1. Afghanistan has borders with Pakistan, former Soviet republics, Iran, and a short border with China. It became a unified state in the 1700s but remained poor and underdeveloped. 2. In the 20th century, Afghanistan had shifting alliances with Britain and the Soviet Union. A communist coup in 1978 installed a pro-Soviet government and led to a Soviet invasion in 1979 to support the new regime. 3. The Soviet withdrawal in 1989 was followed by a civil war and the rise of the Taliban regime in the 1990s. Al Qaeda attacks from Afghanistan in 2001 prompted a U.S.-led invasion that overthrew the Taliban.

3. The South and the East - with
Pakistan
The North - former Soviet
republics and with
independent nations of
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
and Tajikistan.
West – Iran
There is also a short border with
China in the mountainous.
(East)

4. The population of Afghanistan is
uncertain.
Multiethnic Muslim state.
Language?

5. Afghanistan became a unified entity
in the mid-1700s, a poor and
underdeveloped country in a very
rough neighborhood. Beginning in
the 1830s, Afghanistan fought two
wars over the issue of Russia’s
feeble attempts at gaining influence
and using Afghanistan against
British India, which contained the
territory of what is now modern
Pakistan. The Third Anglo-Afghan
War was fought after World War I
for independence from British
interference with Afghan affairs.

6. After victory in the third war,
later celebrated as the
beginning of Afghan self-rule,
Amanullah decided to
modernize his kingdom. He
was the first Afghan ruler to
take aid and military
assistance from the Soviet
Union. He announced reforms
and predictably had to put
down a few revolts in the east
over taxation, conscription,
and social changes, such as
the education of women.

7. In May 1921, Afghanistan and the
Russian Soviet Republic signed a
Treaty of Friendship. The Soviets
provided Amanullah with aid in the form
of cash, technology and military
equipment. British influence in
Afghanistan waned. The Soviets
desired to extract more from the
friendship treaty than Amanullah was
willing to give. The United Kingdom
imposed minor sanctions and
diplomatic slights as a response to the
treaty, fearing that Amanullah was
slipping out of their sphere of influence.

8. The Saur Revolution
In 1978, as President Daoud’s regime approached its
fifth year, he realized that the leftists had grown strong
during his rule. He began to tack to the right, warming
to the United States while relations with Moscow
cooled. A demonstration after the mysterious death of
an Afghan leftist alarmed Daoud, who put the leading
members of the People’s Democratic Party of
Afghanistan under house arrest. The leaders of that
party called for a coup. A relatively small band of leftist
army officers, with some logistical help from Soviet
advisors, attacked the palace, killing Daoud and his
family. The Saur Revolution, an urban coup d’état,
marked the birth of the Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan

9. After the revolution, Taraki
assumed the Presidency, Prime
Ministership and General
Secretary of the PDPA. The
government had close relations
with the Soviet Union.
On July 3, 1979, United States
President Jimmy Carter signed
the first directive for covert
financial aid to the opponents of
the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.

10. In February 1979, U.S.-Afghan relations
nosedived when radicals in Kabul
kidnapped U.S. Ambassador Adolph
“Spike” Dubs. Against American advice,
Afghan-led, Soviet-advised rescue
attempt ended up killing the kidnappers
and the Ambassador. U.S. aid programs
ended and the diplomatic profile was
reduced. Afghanistan’s conscripted army
was unstable and not up to dealing with
emerging mujahideen (holy warriors).
Tensions between Soviet advisors and
Afghan commanders also grew. In
March 1979, the insurgency took a
drastic turn. A rebel attack against the
city of Heart resulted in the massacre of
50 Soviet officers and their dependents

11. The Afghan government requested
Soviet troops to provide security and
to assist in the fight against the
mujahideen rebels. However, the
Soviet government was in no hurry to
grant them. Based on information
from the KGB, Soviet leaders felt that
Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin's
actions had destabilized the situation
in Afghanistan. Following his initial
coup against and killing of President
Taraki, the KGB station in Kabul
warned Moscow that Amin's
leadership would lead to "harsh
repressions, and as a result, the
activation and consolidation of the
opposition.

12. President Taraki visited Moscow in
September 1979. He was told by the
Soviet leadership that he had to
moderate his program and that the
major obstacle to change was his
power hungry, radical prime
minister, Hafizullah Amin. Taraki
hatched a plot, but Amin learned of it
and countered with one of his own.
Shortly after a photo of Taraki
embracing Brezhnev appeared on
the front of Pravda, Taraki was killed
by Amin’ henchmen. Amin then took
the positions of defense secretary,
prime minister, president, and
general secretary of the party.

