribesmen and an indeterminate number
of deserters from local militia units under British command. In reality, the
Afghan regular army was not ready for war. As in past years, the upper levels of
the officer corps were riddled with political intrigue. In his book on the
campaign, Lieutenant-General George Molesworth gave the following
evaluation of the Amir's army:

"Afghan regular units...were ill-trained, ill-paid, and probably under strength.

The cavalry was little better than indifferent infantry mounted on equally
indifferent ponies. Rifles varied between modern German, Turkish and British
types, to obsolete Martinis and Snyders. Few infantry units had bayonets.
Artillery was ponydrawn, or pack, and included modern 10cm Krupp howitzers,
75mm Krupp mountain guns and ancient 7 pounder weapons. There were a few,
very old, four-barrel Gardiner machine guns. Ammunition was in short supply
and distribution must have been very difficult. For the artillery much black
powder was used, both as a propellent and bursting charge for shells. The Kabul
arsenal workshops were elementary and mainly staffed by Sikh artificers with
much ingenuity but little real skill. There was no organised transport and
arrangements for supply were rudimentary"

In support of the regulars, the Afghan command expected to call out the tribes,
which could gather up to 20,000 or 30,000 fighters in the Khyber region alone.
In stark contrast to the regulars, the tribal lashkars were probably the best troops
that the Afghans had, being of excellent fighting quality, well armed, mainly
with weapons that they had made themselves or stolen from the garrisons and
with plenty of ammunition.

In meeting this threat, the British could call on a much larger force. In May
1919, the British and British Indian Army, not including frontier militia, totalled
eight divisions, as well as five independent brigades of infantry and three of

6
cavalry. Artillery was also in short supply, and the three frontier divisions each
had a British field artillery brigade of the Royal Field Artillery with two
batteries of 18-pdrs and one battery of 4.5-inch howitzers, and an Indian
mountain brigade with two batteries of 2.75-inch mountain guns. There were
also two batteries of tractor drawn 6-inch howitzer and two British mountain
batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery, and were reinforced with 3.7-inch
mountain howitzers. However, most batteries had only four guns. Finally there
were also 15 pounder guns of the Frontier Garrison Artillery.

Machine guns, at least on the Khyber front, were old .303 Maxims. The British
gained a command and control advantage with their use of motor transport and
wireless communications while armoured cars and RAF detachments increased
their firepower and reach, the latter being demonstrated to the Afghans by a
bombing raid on Kabul itself. They could also direct the fire of the 60-pdrs. But
the main problem for the British was discontent among their soldiers. The troops
in India were no longer as uncritical as they had been when considering what
they were being asked to do.[28] Like other units of the British Army many of the
troops considered the war over and looked forward to being demobilised.

Although Amanullah continued to profess that he had no untoward intentions,

Roos-Keppel decided that it was prudent to continue the advance and ordered
the army to pursue the Afghans across the border.[25] On 13 May British and
Indian troops seized control of the western Khyber without opposition and
occupied Dacca,[16] however, the British camp was poorly sited for defence and
as a consequence they came under an intense long-range artillery barrage from
Afghan artillery before Amanullah launched an infantry assault on them. This
assault was defeated and the British launched a counter-attack the following day,
however, they were unable to consolidate their position and as a result it was not
until 17 May that the area was secured and the Afghans withdrew.

7
King Amanullah objected to the British about the air raids on Kabul citing
British condemnation of the German Zeppelin attacks on London. In his letter to
the British government he said, "It is a matter of great regret that the throwing of
bombs by Zeppelins on London was denounced as a most savage act and the
bombardment of places of worship and sacred spots was considered a most
abominable operation, while now we see with our own eyes that such operations
were a habit which is prevalent amongst all civilized people of the
West." During the course of the conflict, British aircraft losses included at least
one plane crashed and two shot down.

