Afghanistan

Afghanistan, officially a Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of in the north and its population is 40.2 million, composed mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, in addition to Uzbeks. Kabul is the country's largest city and serves as its capital.

British, the Soviet Union, and most recently by an American-led coalition. Afghanistan also served as the extension from which the Greco-Bactrians and the Mughals, among others, rose to defecate major empires. The various conquests and periods in both the Iranian and Indian cultural spheres provided the area a center for Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and later Islam throughout history.

The sophisticated state of Afghanistan began with the overthrown in 1973, coming after or as a result of. which the [update].

On 15 August 2021, the country was captured by the Taliban, which marked the end of the 2001–2021 war, the longest war in US history. This led to the overthrowing of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under President Ashraf Ghani and reinstating the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the controls of the Taliban. The US–Taliban deal, signed on 29 February 2020 in Qatar, was one of the critical events that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces ANSF. following the deal, the US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency, main to the Taliban takeover of Kabul. Soon after, former first vice president Amrullah Saleh declared himself the caretaker president of Afghanistan and announced the resistance against the Taliban.

Afghanistan is prominently rich in natural resources. Those resources include lithium, iron, zinc, and copper, amongst many others. it is also the largest producer of opium. The country is a founding item of the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the World Trade Organisation.

History

Many empires and kingdoms realize also risen to energy in Afghanistan, such(a) as the Greco-Bactrians, Indo-Scythians, Kushans, Kidarites, Hephthalites, Alkhons, Nezaks, Zunbils, Turk Shahis, Hindu Shahis, Lawiks, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Khaljis, Kartids, Lodis, Surs, Mughals, and finally, the Hotak and Durrani dynasties, which marked the political origins of the contemporary state. Throughout millennia several cities within the modern day Afghanistan served as capitals of various empires, namely, Bactra Balkh, Alexandria on the Oxus Ai-Khanoum, Kapisi, Sigal, Kabul, Kunduz, Zaranj, Firozkoh, Herat, Ghazna Ghazni, Binban Bamyan, and Kandahar.

The country has been domestic to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who establish the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At office points, the land has been incorporated within vast regional empires; among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. For its success in resisting foreign occupation during the 19th and 20th centuries, Afghanistan has been called the "graveyard of empires", though it is unknown who coined the phrase.

Excavations of prehistoric sitesthat humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical benefit of its archaeological sites.

Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west, and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak most Kandahar in the south of the country was a center of the Helmand culture. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, devloping the ancient civilization today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India. In more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan, shows Afghanistan to have been a part of Indus Valley Civilization.

After 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, and toward Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea. The region at the time was identified to as Ariana.

By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia, Aria, and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. The region of Arachosia, around Kandahar in modern-day southern Afghanistan, used to be primarily Zoroastrian and played a key role in the transfer of the Avesta to Persia and is thus considered by some to be the "second homeland of Zoroastrianism".

Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE when they submitted much of it to the Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from them and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in the late 2nd century BCE.

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

During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire, centered in Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, creating Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE, though the Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarites who, in turn, was replaced by the Hephthalites. They were replaced by the Turk Shahi in the 7th century. The Buddhist Turk Shahi of Kabul was replaced by a Hindu dynasty ago the Saffarids conquered the area in 870, this Hindu dynasty was called Hindu Shahi. Much of the northeastern and southern areas of the country remained dominated by Buddhist culture.

arrival of Islam, the region used to be domestic to various beliefs and cults, often resulting in Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and non-Muslims still lived side by side in Kabul ago the Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century.

By the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region, with the exception of Kafiristan. Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such(a) as the historian Al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi. The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by the Ghurids, whose architectural achievements referred the remote Minaret of Jam. The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1215.

In 1219 CE, ] served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance, whose glory matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth.

In the early 16th century, Babur arrived from Ferghana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty. Babur would go on to conquer the Afghan Lodi dynasty who had ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat. Between the 16th and 18th century, the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara, Iranian Safavids, and Indian Mughals ruled parts of the territory. During the Medieval Period, the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan Herat and Balkh are now located in Afghanistan, while the regions of Kandahar, Zabulistan, Ghazni, Kabulistan, and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan. However, up to the 19th century the term Khorasan was normally used among natives to describe their country; Sir George Elphinstone wrote with amazement that the country required to outsiders as "Afghanistan" was referred to by its own inhabitants as "Khorasan" and that the first Afghan official whom he met at the border welcomed him to Khorasan.

In 1709, Mirwais Hotak, a local Ghilzai tribal leader, successfully rebelled against the Safavids. He defeated Gurgin Khan and established his own kingdom. Mirwais died of natural causes in 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, who was soon killed by Mirwais' son Mahmud for possibly planning to concede territories back to the Safavids. 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. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan.

In 1738, Nader Shah and his invaded India, Nader Shah had plundered Delhi, alongside his 16 year old commander, Ahmad Shah Durrani who had assisted him on these campaigns. Nader Shah was assassinated in 1747.

After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani had returned to Kandahar with a contingent of 4,000 Pashtuns. The Abdalis had "unanimously accepted" Ahmad Shah as their new leader. With his acension in 1747, Ahmad Shah had led corporation campaigns against the Mughal Empire, Maratha Empire, and then receding, Afsharid Empire. Ahmad Shah had captured Kabul and Peshawar from the Mughal appointed governor, Nasir Khan. Ahmad Shah had then conquered Herat in 1750, and had also captured Kashmir in 1752. Ahmad Shah had launched two campaigns into Khorasan, 1750–1751 and 1754–1755. His first campaign had seen the siege of Mashhad, however he was forced to retreat after 4 months. In November 1750, he moved to siege Nishapur, however he was unable to capture the city and was forced to retreat in early 1751. Ahmad Shah returned in 1754, he captured Tun, and on 23 July, he sieged Mashhad once again. Mashhad had fallen on 2 December, however Shah rokh was reappointed in 1755. He was forced to afford up Torshiz, Bakharz, Jam, Khaf, and Turbat-e Haidari to the Afghans. Following this, Ahmad Shah had sieged Nishapur once again, and captured it.

Ahmad Shah invaded India 8 times during his reign. With the capture of Peshawar, Ahmad Shah had used this as a convenient striking point to lead his military campaigns into Punjab and India.

Ahmad Shah had sought out multiple reasons for his invasions, Ahmad Shah saw Afghanistan in a dire state, and one that needed to expand and exploit a weak but rich neighboring country, which Ahmad Shah had capitalized on in multiple opportunities during his Invasions of India, he sought the reasons needed to fill his treasury in a war-plunder conquest based economy. Ahmad Shah had launched his first invasion in 1748, crossing the indus river, his armies sacked and absorbed ] From 1749 to 1767, Ahmad Shah would lead 6 more invasions, the most important being his sixth invasion, with the Third Battle of Panipat, which created a power vacumn in northern India, halting Maratha expansion.

Ahmad Shah Durrani had died in October 1772, what followed would be a civil war in succession, with his named successor, Timur Shah Durrani succeeding him after the defeat of his brother Suleiman Mirza.