13. The Soviets established a special
commission on Afghanistan,
comprising KGB chairman Yuri
Andropov, Boris Ponomarev from
the Central Committee and
Dmitriy Ustinov, the Minister of
Defence. In late April 1978, the
committee reported that Amin
was purging his opponents,
including Soviet loyalists, that his
loyalty to Moscow was in
question and that he was seeking
diplomatic links with Pakistan
and possibly the People's
Republic of China

14. The Soviet Union decided to
intervene on December 24, 1979,
when the Red Army invaded its
southern neighbor. Over 100,000
Soviet troops took part in the
invasion, which was backed by
another one hundred thousand
Afghan military men. In the
meantime, Hafizullah Amin was
killed and replaced by Babrak
Karmal.

15. The arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev on
the scene in 1985 and his 'new
thinking' on foreign and domestic
policy was probably the most
important factor in the Soviets'
decision to leave.
Gorbachev was trying to ease cold
war tensions by signing the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty in 1987 with the U.S. and
withdrawing the troops from
Afghanistan whose presence had
garnered so much international
condemnation.

16. In 1994 the most significant
group in present-day
Afghanistan emerges
unheralded. A mullah in
Kandahar, Mohammad Omar
Akhund (commonly known as
Mullah Omar), forms a group
which he calls Taliban,
meaning 'students' - in this
case students of the Qur'an.
In the violence and chaos of
Afghanistan, the Taliban
inevitably become a guerrilla
group;

17. In September, 1996, the Taliban with
military support by Pakistan and
financial support by Saudi Arabia,
captured Kabul and declared
themselves the legitimate government of
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan; they
imposed a particularly puritanical form of
Islamic law in the two thirds of the
country they controlled.

18. The Taliban repeatedly
offered Massoud a
position of power to make
him stop his resistance.
Massoud (1953–2001- a
political and military leader
in Afghanistan) declined
for he did not fight to
obtain a position of power.

19. In early 2001 Massoud addressed
the European Parliament in
Brussels asking the international
community to provide
humanitarian help to the people of
Afghanistan.He stated that the
Taliban and Al Qaeda had
introduced "a very wrong
perception of Islam" and that
without the support of Pakistan the
Taliban would not be able to
sustain their military campaign for
up to a year.

20. On 9 September 2001, Ahmad Shah
Massoud was assassinated by two Arab
suicide attackers inside Afghanistan and
two days later about 3,000 people
became victims of the September 11,
2001 attacks in the United States. Then
US President George W. Bush accused
Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed as the faces behind the
attacks. When the Taliban refused to
hand over bin Laden to US authorities
and to disband al-Qaeda bases in
Afghanistan, Operation Enduring
Freedom was launched in which teams
of American and British special forces
worked against the Taliban.

21. U.S. air attacks began on October 7,
2001. Operation Enduring Freedom has
had two phases in its war in
Afghanistan. The first—from October
2001 to March 2002—was an example
of conventional fighting, and the second
of an evolved insurgency.
Conventional - network-centric military
operation. It featured the Northern
Alliance—a united front of Tajiks,
Hazarra, and Uzbeks—and anti-Taliban
Pashtun forces fighting a war of
maneuver against the Taliban and its
foreign-fighter supporters, many of
whom were trained in al Qaeda camps
in Afghanistan. The U.S. contribution
came in the form of airpower and advice
from Special Operations Forces and the
Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary
personnel

22. The United Nations called a conference at
Bonn, Germany.The United States and its
allies did not invite even the most
moderate of the Taliban—and there were
a few—to participate in the Bonn Process
to establish a new government. No one
was in a mood to sit down with the
discredited allies of al Qaeda, who had
covered themselves with human rights
abuses and brought ruin own on
themselves by supporting al Qaeda. As a
result of the conference, Afghan leaders
formed an interim government without
Taliban participation. Hamid Karzai, a
Durrani Pashtun, was appointed
president. The United Nations Security
Council has recognized the legitimacy of
the government.

23. The Bonn Agreement of December
2001 defines the institutional reforms
required to lay the foundation for
stability, peace and prosperity in five
distinct spheres, namely counter
narcotics; judicial reform; disarmament,
demobilisation and reintegration; training
of the Afghan National Army; and
training of police forces. Japan is the
lead country overseeing the
demobilization, disarmament and
reintegration process. The United States
is leading international efforts to train the
Afghan National Army. Germany has
taken the lead in training the Afghan
National Police. Italy is the lead country
for judicial reform. The United Kingdom
is leading international efforts to help
combat the production of and trade in
narcotics.

24. At the meeting International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) was created
under United Nations Security Council
Resolutions 1386, 1413 and 1444 to
enable the Transitional Authority itself
and the UN Assistance Mission in
Afghanistan to operate in the area of the
capital, Kabul, and its surroundings with
reasonable security.

