Line #105 UsefulNotes/Afghanistan


1	[[quoteright:329:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/afghanistan_4185.gif]]
2	[[caption-width-right:330: [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Graveyard of Empires]]]]
3	'''[[ForbiddenZone Where Empires go to die.]]'''
4
5	Afghanistan ('''Dari''' and '''Pashto:''' افغانستان‏‎ Afġānestān), officially known as the '''Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan''' ('''Dari:''' امارت اسلامی افغانستان Emārat-e Eslāmi-ye Afghānestān; '''Pashto:''' د افغانستان اسلامي امارت Də Afġānistān Islāmī Imārat) or since the Taliban-led government is not recognized internationally, the '''Islamic Republic of Afghanistan''' ('''Dari:''' جمهوری اسلامی افغانستان Jomhūrī-ye Eslāmī-ye Afġānestān; '''Pashto:''' د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت Da Afġānistān Islāmī Jomhoriyat), is a landlocked country located in South Asia. It is bordered by UsefulNotes/{{China}}, UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}, UsefulNotes/{{Pakistan}}, UsefulNotes/{{Tajikistan}}, UsefulNotes/{{Turkmenistan}}, and UsefulNotes/{{Uzbekistan}}.
6
7	Afghanistan is today best known as the premier theater of UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, an international, mostly Western, counter-insurgency operation/invasion led by the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates against an array of insurgent groups, mostly the [[SouthAsianTerrorists Taliban]] but also the Al-Qaeda (before 2011) and, since 2015, the Islamic State/Daesh.[[note]]Popularly known as the ISIS, but ISIS is short for "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria", which obviously isn't accurate here.[[/note]] This is the latest chapter of civil conflicts dating back to the 1970s, when Afghanistan was an important battleground during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar due to its strategic location. Afghanistan has not seen peace for over forty years and, thanks to its very young population, most Afghans have only seen war all their lives.
8
9	It is in many respects comparable to UsefulNotes/{{Sicily}}, the Mediterranean island periodically occupied and conquered by empires new and old, and whose constant conquests have left a region run by tribal FeudingFamilies and a series of grudges among the people against one another, and a culture with a strong emphasis on "honour". Unlike Sicily, which is an island, Afghanistan is landlocked, hilly and mountainous, in the intersection of Iran, the Central Asian Steppes, and the Indian subcontinent. The land has been influenced by all kinds of societies over the millennia. It is most famous in antiquity for being the world's only source of the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli (that crumbly blueish stuff used to make ultramarine dye). During antiquity, the country was divided into four principal regions: Bactria (the northern lowlands, the name evolved into the modern province of Balkh), Arachosia (the southeast, mostly comprising the Hindu Kush and the current Pashtun homeland), Drangiana (the southern desert), and Aria[[note]]Aria, by the way, is cognate with Iran and, yes, [[ThoseWackyNazis Aryan]]. Before anyone screams "supremacists", it was the Indo-Iranians who came up with the word first[[/note]] (the western lowlands, surrounding the ancient city of Herat. By the Middle Ages, it's known as Khorasan), all of which were also collectively known as Ariana. The land and the people didn't identify itself and themselves as Afghanistan and Afghanis respectively, until their triumph in the First Anglo-Afghan War.
