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During the cold war, King Mohammed Zahir Shah developed close ties with the Soviet Union, accepting extensive economic assistance from Moscow. He was deposed in 1973 by his cousin Mohammed Daoud, who proclaimed a republic. Daoud was killed in a 1978 coup, and Noor Taraki took power, setting up a Marxist regime. He, in turn, was executed in Sept. 1979, and Hafizullah Amin became president. Amin was killed in Dec. 1979, as the Soviets launched a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan and installed Babrak Karmal as president.

The Soviets, and the Soviet-backed Afghan government, were met with fierce popular resistance. Guerrilla forces, calling themselves mujahideen, pledged a jihad, or holy war, to expel the invaders. Initially armed with outdated weapons, the mujahideen became a focus of U.S. cold war strategy against the Soviet Union, and with Pakistan's help, Washington began funneling sophisticated arms to the resistance. Moscow's troops were soon bogged down in a no-win conflict with determined Afghan fighters. In 1986 Karmal resigned, and was replaced by Mohammad Najibullah. In April 1988 the USSR, U.S., Afghanistan, and Pakistan signed accords calling for an end to outside aid to the warring factions. In return, a Soviet withdrawal took place in Feb. 1989, but the pro-Soviet government of President Najibullah was left in the capital, Kabul.

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Afghanistan War, international conflict in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 that was triggered by the September 11 attacks and consisted of three phases. The first phasetoppling the Taliban (the ultraconservative political and religious faction that ruled Afghanistan and provided sanctuary for al-Qaeda, perpetrators of the September 11 attacks)was brief, lasting just two months. The second phase, from 2002 until 2008, was marked by a U.S. strategy of defeating the Taliban militarily and rebuilding core institutions of the Afghan state. The third phase, a turn to classic counterinsurgency doctrine, began in 2008 and accelerated with U.S. Pres. Barack Obamas 2009 decision to temporarily increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. The larger force was used to implement a strategy of protecting the population from Taliban attacks and supporting efforts to reintegrate insurgents into Afghan society. The strategy came coupled with a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan; beginning in 2011, security responsibilities would be gradually handed over to the Afghan military and police. The new approach largely failed to achieve its aims. Insurgent attacks and civilian casualties remained stubbornly high, while many of the Afghan military and police units taking over security duties appeared to be ill-prepared to hold off the Taliban. By the time the U.S. and NATO combat mission formally ended in December 2014, the 13-year Afghanistan War had become the longest war ever fought by the United States.

The joint U.S. and British invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 was preceded by over two decades of war in Afghanistan. On Dec. 24, 1979, Soviet tanks rumbled across the Amu Darya River and into Afghanistan, ostensibly to restore stability following a coup that brought to power a pair of Marxist-Leninist political groupsthe Peoples (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party. But the Soviet presence touched off a nationwide rebellion by Islamist fighters, who won extensive covert backing from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States and who were joined in their fight by foreign volunteers. The guerrilla war against the Soviet forces led to their departure a decade later (see Afghan War). In the void, civil war reigned, with the Islamist fightersknown as the mujahideenbattling first to oust the Soviet-backed government and then turning their guns on each other.

In 1996 the Taliban seized Kabul and instituted a severe interpretation of Islamic law that, for example, forbade female education and prescribed the severing of hands, or even execution, as punishment for petty crimes. That same year, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was welcomed to Afghanistan (having been expelled from Sudan) and established his organizations headquarters there. With al-Qaedas help, the Taliban won control of over 90 percent of Afghan territory by the summer of 2001. On September 9 of that year, al-Qaeda hit men carried out the assassination of famed mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who at the time was leading the Northern Alliance (a loose coalition of mujahideen militias that maintained control of a small section of northern Afghanistan) as it battled the Taliban and who had unsuccessfully sought greater U.S. backing for his efforts.

The hijacking and crashing of four U.S. jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001, brought instant attention to Afghanistan. The plot had been hatched by al-Qaeda, and some of the 19 hijackers had trained in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the attacks, the administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush coalesced around a strategy of first ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al-Qaeda, though others contemplated actions in Iraq, including long-standing plans for toppling Pres. addm ussein. Bush demanded that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar deliver to [the] United States authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who hide in your land, and when Omar refused, U.S. officials began implementing a plan for war.

The campaign in Afghanistan started covertly on September 26, with a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) team known as Jawbreaker arriving in the country and, working with anti-Taliban allies, initiating a strategy for overthrowing the regime. U.S. officials hoped that by partnering with the Afghans they could avoid deploying a large force to Afghanistan. Pentagon officials were especially concerned that the United States not be drawn into a protracted occupation of Afghanistan, as had occurred with the Soviets more than two decades prior. The United States relied primarily on the Northern Alliance, which had just lost Massoud but had regrouped under other commanders, including Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim and Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek. The Americans also teamed with anti-Taliban Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan, including a little-known tribal leader named Hamid Karzai.