Although the fighting concluded in August 1919, its effects continued to be felt
in the region for some time afterwards. The nationalism and disruption that it
had sparked stirred up more unrest in the years to come, particularly
in Waziristan. The tribesmen, always ready to exploit governmental weakness,
whether real or perceived, banded together in the common cause of disorder and
unrest. They had become well-armed as a result of the conflict, whence they
benefitted greatly from the weapons and ammunition that the Afghans had left
behind and from an influx of manpower in large numbers of deserters from the
militia that had joined their ranks. With these additions they launched
a campaign of resistance against British authority on the North-West Frontier
that was to last until the end of the Raj.

Mohammed Zahir Shah was the last King of Afghanistan, reigning from 8
November 1933 until he was deposed on 17 July 1973. During his four decades
of rule, Zahir Shah became a prominent Afghan figure in the world. He
established friendly relations with many countries and worked on modernizing
his country.

Zahir Shah was born on 15 October 1914, in Kabul, Afghanistan.[2] He was the
son of Mohammed Nadir Shah, a senior member of the Muhamadzai Royal
family, also known as the family of King Saul from the Tribe of Benjamin and

8
commander in chief of the Afghan army under former king Amanullah Khan.
Nadir Shah assumed the throne after the execution of Habibullah Ghazi on 10
October 1929.[3] Mohammed Zahir's father, son of Sardar Mohammad Yusuf
Khan, was born in Dehradun, British India, his family having been exiled
following the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Nadir Shah was a descendant of
Sardar Sultan Mohammed Khan Telai, half-brother of Amir Dost Mohammad
Khan. His grandfather Mohammad Yahya Khan (father in law of Amir Yaqub
Khan) was in charge of the negotiations with the British leading to the Treaty of
Gandamak. After the British invasion following the killing of Sir Louis
Cavagnari in 1879, Yaqub Khan, Yahya Khan and his sons, Princes Mohammad
Yusuf Khan and Mohammad Asef Khan, were seized by the British and
transferred under custody to the British Raj, where they forcibly remained until
the two princes were invited back to Afghanistan by Emir Abdur Rahman
Khan in the last year of his reign (1901). During the reign of Amir Habibullah
they received the title of Companions of the King (Musahiban).

Zahir Shah was educated in a special class for princes at Habibia High School in
Kabul. He continued his education in France where his father had been sent as a
diplomatic envoy, studying at the Pasteur Institute and the University of
Montpellier. When he returned to Afghanistan he helped his father and uncles
restore order and reassert government control during a period of lawlessness in
the country. He was later enrolled at an Infantry School and appointed a privy
counsellor. Zahir Shah served in the government positions of deputy war
minister and minister of education. Zahir Shah was fluent in Pashto, Persian, and
French.

Zahir Khan was proclaimed King (Shah) on 8 November 1933 at the age of 19,
after the assassination of his father Mohammed Nadir Shah. Following his
ascension to the throne he was given the regnal title "He who puts his trust in
God, follower of the firm religion of Islam".For the first thirty years he did not

9
effectively rule, ceding power to his paternal uncles, Mohammad Hashim
Khan and Shah Mahmud Khan.[8] This period fostered a growth in Afghanistan's
relations with the international community as in 1934, Afghanistan joined
the League of Nations while also receiving formal recognition from the United
States. By the end of the 1930s, agreements on foreign assistance and trade had
been reached with many countries, most notably with the 'Axis
powers'; Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Zahir Shah provided aid, weapons and Afghan fighters to the Uighur and
Kirghiz Muslim rebels who had established the First East Turkestan Republic.
The aid was not capable of saving the First East Turkestan Republic, as the
Afghan, Uighur and Kirghiz forces were defeated in 1934 by the Chinese
Muslim 36th Division (National Revolutionary Army) led by General Ma
Zhancang at the Battle of Kashgar and Battle of Yarkand. All the Afghan
volunteers were killed by the Chinese Muslim troops, who then abolished the
First East Turkestan Republic, and reestablished Chinese government control
over the area.

Following the end of the Second World War, Zahir Shah recognised the need for
the modernisation of Afghanistan and recruited a number of foreign advisers to
assist with the process. During this period Afghanistan's first modern university
was founded. During his reign a number of potential advances and reforms were
derailed as a result of factionalism and political infighting.