25. Initially, the core of the ISAF
headquarters in Kabul was
formed from the Joint
Command Centre in Heidelberg,
Germany, which provided the
first NATO ISAF Force
Commander. Together with its
civilian support elements, the
overall strength of ISAF
amounts to approximately 8 000
personnel. A rotation plan has
been developed that provides
for the longer-term support of
the ISAF’s mission
headquarters at least until
February 2008

26. In January 2004, NATO appointed former
Turkish Foreign Minister Hikmet Cetin as
its Senior Civilian Representative in
Afghanistan, with responsibility for
advancing political and military aspects of
the Alliance’s engagement in
Afghanistan. The Senior Civilian
Representative works under the guidance
of the North Atlantic Council and in close
co-ordination with the ISAF Commander
and the UN Assistance Mission in
Afghanistan, as well as with the Afghan
authorities and other international bodies
present in the country.

27. On 8 December 2005, meeting
at NATO Headquarters in
Brussels, the Allied Foreign
Ministers endorsed a plan that
paved the way for an expanded
ISAF role and presence in
Afghanistan. The first element of
this plan was the expansion of
ISAF to the south in 2006. On 5
October 2006, ISAF
implemented the final stage of its
expansion, by taking on
command of the international
military forces in eastern
Afghanistan from the US-led
Coalition.

28. Providing support to the Afghan
National Police (ANP) within
means and capabilities is one of
ISAF’s key supporting tasks. In this
sphere, ISAF works in
coordination with and in support
of the United States as well as
the European Union Police
Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL)
which was launched in June
2007.

29. The war in Afghanistan has also
become the main effort in the U.S.
war on terrorism. President Obama
in the first 18 months of his
administration twice reinforced our
Afghanistan contingent. Friendly
forces—U.S., allied, and Afghan—in
the fall of 2010 included 384,000
military and police personnel, more
than 10 times the estimated size of
the full-time Taliban fighting force.In
his first 20 months in office,
according to the New America
Foundation, President Obama
nearly tripled the total Bush
administration 2007–2008 drone
strikes against terrorist targets in
Pakistan.

30. In 2010, by the end of
September, the administration
had conducted 50 percent
more strikes than it did in all
of 2009.In a May 2010 state
visit to Washington, President
Karzai also received a
promise from the Obama
administration of a long-term
strategic relationship that will
cement the U.S.-Afghan
partnership beyond the sound
of the guns.

31. Popular support for the war has
been much lower in Europe than
in the United States.While 49
nations are in the NATO-led
coalition, burden- and risk-
sharing have remained problems.
Only Afghanistan, Canada,
Denmark, Great Britain, the
Netherlands, the United States,
and a few other nations pursue
full-time offensive combat
operations. Washington also
outstrips its allies in security- and
foreign-assistance spending

32. The leaders of the NATO-member
countries endorsed on May 21, 2012 an
exit strategy for the War in Afghanistan
and declared their long-term commitment
to Afghanistan. The NATO-led ISAF
Forces will hand over command of all
combat missions to Afghan forces by the
middle of 2013, while shifting at the
same time from combat to a support role
of advising, training and assisting the
Afghan security forces and then
withdraw most of the 130,000 foreign
troops by the end of December 2014. A
new and different NATO mission will
then advise, train and assist the Afghan
security forces including the Afghan
Special Operations Forces. The pace of
withdrawal will determined by each
country individually, but coordinated with
coalition planners.

33. The transition process was
completed and Afghan forces
assumed full security
responsibility at the end of
2014, when the ISAF mission
was completed. A new,
smaller non-combat mission
(“RS - Resolute Support”) was
launched on 1 January 2015
to provide further training,
advice and assistance to the
Afghan security forces and
institutions.

34. The US military bases in
Kandahar and Jalalabad
are likely to remain open
beyond the end of 2015, a
senior US official said as
Washington considers
slowing its pull-out from
Afghanistan.
19.03.2015

35. According to a Western official nations
with troops in Afghanistan pledged
roughly $1 billion to fund Afghan
security forces after 2014, while the
majority of the funding will come from
the United States. This was conformed
by a report of The Los Angeles Times
which stated that according to British
Prime Minister David Cameron
Australia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, Estonia and others had
made pledges that added "almost" $1
billion. However, these figures changed
later as in June 2012 news media like
The Globe and Mail, The Herald Sun,
The Washington Post, and BBC News
Online published that at the NATO
Chicago summit an annual aid of 4.1
billion U.S. dollars was pledged to pay
for ongoing training, equipment and
financial support for Afghanistan’s
security forces after 2014.