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The CIA team was soon joined by U.S. and British special forces contingents, and together they provided arms, equipment, and advice to the Afghans. They also helped coordinate targeting for the air campaign, which began on Oct. 7, 2001, with U.S. and British war planes pounding Taliban targets, thus marking the public start of Operation Enduring Freedom. In late October, Northern Alliance forces began to overtake a series of towns formerly held by the Taliban. The forces worked with U.S. assistance, but they defied U.S. wishes when, on November 13, they marched into Kabul as the Taliban retreated without a fight.

Kandahar, the largest city in southern Afghanistan and the Talibans spiritual home, fell on December 6, marking the end of Taliban power. It had been besieged by a force led by Karzai that moved in from the north and one commanded by Gul Agha Sherzai that advanced from the south; both operated with heavy assistance from the United States. As the Taliban leadership retreated into Afghanistans rural areas and across the border to Pakistan, anti-Taliban figures convened at a United Nations (UN)-sponsored conference in Bonn, Ger. With behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the United States, Karzai was selected to lead the country on an interim basis.

An intensive manhunt for Omar, bin Laden, and al-Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was undertaken. Prior to the killing of bin Laden by U.S. forces in 2011 (see below), the Americans were believed to have come closest to bin Laden in the December 2001 battle of Tora Bora (bin Ladens mountain stronghold). But bin Laden was thought to have managed to have slipped into Pakistan with the help of Afghan and Pakistani forces that were supposedly helping the Americans. Critics later questioned why the U.S. military had allowed Afghan forces to lead the assault on the cave complex at Tora Bora rather than doing it themselves. (Indeed, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry made this criticism repeatedly during the 2004 general election campaign.) Al-Qaeda subsequently reestablished its base of operations in the tribal areas that form Pakistans northwest border with Afghanistan. Omar and his top Taliban lieutenants settled in and around the Pakistani city of Quetta, in the remote southwestern province of Balochistn. One of the final major battles of the first phase of the war came in March 2002 with Operation Anaconda in the eastern province of Paktia, which involved U.S. and Afghan forces fighting some 800 al-Qaeda and Taliban militants. The operation also marked the entrance of other countries troops into the war: special operations forces from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway participated.

With the ouster of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the international focus shifted to reconstruction and nation-building efforts in Afghanistan. In April 2002 Bush announced a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute, promising substantial financial assistance. But from the start, development efforts in Afghanistan were inadequately funded, as attention had turned among U.S. officials to the looming confrontation in Iraq. Between 2001 and 2009, just over $38 billion in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan was appropriated by the U.S. Congress. More than half the money went to training and equipping Afghan security forces, and the remainder represented a fraction of the amount that experts said would be required to develop a country that had consistently ranked near the bottom of global human development indices. The aid program was also bedeviled by waste and by confusion over whether civilian or military authorities had responsibility for leading education, health, agriculture, and other development projects.

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Despite military commitments from dozens of U.S. allies, the United States initially argued against allowing the other foreign forcesoperating as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)to deploy beyond the Kabul area. That choice was directed by the Pentagon, which insisted on a light footprint out of concern that Afghanistan would become a drag on U.S. resources as attention shifted to Iraq (see Iraq War). When ISAF did begin to venture beyond Kabul, its efforts were hampered by the caveats of its component countriesrestrictions that kept all but a handful of the militaries from actively engaging in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The force, overseen by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the organizations first mission outside Europe, was also hamstrung by a lack of troops as international commitments to Afghanistan flagged.

The United States consistently represented the largest foreign force in Afghanistan, and it bore the heaviest losses. By spring 2010 more than 1,000 U.S. troops had been killed in Afghanistan, while the British troops suffered some 300 deaths and the Canadians some 150. Both Britain and Canada stationed their troops in Afghanistans south, where fighting had been most intense. More than 20 other countries also lost troops during the war, though manysuch as Germany and Italychose to focus their forces in the north and the west, where the insurgency was less potent. As the fighting dragged on and casualties escalated, the war lost popularity in many Western countries, creating domestic political pressure to keep troops out of harms way or to pull them out altogether.

Initially the war appeared to have been won with relative ease. On May 1, 2003, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced an end to major combat in Afghanistan. On the same day, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. At that time, there were 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The first democratic Afghan elections since the fall of the Taliban were held on Oct. 9, 2004, with approximately 80 percent of registered voters turning out to give Karzai a full five-year term as president. Parliamentary elections were staged a year later, with dozens of women claiming seats set aside for them to ensure gender diversity. The 2004 constitution provided Afghanistan with a powerful central government and weak regional and local authoritiesa structure that was in opposition to the countrys long-standing traditions.

Despite vast powers under the constitution, Karzai was widely regarded as a weak leader who grew increasingly isolated as the war progressed. He survived several assassination attemptsincluding a September 2004 rocket attack that nearly struck a helicopter he was riding inand security concerns kept him largely confined to the presidential palace in Kabul. Karzais government was beset by corruption, and efforts to build a national army and a police force were troubled from the start by inadequate international support and ethnic differences between Afghans.

