Taliban in Afghanistan
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Taliban in Afghanistan - Video
Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian Empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-communist mujahedin rebels. A series of subsequent civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy. Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, a US, Allied, and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Osama BIN LADIN. The UN-sponsored Bonn Conference in 2001 established a process for political reconstruction that included the adoption of a new constitution, a presidential election in 2004, and National Assembly elections in 2005. In December 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan and the National Assembly was inaugurated the following December. KARZAI was re-elected in August 2009 for a second term. Despite gains toward building a stable central government, a resurgent Taliban and continuing provincial instability - particularly in the south and the east - remain serious challenges for the Afghan Government.
Southern Asia, north and west of Pakistan, east of Iran
33 00 N, 65 00 E
total: 652,230 sq km
land: 652,230 sq km
water: 0 sq km
total: 5,987 km
border countries: China 91 km, Iran 921 km, Pakistan 2,670 km, Tajikistan 1,357 km, Turkmenistan 804 km, Uzbekistan 144 km
0 km (landlocked)
none (landlocked)
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CIA - The World Factbook: Afghanistan
FILE - In this file photo taken Dec. 10, 2014, Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. There is cause for measured optimism - a new president has vowed to overhaul the government, root out corruption and mend ties with neighboring Pakistan, where the Taliban is long believed to have enjoyed safe haven. But President Ashraf Ghani faces a monumental challenge in trying to reform the notoriously corrupt government and security forces, and the Taliban have vowed to keep fighting until the last foreign soldier departs. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini, File)(The Associated Press)
FILE - In this file photo taken Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, an Afghan soldier inspects a damaged bus at the site of a suicide attack by the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan. With U.S.-led forces shifting to a supporting role at the end of this month, Afghanistan will have to chart its own course after the country's bloodiest year since the 2001 invasion, a year which saw record casualties among Afghan civilians and security forces alike. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)(The Associated Press)
FILE - In this file photo taken Dec. 21, 2014, Afghan friends and colleagues of Zubair Hatami, a 22-year-old video journalist for a local TV station who died late Saturday from injuries sustained in a Taliban attack, mourn over his coffin during his funeral in Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO are set to withdraw most combat forces from Afghanistan on Dec. 31. From a peak in 2010 of 140,000 troops, they are leaving behind 13,500 for training and battlefield support. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini, File)(The Associated Press)
FILE - In this file photo taken Sunday, Nov. 23, 2014, new members of the Afghan National Army march during their graduation ceremony at the Afghan Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan. With U.S.-led forces shifting to a supporting role at the end of December, Afghanistan will have to chart its own course after the country's bloodiest year since the 2001 invasion, a year which saw record casualties among Afghan civilians and security forces alike. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)(The Associated Press)
FILE - In this file photo taken Oct. 22, 2014, Afghan National Army soldiers make a mock attack on an enemy stronghold using colored flares for cover during a military exercise at Kabul Military Training Center, in Kabul, Afghanistan. With U.S.-led forces shifting to a supporting role at the end of December, Afghanistan will have to chart its own course after the country's bloodiest year since the 2001 invasion, a year which saw record casualties among Afghan civilians and security forces alike. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini, File)(The Associated Press)
KABUL, Afghanistan When Graeme Smith arrived in Afghanistan in 2005, he drove across the country from Kabul south to the Talban's former capital Kandahar on a newly paved road that cut travelling time from a bone-rattling 14 hours to just six.
Today, 13 years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban's brutal regime, and after billions of aid dollars flowed into one of the world's poorest countries, making that same 460-kilometer (300-mile) trip would be like signing his own death warrant, said Smith, Afghanistan analyst with the International Crisis Group, an independent conflict resolution organization.
"That journey is back up to being a treacherous 11-hour slog because of all the explosions that have damaged the route and because you're frequently stopped at Afghan security forces checkpoints and Taliban checkpoints. So it is completely suicidal for a foreigner like me to drive on that road now and will probably remain so for a long time as the insurgency rises," he said.
With U.S.-led forces shifting to a supporting role at the end of this month, Afghanistan will have to chart its own course after the country's bloodiest year since the 2001 invasion, a year which saw record casualties among Afghan civilians and security forces alike.
There is cause for measured optimism a new president has vowed to overhaul the government, root out corruption and mend ties with neighboring Pakistan, where the Taliban is long believed to have enjoyed safe haven. But President Ashraf Ghani faces a monumental challenge in trying to reform the notoriously corrupt government and security forces, and the Taliban have vowed to keep fighting until the last foreign soldier departs.
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Afghanistan banks on local forces, thaw with Pakistan as foreign troops leave amid bloody 2014
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