10	----
11	!!History
12	[[foldercontrol]]
13	[[folder:Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Early Modern (-1823)]]
14	Afghanistan has been a part of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Iran Greater Iran]] for thousands of years. In the 1st millennium BCE, it was a bastion of UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}} (which might originate from here and not Persia) as well as one of the earliest centers of UsefulNotes/{{Hinduism}} and UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}} outside the Indian subcontinent under Gandhara rule. Then it came under influence from Persia, which held it for two centuries until the Macedonians led by UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat started their South Asian campaign. Alexander's conquest left the legacy of [[UsefulNotes/MacedonianSuccessionWars Greek ruling class who settled and intermingled with the indigenous people]], resulting in the development of Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian empires adopting Greek as an official language until the 2nd century CE, when it's replaced by the native languages again. The most notable dynasty was the Kushans, which ruled an empire from Bactria to the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the most famous ruler being Kanishka the Great. The Kushans represented the peak of Afghanistan's Buddhist era, and played a major part in spreading Buddhism into China and UsefulNotes/TheFarEast. It was a nexus of the Silk Road and traded with UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire and Imperial China. The weakness of the later Kushan kings and the rise of the Guptas and other Indian rulers led to their decline, and eventually the Kushans became vassals to the Sassanid Empire.\
15
16	The Sassanids lasted until the Arab conquest. The region was conquered by the Arabs in the 7th century and was ruled by them as part of the Rashidun, Umayyad, and the early years of Abbasid caliphates. UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} was proselyted among and eventually embraced by the indigenous people, though, as with Persia, it didn't stop them from breaking away and [[StartMyOwn starting a ruling dynasty of their own]]. In the 10th century, the Turks [[GoingNative went native]], leading to Turko-Persian rule under the Ghaznavids (which took its name from the eastern city of Ghazni), the Seljuks, and the Khwarezmians. 13th century saw the [[TheHorde Great Mongol Horde]] beginning their [[TakeOverTheWorld World-Dominating Campaign]], which devastated the region badly, with many cities [[RapePillageAndBurn sacked]] or completely destroyed. Some Mongols settled and intermingled with the locals, resulting in the birth of the Hazaras. The Mongols broke up soon after and one of its pieces, the Chagatai Khanate, ruled the area. They eventually gave up distinguishing themselves and adopted Islam, just in time for Timur the Lame to begin the Second World-Dominating Campaign, although this time the region was spared and actually flourished under his rule.\
17
18	Once Timur's nomadic empire broke down, the spotlight once again turned to the Persians, who recently broke free from half a millennium of foreign rule with the declaration of the Safavid Empire at the start of the 16th century, whose territories included Herat. However, their rather overzealous evangelization campaign from Sunni to Shia Islam didn't sit well with their eastern subjects. A Sunni Hotak Empire was declared during the last years of the Safavids which were able to expel the Mughals (a branch of the Timurids) from the Iranian Plateau. They were historically significant as the first Afghan dynasty whose ruling class came from what we call today the Pashtun ethnic group. Afghanistan in this era, under the Durrani dynasty, was far larger than it is now -- at its height it controlled much of what is now Pakistan as well as all of Kashmir except the Siachen Glacier and the Buddhist outpost of Leh. Their territories were reduced to its modern borders on account of the rising Sikh Empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the "Lion of Punjab". Ranjit Singh's battles led to the formation of a new Sikh empire that included modern day Lahore and Peshawar.[[note]]Maharaja Ranjit Singh also claimed the famous Koh-I-Noor diamond from Shah Shuja Durrani ([[ArtifactOfDoom who claimed it from the Persian Conqueror Nader Shah, who looted it from Delhi in 1739]]).[[/note]] The Durrani Empire eventually splintered on account of FeudingFamilies between the Barakzai and Sadozai tribes. The Sadozais, under Shah Shuja Durrani were deposed and exiled from Afghanistan to UsefulNotes/{{India}} during UsefulNotes/TheRaj.
19	[[/folder]]
20
21	[[folder:The Barakzai Monarchy (1823-1973)]]
22	The Barakzai established the Emirate of Afghanistan and under Amir Dost Mohammed and his sons, Afghanistan in the early part of the 19th century was a thriving Central Asian kingdom, an important trading area in Central Asia and growing rather prosperous. Of course the wealth also came with the regular instability of the tribes, a number of whom guarded the key mountain passes and most of whom had to be carefully controlled by a BalanceOfPower. The feudal system was still alive and as such the Amir depended on differing tribes to hold his army, and many of them had grudges against each other. Western involvement began in the 19th century, when some East India Company planners in the Raj got it into their heads that the Russians were planning to take Afghanistan and use it as a staging area for an invasion of India. In actual fact the Russians were interested in controlling their Central Asian minorities, and had plans to subvert the Ottoman Empire and retake Constantinople and had no real interest in taking India. Their interests in Central Asia had mainly to do with favorable access to border trade. Fears and exaggerations about Russian ambition led to the "Great Game" between the Russian Empire and the British Empire. The British made the opening move in the Great Game by deciding to topple the popular and competent Dost Mohammed with the weak Shah Shuja. This despite warnings by their own agents, Alexander Burnes, that this was a bad idea. This despite the fact that Dost Mohammed kept asking for a favorable agreement and relationship with the English. But in the end, the English decided to go ahead with their "plan".\