Beginning in 2005, violence climbed as the Taliban reasserted its presence with new tactics modeled on those being used by insurgents in Iraq. Whereas early in the war the Taliban had focused on battling U.S. and NATO forces in open combata strategy that largely failed to inflict significant damagetheir adoption of the use of suicide bombings and buried bombs, known as IEDs (improvised explosive devices), began to cause heavy casualties. Between January 2005 and August 2006, Afghanistan endured 64 suicide attacksa tactic that had been virtually unknown in the countrys history before then. At first the attacks caused relatively few casualties, but as training and the availability of high-powered explosives increased, the death toll began to climb: in one particularly vicious attack in November 2007, at least 70 peoplemany of them childrenwere killed as a parliamentary delegation visited the northern town of Baghlan. Less than a year later, a bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul killed more than 50; the Afghan government accused elements of Pakistans intelligence service of complicity in the attack, a charge Pakistan denied.

The Talibans resurgence corresponded with a rise in anti-American and anti-Western sentiment among Afghans. Those feelings were nurtured by the sluggish pace of reconstruction, allegations of prisoner abuse at U.S. detention facilities, widespread corruption in the Afghan government, and civilian casualties caused by U.S. and NATO bombings. In May 2006 a U.S. military vehicle crashed and killed several Afghans, an event that sparked violent anti-American riots in Kabulthe worst since the war began. Later that year NATO took command of the war across the country; American officials said that the United States would play a lesser role and that the face of the war would become increasingly international. This shift reflected the greater need for U.S. troops and resources in Iraq, where sectarian warfare was reaching alarming levels. By contrast, the war in Afghanistan was still regarded in Washington as a relative success.

For commanders on the ground in Afghanistan, however, it was apparent that the Taliban intended to escalate its campaign. The Taliban was earning ample money through donations from wealthy individuals and groups in the Persian Gulf and from the booming opium trade. While poppy cultivation had been dramatically curbed during the Talibans final year in power, the group pushed to revive cultivation as a means of funding its insurgency. Western-backed campaigns to eliminate poppy cultivation or to encourage farmers to grow other crops had little discernible impact; Afghanistan soon became the supplier of over 90 percent of the worlds opium.

The United States, meanwhile, had had only limited success in killing or capturing Taliban commanders. In early 2007, Mullah Obaidullah Akhundthe Talibans number three leaderwas captured in Pakistan, and months later Mullah Dadullahthe Talibans top military commanderwas killed in fighting with U.S. forces. But those were the exceptions. Top insurgent leaders remained at large, many of them in the tribal regions of Pakistan that adjoin Afghanistan. This reality prompted the United States to begin targeting insurgent leaders who lived in Pakistan with missiles fired from remotely piloted drones (see unmanned aerial vehicle). The CIA program of targeted killings was publicly denied by U.S. officials but was widely acknowledged in private. Pakistani officials in turn denounced the strikes in public but privately approved of them as long as civilian casualties were limited. The United States repeatedly threatened to expand its drone strikes beyond Pakistans tribal areas and into regions such as Balochistn if Pakistan did not demonstrate greater cooperation in battling the Taliban, a group it had long fostered.

U.S. Pres. Barack Obama went to the White House promising to focus attention and resources on the faltering war effort in Afghanistan. On Feb. 17, 2009, he approved sending an additional 17,000 U.S. troops, on top of the 36,000 U.S. troops and 32,000 NATO service members already there. Three months later Obama took the rare step of removing a commanding general from a theatre of war, replacing Gen. David McKiernan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal. While McKiernan was shifting U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, Obama and other top officials had concluded that a more radical change was needed. McChrystal was brought in to implement a new strategy modeled after the surge strategy in Iraqone in which U.S. forces would focus on protecting the population from insurgents rather than simply trying to kill large numbers of militants. The strategy also involved trying to persuade enemy fighters to defect and ultimately encouraging reconciliation between the Karzai government and Taliban leaders.

Soon after assuming command, McChrystal concluded that he did not have enough troops to execute the new strategy, and in September 2009 he laid out his concerns in a confidential report, which was subsequently leaked to the press. McChrystal predicted that the war would be lost within a year if there was not a significant troop surge. After an intensive Afghan policy reviewthe second one by the Obama administration in less than a yearthe president delivered a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on December 1 in which he announced a major escalation in the war effort, with 30,000 additional troops being deployed to Afghanistan by the summer of 2010. The new strategy led to an increase in U.S. combat deaths; notably, during the first three months of 2010, U.S. deaths were approximately twice what they had been over the same period in 2009.

The surge in U.S. forces was accompanied by a dramatic escalation of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistanone of which killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. But the CIA also paid a price in late December 2009 when an al-Qaeda double agent detonated a suicide bomb at a Bagram air base in the eastern province of Khost, killing seven from the agency.