Zahir Shah was able to govern on his own in 1963and despite the factionalism
and political infighting a new constitution was introduced in 1964 which turned
Afghanistan into a modern democratic state by introducing free elections, a
parliament, civil rights, women's rights and universal suffrage.

The sons of Moḥammad Nāder Shah, Zahir and his brothers reasserted central
government control during a period of anarchy and banditry in the late 1920s.
Zahir Shah came to the throne at the age of 19, after the assassination of his

10
father in November 1933, having previously served as a cabinet minister. For a
number of years Zahir Shah remained in the background while his relatives ran
the government, but he asserted his power through the constitution of 1964,
which established a constitutional monarchy and prohibited royal relatives from
holding public office.
Zahir Shah undertook a number of economic development projects, including
irrigation and highway construction, backed by foreign aid, largely from
the United States and the Soviet Union. He was also able to maintain
Afghanistan’s neutral position in international politics. His reforms seemed to
have little effect outside the Kabul area, however. In the early 1970s the country
suffered drought and famine. Pashto tribes along the Pakistan border continued
to press for autonomy, and the political structure in the capital was unable to
deal with the country’s economic problems. In a bloodless coup on July 17,
1973, Zahir Shah was deposed. The leader of the coup, General Mohammad
Daud Khan (the king’s brother-in-law), proclaimed Afghanistan a republic with
himself as its president. Zahir Shah formally abdicated on Aug. 24, 1973, and
went into exile in Italy. Following the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban, he
returned to Afghanistan in 2002. Zahir Shah, who publicly opposed the
restoration of the monarchy and declined to run for president, was later given the
honorary title Father of the Nation.

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne
and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946, Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance
of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of
Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime
Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom,
but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced
in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law.
Daoud Khan sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more
distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a
11
participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in 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 per capita basis, Afghanistan received
more Soviet development aid than any other country. In 1973, while King Zahir
Shah was on an official overseas visit, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup
and became the first President of Afghanistan. In the meantime, Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto got neighboring Pakistan involved in Afghanistan. Some experts suggest
that Bhutto paved the way for the April 1978 Saur Revolution.

Outside the Arg Presidential Palace in Kabul, a day after the April 1978 Marxist
revolution in which PresidentDaoud Khan was assassinated along with his entire
family.

In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)

seized power in Afghanistan in the Saur Revolution. Within months, opponents
of the communist government launched an uprising in eastern Afghanistan that
quickly expanded into a civil war waged by guerrilla mujahideen against
government forces countrywide. The Pakistani government provided these
rebels with covert training centers, while the Soviet Union sent thousands of
military advisers to support the PDPA government. [44] Meanwhile, increasing
friction between the competing factions of the PDPA — the dominant Khalq and
the more moderate Parcham — resulted in the dismissal of Parchami cabinet
members and the arrest of Parchami military officers under the pretext of a
Parchami coup.

In September 1979, Nur Muhammad Taraki was assassinated in a coup within

the PDPA orchestrated by fellow Khalq member Hafizullah Amin, who assumed
the presidency. Distrusted by the Soviets, Amin was assassinated by Soviet
special forces in December 1979. A Soviet-organized government, led by
Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions, filled the vacuum.

12
Soviet troops were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal in more
substantial numbers, although the Soviet government did not expect to do most
of the fighting in Afghanistan. As a result, however, the Soviets were now
directly involved in what had been a domestic war in Afghanistan. The PDPA
prohibited usury, declared equality of the sexes, and introduced women to
political life.

The United States had been supporting anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen and
foreign "Afghan Arab" fighters through Pakistan's ISI as early as mid-1979
(see CIA activities in Afghanistan). Billions in cash and weapons, which
included over two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, were
provided by the United States and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan.