In early 2010 the surge began with an assault on the insurgent-held town of Marja, in the southern province of Helmand. U.S. Marines achieved a relatively quick victory, even as McChrystal planned a more ambitious offensive in Kandahar. Obama visited Afghanistan for the first time as president on March 28, delivering a stern message to Karzai that he needed to clean up corruption in his government. Karzai had won a new five-year term in an August 2009 election that was tainted by widespread allegations of fraud. Karzai vowed in his inaugural address to stamp out corruption in his government, but there were few signs in the short term that he had done so.

Meanwhile, Karzai announced that he would attempt to reconcile with the Taliban; he repeatedly invited Mullah Omar to meet with him, but the Taliban leader steadfastly refused. Under intense pressure from the United States, Karzai lashed out in April 2010 and even threatened to join the Taliban if the international community did not stop meddling in Afghan affairs. Troubled by the comments, the White House threatened to revoke Karzais invitation to meet with Obama in Washington, D.C., but the visit occurred as scheduled, with Karzai and Obama at least outwardly making efforts to mend their relationship.

Pakistan offered to mediate Afghan peace talks, but Pakistans ultimate attitude toward the Taliban remained a matter of great controversy. In February 2010, Pakistani security forces arrested the Afghan Talibans second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a move interpreted by many U.S. officials as a reflection of Pakistans desire to work with the U.S. and Afghan governments to stem the groups influence. But others, including Kai Eide, the former top UN official in Kabul, said Baradar had been a leading Taliban proponent of reconciliation and that the arrest was intended to scuttle efforts to end the war through a political, rather than military, solution.

The military command structure in Afghanistan abruptly changed again in June 2010, when Obama replaced McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus after McChrystal and some of his aides made disparaging remarks to a Rolling Stone magazine reporter about Obama and other top administration officials, including Vice Pres. Joe Biden, National Security Advisor James L. Jones, and special representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke. The comments underscored festering tensions between U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan and some members of the Obama administrations civilian leadership. In explaining the change of command, Obama said, I welcome debate among my team, but I wont tolerate division. Despite the switch, Obama vowed that U.S. strategy in Afghanistan would not change. Petraeus, considered the leading architect of counterinsurgency doctrine in the U.S. military, was expected to continue McChrystals emphasis on protecting the Afghan population from insurgents, building Afghan government institutions, and seeking to limit civilian casualties.

Shortly after McChrystals dismissal, a cache of classified documents relating to the Afghanistan War was published online by the whistle-blowing journalistic organization WikiLeaks and prereleased to several newspapers, including The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian. The information was mainly in the form of raw intelligence gathered between 2004 and 2009, and WikiLeaks cumulatively termed it the Afghan War Diary. It detailed previously unreported civilian deaths, indicated that a U.S. special forces unit was tasked with capturing or killing the persons on a list of insurgent leaders, revealed that the Taliban had employed heat-seeking missiles against aircraft, and suggested that the Pakistani intelligence service had been working with Taliban forces in spite of substantial U.S. aid to Pakistan for its assistance in combating militants. The U.S. government criticized the disclosure as a security breach but stated that the substance of the leak corresponded with other known intelligence and did not contain new information.

Developments with some of the primary objectives of the warapprehending key al-Qaeda leaders and dealing with the Talibanwere front and centre in 2011. Nearly 10 years after eluding capture at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces on May 2, 2011, after U.S. intelligence located him living in a secure compound in Abbottabad, Pak. The operation, a raid carried out by a small team that reached the compound by helicopter, led to a firefight in which bin Laden died. The next month U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed for the first time that the U.S. government was holding reconciliation talks with the Taliban, although he stressed that efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict were still in the preliminary stages. Then, on June 22, Obama announced an accelerated timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, saying that the United States had largely achieved its goals by disrupting al-Qaedas operations and killing many of its leaders. The plan called for the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to be reduced by as many as 30,000 within a year, in preparation for a complete withdrawal of combat forces by the end of 2014. Hours after Obamas announcement, French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would also begin to withdraw its 4,000 soldiers from Afghanistan. In September, efforts to end the long-running conflict suffered a setback when Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former Afghan president and a key figure in reconciliation negotiations, was assassinated by a suicide bomber.

A series of incidents in early 2012 heightened tensions between the U.S. and the Afghan government and provoked public outrage. In mid-January, a video showing U.S. Marines urinating on dead Afghans circulated in the media, drawing apologies from U.S. officials. Weeks later, Afghans rioted and held protests over reports that U.S. soldiers had disposed of copies of the Qurn at a military base by burning them. Then, on March 11, a U.S. soldier allegedly left an American base near Panjwai and broke into several homes, shooting dead 17 Afghans, mostly women and children. The incident provoked widespread demonstrations and a sharp condemnation from Karzai. Days later, the Taliban suspended participation in talks with the United States and the Afghan government.

Later that year NATOs efforts to train and equip the Afghan army and police were hampered by an increase in attacks in which Afghan soldiers and police turned their weapons on NATO soldiers. These attacks forced NATO troops to institute more rigorous screening procedures and to suspend the training of certain units.

Meanwhile, in early 2012, U.S. and Afghan negotiators reached agreements regarding two issues that had been sources of friction between the Obama and Karzai administrations. The first agreement, signed in March, set a six-month timetable for the transfer of Afghan detainees held by the U.S. military to Afghan custody. The second agreement, signed in April, established that Afghan forces would oversee and lead night raids to apprehend or kill Taliban leaders. These raids, previously led by U.S. special forces, had since 2009 become a major component of the campaign against the Taliban. Afghan leaders, however, had long objected that the raids violated Afghan sovereignty and that surprise invasions of private homes ultimately alienated public opinion and increased support for the insurgency.

The agreements in March and April concerning detainees and night raids cleared the way for the United States and Afghanistan to reach a further agreement in May outlining a framework for economic and security cooperation between the two countries following the withdrawal of NATO combat troops in 2014. The agreement expressed the United States commitment to continuing military support for the Afghan government after 2014, although it left unanswered the question of whether or not some U.S. and NATO forces would remain in Afghanistan as trainers and advisers after 2014. That was to be determined by a separate pact, the Bilateral Security Agreement. Even though the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan remained deeply unpopular, many Afghans feared that a sudden withdrawal would allow the country to slip into civil war or chaos.

The issue of leaving foreign troops in the country after the end of NATO combat operations remained unresolved until the last half of 2014. Karzaiby then in the last months of his presidencyhad refused to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement before leaving office, and the election of his successor was delayed by a lengthy recount. In late September 2014 Ashraf Ghani was finally inaugurated as president and immediately signed the Bilateral Security Agreement, which authorized an international force of approximately 13,000 to remain in the country. The U.S. and NATO formally ended their combat mission in Afghanistan on December 28, 2014.

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The United States condemns the deplorable attacks against worshippers at Shia shrines in Kabul yesterday evening and against Ashura mourners today in Balkh province. We send our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed and injured. Such attacks are clearly intended to drive sectarian tension in Afghanistan. We commend the government and security forces of Afghanistan for their response to these attacks and their commitment to the peace, security, and prosperity of their country and a future for Afghanistan free of sectarian violence.

We strongly condemn yesterday evenings attack on worshippers at Kabuls Kart-e-Sakhi shrine and extend our deepest condolences to families and friends of the victims of this senseless and cowardly act. This attack is another demonstration of contempt for religious tolerance and communal harmony by the enemies of peace and progress in Afghanistan. As demonstrated at the recent Brussels Conference, we and our international partners remain committed to standing with the people of Afghanistan in working toward a peaceful and prosperous future.

The following is the text of a joint communique issued by the 75 countries and over 22 international organizations participating in the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan. The Brussels Conference was opened by H.E. Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and H.E. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, and concluded by H.E. Abdullah Abdullah, Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Full Communique

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul reminds U.S. citizens that serious threats to safety and security exist in the city of Kabul and throughout Afghanistan. The threat of kidnapping is high. The potential also exists for protests to occur in Afghan cities at short notice. Full Message

We welcome todays accord negotiated and concluded by the Government of Afghanistan and Hizb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) as a step in bringing the conflict in Afghanistan to a peaceful end. The United States continues to support an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process that results in armed groups ceasing violence, breaking ties with international terrorist groups, and accepting the Constitution, including protections for women and minorities.

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Municipal Governance Support Programme (MGSP)

Location:Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz, Farah, Bamyan and Nili

Main Partners:Ministry of Urban Development Affairs (MUDA), Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG), Kabul Municipality, Afghanistan Land Authority (ARAZI)

Recognising the importance of land, H.E. President Ashraf Ghani has made urban land regularisation and improving tenure security a priority of his National Unity Government:We commit ourselves to legalizing all properties that have legal flaws Since the properties do not have credible legal basis, a vast capital of our people is perpetually under threat. At the same time, one of the results is that our cities can never take the shape of civic cities and citizens cannot tend to their rights and obligations as citizens.

The vast majority of urban Afghans live in under-serviced, informal housing with little tenure security and very poor access to basic services such as water and sanitation. This is particularly so in Kabul, where 66% of the dwelling stock is comprised of irregular housing (over 280,000 dwelling units), including 10% of the total dwelling stock located on hillsides. The majority of informal housing can easily be upgraded through a community-based regularization process that improves tenure security, infrastructure and services.

Afghan cities concentrate considerable problems of poverty, inequality, youth exclusion and gender inequality, which are a result of weak municipal governance and insufficient pro-poor focus on shaping inclusive urbanisation. Nearly one-third of the urban population lives in poverty (29%, over 2 million Afghans), denied access to affordable and well located land, housing, and services. Gender inequality is a major challenge in cities with urban women and girls facing significant structural barriers to their full social and economic participation in urban life. Cities are home to a disproportionate number of youth (between 15 and 24), who constitute nearly a quarter of the urban population (23.6%), notably higher than in rural areas (17.8%). Yet cities are not providing jobs and opportunities commensurate with demand with youth becoming increasingly disenfranchised.