During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Soviet forces and their proxies killed
between 562,000[50] and 2 million Afghans,[51][52][53][54][55][56][57] and also displaced
about 6 million people who subsequently fled Afghanistan, mainly
to Pakistan and Iran.[58] Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province functioned as
an organisational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance,
with the province's influential Deobandi ulama playing a major supporting role
in promoting the 'jihad'.[59] Faced with mounting international pressure and
numerous casualties, the Soviets withdrew in 1989 but continued to support
Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah until 1992.

From 1989 until 1992, Najibullah's government tried to solve the ongoing civil
war with economic and military aid, but without Soviet troops on the ground.
Pakistan's spy agency (ISI), headed by Hamid Gul at the time, was interested in
a trans-national Islamic revolution which would cover Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Central Asia. For this purpose Pakistan masterminded an attack on Jalalabad for
the Mujahideen to establish their own government in Afghanistan. [61] Najibullah
tried to build support for his government by portraying his government
as Islamic, and in the 1990 constitution the country officially became an Islamic

13
state and all references of communism were removed. Nevertheless, Najibullah
did not win any significant support, and with the dissolution of the Soviet
Union in December 1991, he was left without foreign aid. This, coupled with the
internal collapse of his government, led to his ousting from power in April 1992.
After the fall of Najibullah's government in 1992, the post-communist Islamic
State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accord, a peace and
power-sharing agreement under which all the Afghan parties were united in
April 1992, except for the Pakistani supported Hezb-e Islami of Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar started a bombardment campaign against the capital city
Kabul, which marked the beginning of a new phase in the war.[62]

Saudi Arabia and Iran supported different Afghan militias and instability quickly
developed.[66] The conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-
scale war.

Due to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police
units, and a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic
State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Atrocities were committed by
individuals of the different armed factions while Kabul descended into
lawlessness and chaos. Because of the chaos, some leaders increasingly had only
nominal control over their (sub-)commanders. For civilians there was little
security from murder, rape, and extortion. An estimated 25,000 people died
during the most intense period of bombardment by Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami
and the Junbish-i Milli forces of Abdul Rashid Dostum, who had created an
alliance with Hekmatyar in 1994. Half a million people fled Afghanistan.

Southern and eastern Afghanistan were under the control of local commanders
such as Gul Agha Sherzai and others. In 1994, the Taliban (a movement
originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan
refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a political-religious

14
force. The Taliban first took control of southern Afghanistan in 1994 and forced
the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders.

In late 1994, forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud held on to Kabul. Rabbani's

government took steps to reopen courts, restore law and order, and initiate a
nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and
democratic elections. Massoud invited Taliban leaders to join the process but
they refused

The Taliban's early victories in late 1994 were followed by a series of defeats
that resulted in heavy losses. The Taliban attempted to capture Kabul in early
1995 but were repelled by forces under Massoud. In September 1996, as the
Taliban, with military support from Pakistan[72] and financial support from Saudi
Arabia, prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat
from Kabul.[73] The Taliban seized Kabul in the same month and established
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed a strict form of Sharia,
similar to that found in Saudi Arabia. According to Physicians for Human
Rights (PHR), "no other regime in the world has methodically and violently
forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of
physical punishment from showing their faces, seeking medical care without a
male escort, or attending school"[74] (this statement, though, was made in 1998,
long before the advent of ISIS which has imposed even tougher and more
violent sharia controls).

After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Massoud and Dostum formed
the Northern Alliance. The Taliban defeated Dostum's forces during the Battles
of Mazar-i-Sharif (1997–98). Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf,
began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern
Alliance. From 1996 to 2001, the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin
Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri was also operating inside Afghanistan.[79] This
and the fact that around one million Afghans were internally displaced made the

15
United States worry. From 1990 to September 2001, around 400,000 Afghans
died in the internal mini-wars.[

On 9 September 2001, Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide

attackers in Panjshir province of Afghanistan. Two days later, the September 11
attacks were carried out in the United States. The US government suspected
Osama bin Laden as the perpetrator of the attacks, and demanded that the
Taliban hand him over.[82] After refusing to comply, the October 2001 Operation
Enduring Freedom was launched. The majority of Afghans supported the
American invasion of their country.[83][84] During the initial invasion, US and UK
forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps. The United States began working with
the Northern Alliance to remove the Taliban from power.