As of 2014, the challenges of urban poverty, unemployment, and socio-economic marginalization are getting worse due to the international drawdown and economic slowdown. Urban poor households, IDPs, and female-headed households are, and will continue to be most affected from these macro-economic changes. Yet global experience has shown that urbanisation is a source of development, not simply a problem to be solved. The inevitable and positive urban transition presents both opportunities and challenges given the current form and structure of the major cities.

The National Unity Government (NUG) of Afghanistan has recognized the transformative role of urbanisation and is prioritizing urbanisation in its Self-Reliance reform agenda, noting that cities should be drivers of economic development, and municipalities and urban development can contribute to national state building and peace-building objectives.

Afghanistan is heading now in its Transformation Decade (2015-2024) where greater emphasis is being placed on self-sufficiency as international troops withdraw and aid is reduced. For municipalities, this means increasing their local revenues, and spending it more effectively and accountably. This is in line with the stated vision of H.E. President Ashraf Ghani and the NUG:

By expanding cities we can collect hundreds of millions of dollars through municipalities and since municipalities have the legal right to spend, it is our pledge that we will create the widespread participation of citizens so that people take part in creating and boosting conditions for urban living.Experience has shown that the Afghan communities are a key part of the solution. Urban Community Development Councils (CDCs) and Gozar Assemblies (GAs) have demonstrated enormous capacity to organise, find solutions to local social and infrastructure challenges, and engage in peacebuilding efforts. This latent energy needs to be harnessed within a more participatory municipal governance framework and utilised to address local land, planning and governance bottlenecks.

Future of Afghan Cities Programme (FoAC)

Location:National programme, focusing on five city regions and 20 strategic District Municipalities

Main Partners:Ministry of Urban Development Affairs (MUDA), Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG), Kabul Municipality, Afghanistan Land Authority (ARAZI)

Never before in its history has Afghanistan had such an enormous opportunity to lay strong foundations for a sustainable and prosperous urban future. A combination of forces are currently in place that, if urgently harnessed, can set Afghanistan on a path to harnessing its cities, and their rural-urban linkages, for economic development, improved sub-national governance and stabilization.

This convergence of positive forces includes:

The Realizing Self Reliance paper presented at the London Conference on Afghanistan (2014) clearly articulates the reform priority for urban development;

Making cities the economic drivers for development. In order to do so we need to improve living conditions and service delivery in urban centers. Urbanization will need to be managed by reducing disparity between rural and urban areas and thereby controlling rural-to-urban migration. Establishing metropolitan development authorities and funds will allow for coordinated development planning and professionalized management. (Realising Self-Reliance (2014) National Unity Government of Afghanistan, p.12)

Afghanistan Urban Peacebuilding Programme (AUPP)

Location:Kabul, Jalalabad, Mazar, Kunduz, Herat, Farah, Bamyian and Nili Cities

Main Partners:Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), Ministry of Urban Development (MUDA), Kabul Municipality, Ministry of Interior (MoI)

Afghanistan is one of the worlds fastest-urbanizing countries. Although the countrys population remains predominantly rural, the break-neck pace of urban growth ensures that the proportion of citizens living in cities will triple in 35 years. Every year, Afghan cities grow by over 320,000 people placing enormous pressure on local governments and security providers to provide services and achieve safe, peaceful, and inclusive cities.

Cities concentrate the risks associated with insecurity and disorder, such as chronic poverty, steep inequality, and reduced solidarity compared to rural villages. Afghanistans cities absorb vast displaced populations and confront urgent demands for basic services and infrastructure. Swollen with rural-urban migrants, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), and returnees the cities relegate most of their inhabitants to deprived informal settlements, a situation that aggravates exclusion, illegitimizes the state, and fuels various forms of violence and insecurity. Women and girls, young people, and IDPs and returnees are particularly marginalized and vulnerable, excluded from public space as well as public decision-making, and are disproportionately affected by urban insecurity and exclusion.

Community-Led Urban Infrastructure Programme

Location:Kabul Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, and Jalalabad

Main Partners:Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), Ministry of Urban Development (MUDA), Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MoLSAMD), Municipalities of Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, and Jalalabad

In 2014 the number of security and economic related displaced families has reached a record of 755,011 persons (Sept. 2014, UNHCR). In September 2014 alone 33,240 persons have been displaced. The overwhelming majority are migrating into urban areas considered to be safer, with more livelihood opportunities and access to services. The arrival of such migrants into regional cities as well as Kabul city will rapidly exert pressure on local infrastructure and services exacerbating pre-existing vulnerability conditions. This will impact on the way urban development is managed particularly in settlement planning and providing access to basic services, infrastructure and labour markets.

While much has been achieved to address the needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), returnees, rural-urban migrants and the other urban poor, the continuous large numbers of migrants moving towards Kabul and other cities makes it urgent that the new Government through this project can continue to secure and stabilize urban areas through community empowerment and improvement of living conditions of the people.