In December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown and the
new Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai was formed,
the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN
Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic
security. Taliban forces also began regrouping inside Pakistan, while more
coalition troops entered Afghanistan and began rebuilding the war-torn country.

Shortly after their fall from power, the Taliban began an insurgency to regain
control of Afghanistan. Over the next decade, ISAF and Afghan troops led many
offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them. Afghanistan
remains one of the poorest countries in the world due to a lack of foreign
investment, government corruption, and the Taliban insurgency.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government was able to build some democratic

structures, and the country changed its name to the Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan. Attempts were made, often with 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. In the decade following 2002, over five

16
million Afghans were repatriated, including some who were
forcefully deported from Western countries.

By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form in parts of the

country. In 2010, President Karzai attempted to hold peace negotiations with the
Taliban leaders, but the rebel group refused to attend until mid-2015 when the
Taliban supreme leader finally decided to back the peace talks.

After the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, many prominent
Afghan figures were assassinated. Afghanistan–Pakistan border
skirmishes intensified and many large scale attacks by the Pakistan-
based Haqqani Network also took place across Afghanistan. The United States
blamed rogue elements within the Pakistani government for the increased
attacks.[97][98] The U.S. government spent tens of billions of dollars on
development aid over 15 years and over a trillion dollars on military expenses
during the same period. Corruption by Western defense and development
contractors and associated Afghans reached unprecedented levels in a country
where the national GDP was often only a small fraction of the U.S.
government's annual budget for the conflict.

Following the 2014 presidential election President Karzai left power and Ashraf
Ghani became President in September 2014. The US war in Afghanistan
(America's longest war) officially ended on 28 December 2014. However,
thousands of US-led NATO troops have remained in the country to train and
advise Afghan government forces. The 2001–present war has resulted in over
90,000 direct war-related deaths, which includes insurgents, Afghan civilians
and government forces.

Members of parliament opposed to the landmark 2009 Elimination of Violence

Against Women (EVAW) law, notably the parliamentary Judicial Commission
headed by Nazir Ahmad Hanafi, continued their efforts to amend the law to
remove provisions regulating the minimum age of marriage, prescribing
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punishments for domestic assault; and providing for women’s shelters. As of
November 2016, the draft amendments were being considered by the
parliamentary Commission on Women, Civil Society and Human Rights.

Although in December 2015 the Supreme Court issued a judicial ruling banning
the imprisonment of women for running away from their families, the ban was
limited to cases in which the women went to a medical provider, the police, or
the house of a close male relative (mahram). As this was the practice before the
ruling, the court’s action represented no real change. In many cases, women
running away from home are fleeing domestic violence and forced marriages.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reported that in the
first eight months of 2016, it documented 2,621 cases of domestic violence,
about the same as 2015, although the number is likely much higher due to
underreporting.

On March 8, the Supreme Court granted significant sentence reductions to 13

men convicted of the murder of Farkhunda, a woman who was beaten to death
by a mob of men in Kabul in March 2015 in a case that sparked widespread
criticim of the police and judiciary. The court also reduced the sentences of nine
other defendants who had been convicted of assault. Many of the men involved
in the attack were never arrested.

In December 2015, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission

issued a report documenting the widespread use of so-called virginity
examinations on female detainees. Afghan police and prosecutors routinely
order such tests on women in their custody, and use the results to charge women
with “morality crimes.” President Ashraf Ghani reportedly ordered a review of
the practice, but as of November 2016, no results had been announced.

The Afghan government reportedly finalized its implementation plan for the
National Action Plan for Women Peace and Security, under UN Security
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Council Resolution 1325. However, as of November 2016, the government had
not finalized a budget for the implementation plan.

In December 2015, Sima Joyenda, one of Afghanistan’s only two female

governors, was removed from her post in the western Ghor province after she
received a number of death threats. Joyenda was reappointed as deputy governor
of Kabul province, but the case illustrates the continuing threats that female
public officials face in Afghanistan.

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