Local Integration of Vulnerable Excluded & Uprooted People (LIVE-UP)

Location:Kabul, Jalalabad and Herat

Main Partners:Ministry of Refugees & Repatriation (MoRR), Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG); Kabul, Herat & Jalalabad Municipalities

Through the Local Integration of Vulnerable Excluded & Uprooted People (LIVE-UP) project, UN-HABITAT is supporting the Government of Afghanistan to pursue an inclusive, sustainable response to displacement.

Since 2002, over 5.6 million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan after taking refuge in neighbouring countries. In addition there are currently over 850,000 registered Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Afghanistan. Urban areas exert considerable pull factors on the displaced, attracted to the relative security and increased economic opportunities offered by cities. This coupled with rural-urban migration has led to the unprecedented growth of Afghanistans cities over the last decade. Returnees and IDPs however face major obstacles to re-building their lives, accessing rights and services and fully integrating with local communities. The LIVE-UP project, made possible with the support of the European Commission Delegation to Afghanistan aims to make significant improvements in the lives of some of the most vulnerable Afghans and create a precedent for local integration as a response to displacement.

Afghanistans rapid process of urbanisation presents significant challenges as well as opportunities. The development of cities can be harnessed as a tool to improve the access to services, living conditions and economic conditions of the population. The traditional approach to displacement in Afghanistan of creating distinct townships for IDPs, typically located large distances from urban areas has been shown to not be an effective or sustainable response to displacement. LIVE-UP aims to integrate displaced communities into the urban fabric, leveraging the benefits of the urbanisation process and giving communities a platform to rebuild their lives.

Through UN-HABITATs tried and tested Peoples Process of service delivery, the project supports communities through the provision of trunk infrastructure, improved access to services and improved shelter for extremely vulnerable households. Afghanistan Minister for Refugees and Repatriation H.E Sayed Hussain Alemi Balkhi visited for the first time Maslakh IDP Settlement in Injil District, Herat to officially launch the LIVE-UP project. Speaking at the launch Minister Balkhi thanked UN-HABITAT for its commitment and perseverance in assisting displaced Afghans.

National Solidarity Programme (NSP)

Location:Kandahar, Farah, Herat, Bamyan, Parwan, Kapisa, Balkh, Panjshir, Nangarhar

Main Partners:Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD); Provinces of Kandahar, Farah, Herat, Bamyan, Parwan, Kapisa, Balkh, Panjshir, Nangarhar.After two decades of war, Afghanistans governance system has been weakened. In response, the Government of Afghanistan and UN-HABITAT have contributed to the design of the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) which is initially aimed at strengthening the network of some 30,000 self-governing community institutions.

The NSP is a national priority programme of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA), executed by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and development (MRRD) and funded through multiple sources. As the single largest development programme in the country and reputed to be the second-largest in the world, NSP has an approved budget of US$ 2.7 billion over the period from mid-2003 to September 2016. NSP proposes to cover a total of around 37,000 rural communities in Afghanistan with a first round of block grants and a total of around 12,000 of these with a second round of block grants.

Known in Dari as Hambastagi Milli and in Pashtu as Milli Paiwastoon, NSP is based on the Afghan traditions of Ashar (i.e. community members working together on a volunteer basis to improve community infrastructure) and Jirga councils comprised of respected members of the community. Islamic values of unity, equity and justice are also encouraged.

The State of Afghan Cities Programme (SoAC)

Location:National programme, focusing on 34 Provincial Capitals, including Kabul

Main Partners: Ministry of Urban Development Affairs (MUDA), Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG); and Kabul Municipality, 33 Provincial Municipalities.Rapid urbanization is both an opportunity and a challenge for Afghanistan. As cities grow, it is vital that policy makers and city leaders have access to reliable and verifiable information in terms of urban indicators to support decision-making.

Lacking detailed knowledge of the demographic, economic, cultural, physical and environmental dynamics of Afghan cities, and the capacity to collect and use such information, many planners and decision makers are operating in a climate of uncertainty, allocating resources to immediate and pressing issues rather than investing in progressive change over the long term.The costs of this widespread information and capacity deficit are both immense and immeasurable, and accrue in, for example, the form of expanding informal settlements, land grabbing, decreasing agricultural land, deepening social problems, rising urban inequality, and greater insecurity.

The problem persists because the international community has, for the last decade, focused largely on implementing short-term security-related programmes, mostly in rural areas, through parallel structures rather than building government and civil society institutions and capacities for sustainable, regular monitoring and data collection/use for development. There has been a focus on getting things done rather than on ensuring and developing sustainable monitoring mechanisms. The result is that while urban institutions have been built, they lack the capacities and resources for appropriate monitoring of the urban sector, which is required to formulate evidenced-based policies and plans.

Safety Nets and Pensions Support Project (SNPSP)

Location:Yakawlang District, Bamyan Province

Main Partners:Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MoLSAMD)

Afghanistan is a landlocked, mountainous state situated between central and south Asia with an estimated population of approximately 30 million people and a land area of 653,000 square kilometres. Despite the increased levels of external assistance provided by the donor community in recent years, more than one third of all Afghans still live in poverty, with the nation having one of the worlds lowest average per capita incomes. Afghanistan is ranked 175th among all nations on the UNDP Human Development Index1.

Even if the nature of the crisis in Afghanistan may not have changed drastically in terms of humanitarian needs or levels of violence, the international community is unanimous in describing the current situation as one of transition. This allows for new forms of aid, such as cash transfers, and has stimulated the direct involvement of the government in humanitarian aid coordination and, to some degree, delivery.

There is a common understanding that the use of cash assistance is appropriate in situations of chronic crisis or during transitional phases such as that being experienced by Afghanistan. The Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MoLSAMD) is initiating a Social Safety Net project (under the Afghanistan Social Protection Program, known as ASPP) in selected districts of Ghor, Paktya, Bamyan and Kunarha provinces. The purpose of the program, which is a cash assistance intervention, would be to assist eligible poor families with young children to maintain adequate levels of nutrition during the winter season, and to promote human capital development.

The program is using a Poverty Scorecard (based on a Proxy Means Testing Approach) to identify eligible households. The Proxy Means Testing (PMT) method will be used in the selected five districts of four provinces. With this project proposal UN-Habitat is applying for the facilitation of the program in Yakawlang District Bamyan Province in 143 communities with a total of 19,866 families2.

Over the last 10 years the Government of Afghanistan implemented the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) with the goal of building peace and solidarity amongst the people and to empower them to be responsible for local level governance and development. This flagship programme of the Government of Afghanistan has covered all the provinces of the country reaching over 21,000 villages. UN-Habitat has to date played a key role in assisting the government in the design of the programme and was responsible for implementation of the programme in 3,283 villages across nine provinces throughout Afghanistan, including Bamyan Province.

As part of the National Solidarity Programme Community Development Councils (CDCs) were formed for each village through a transparent election process. The CDCs were empowered through a process of experiential learning to plan and undertake their own development work so they could be responsible for local level governance. The NSP has been hailed by development practioners and the World Bank as one of the best community empowerment programmes anywhere implemented on a national scale.

The communities that have benefitted from the NSP, as well as the government, now consider that it is crucial to consolidate the hard-won gains to further the cause of peace-building through addressing some of the particular needs identified by the communities that could not be met by NSP. This includes facilitating access to services and support for the extremely poor and most marginalized members of the communities through the established CDCs.

Please see the State of Afghan Cities discussion papers below

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Afghanistan UN-Habitat

Taliban fighters ambushed and killed around 100 Afghan police and soldiers Tuesday as they attempted to retreat following heavy losses in the southern province of Helmand, Reuters reported.Government forces were on the run after months of intense fighting in Chah-e-Anjir, several miles outside the city of Lashkar Gah, where they had been surrounded by militants for days.

The group of soldiers and police were viciously attacked, leaving few survivors. An entire battalion was essentially wiped out, according to surviving army soldier Faiz Mohammad."We were one batallion," he told Reuters. "Except me and two others, no one came out alive."

Hundreds of commandos were sent to Lashkar Gah that same day in response to prevent Taliban militants from advancing into the city. Omar Zwak, spokesperson for the provincial government, assured international press that the area would soon be cleared of Taliban presence. Instead, troops and police were overrun and ambushed before reinforcements could be sent, according to Mohammad Rasool Zazai, spokesperson for the army's 215th corps. The besieged forces left when they believed they had negotiated a route of safe passage with the Taliban, however the militants had staged a trap.

Afghan security officials inspect the scene of a suicide bomb attack in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on Oct. 10, 2016. At least 14 Afghan were killed after the attack. Photo: Getty Images

The Taliban launched a massive nationwide assault in Afghanistan last year, securing a number of strategic victories including the northern city of Kunduz. Afghan security forces managed to wrestle control back from the militants, but security remains a serious issue as casualties mount. Between August and March, around 4,500 soldiers and police were killed with an additional 8,000 wounded in battle. Afghan officials say that they are now dealing with a serious drought of morale with the rate of casualties mounting toward four times that of recruitment.

The Taliban are an Islamic fundamentalist group in Afghanistan. They took over the nation in 1996 and established a government until a U.S. invasion in 2001 ousted them from power. As U.S. forces largely withdrew from the country between 2011 and 2014, however, the Taliban have experienced a powerful resurgence and concerns are growing as to the Afghan government's ability to contain their presence. NATO has sent hundreds of advisors to the restive Helmand province and the U.S. has offered aircraft and personnel. Since the beginning of October, the U.S. has conducted at least 15 airstrikes against the Taliban in order to relieve Afghanistan's beleaguered army.

The Islamic State group also presents a threat to Afghanistan. The militants also known as ISISclaimed responsibilitythis week for a deadly attack Tuesdaythat killed at least 18 people at a Shiite shrine in the capital city of Kabul during the holy day of Ashura.

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War in Afghanistan: Taliban Massacres 100 Afghan Soldiers and ...