23
24	The result was a disaster. Shah Shuja Durrani's arrival wrecked the BalanceOfPower in the region, and the British Occupation proved incredibly unpopular from the very beginning. Small-scale uprisings ultimately led to the start of a major rebellion that led to the British besieged in local fortresses before they decided to mount an incredibly ill-planned retreat from their position in Afghanistan back to India. It was a famous bloodbath and the worst defeat in British military history until the Fall of Singapore. The British lost the Anglo-Afghan War despite mounting a major punitive expedition that saw the destruction of Kabul and its famous bazaar, an expedition that targeted not only Afghani civilians, women and children, but also the Hindu and Persian trading communities in Kabul who were caught in the middle and which the Army of Retribution (yes they really called it that) under General Pollock, did not distinguish or separate form the rest. At the end of the war, Dost Mohammed was returned to the throne, with English support, rendering the entire expedition pointless on the part of the English, and damaging to the Afghan people, who suffered harsh deprivations and impoverishment on account of the English.\
25
26	In 1893, Afghanistan's current southern border was set up via an agreement with the British called the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durand_Line Durand Line]], creating problems later. The Line cuts right through the middle of the homeland of the Pashtun, a highly tribal people who are the largest group in Afghanistan and second largest in neighboring Pakistan. Regardless of what the various governments did, the Pashtuns never gave much of a flip about the border. They still don't.\
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28	Amanullah Khan declared himself King (and Afghanistan a kingdom) in the mid-1920's. He was the first Afghan leader to attempt to modernize the country, proposing a number of reforms[[note]] (a written Constitution, adoption of a solar calendar, adopting the Metric System, abolishing slavery, compulsory secular education for both sexes, encouraging European clothing in Kabul, discouraging the burqa and seclusion of women, various tax and economic changes, etc.)[[/note]]. This upset the more religiously conservative tribal factions (including a lot of fundamentalists) who staged multiple uprisings beginning in 1923. Amanullah himself was forced to abdicate in 1929 after losing the loyalty of Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Durand Line and, by extension, the Army. Most of his reform proposals died with him (the abolition of slavery being a major exception).\
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30	1929 was a chaotic year for Afghanistan. After Amanullah Khan abdicated following an uprising in Kabul, he was succeeded by his brother Inayatullah, who managed to reign for all of three days before being overthrown by Habibullah Kalakani, a fundamentalist Tajik. Pashtun tribal leaders may not have liked Amanullah's pro-European reforms, but they ''really'' didn't like the idea of being ruled by a Tajik, so Kalakani was overthrown and unceremoniously executed by Mohammed Nadir Khan (later Shah), a distant relative of the previous King who took the throne for himself. Nadir sought to placate the religious conservatives and regain their support by stopping reforms.\
31
32	Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1933. He was succeeded by his son Mohammed Zahir Shah. Those of you who paid close attention in the early days of the War on Terror might remember him. Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan for the next four decades, bring an era of relative peace and stability to the fractious kingdom. Incidentally, he (eventually) restarted the kingdom's modernization – understandable since he finished his education in Paris. This led to Kabul becoming a cultural center for the first time since the days of the old Silk Road. He also continued the efforts of his predecessors in reaching out to the rest of the world, establishing relations with several countries, including the United States. Many of his reforms were, however, stymied by conservative tribal opposition and political infighting.\
33
34	Note the word "relative" in the preceding paragraph. In 1947, "Pakistan" ('''P'''unjab-'''A'''fghan-'''K'''ashmir-'''I'''ndus-'''S'''ind-Baleuchis'''tan''') was created from the former Briitsh Indian Raj and the Afghan government announced they no longer recognized the Durand Line - making claims to Pakistani-Afghan territory ranging from the Indus all the way to Northern Pakistan – though they really just wanted back the Pashtun tribal areas that they had claimed all along. In the 1950s, they tried border attacks. Now, this was not the brightest idea, as Pakistan's Army at the time was a force which had been recently part of UsefulNotes/KiplingsFinest, with troops who had fought and won two world wars in three decades. So it went [[CurbStompBattle about as well as you'd expect]]. In 1962, the Afghans tried a much larger effort and got absolutely shellacked. Afghans are still a little sore about that (whereas most Pakistanis have no idea the battles ever happened). Afghanistan also lent overt support to the East Turkestan separatist movement in the UsefulNotes/{{Xinjiang}} autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It went considerably less well than the efforts to cross the Durand line.
35	[[/folder]]
36
37	[[folder:Republican Era, the Soviet Invasion, and the Beginning of the Civil War (1973-1996)]]
38	In 1973, Zahir Shah was overthrown while abroad in a bloodless coup by his cousin Daoud Khan, a former prime minister who had been influenced by [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet]] teachings and declared Afghanistan a republic with himself as president. Despite his socialist leanings, Daoud eventually attempted to pivot to a more pro-American stance (mostly for easier access to oil – Iran was still a friend of the USA at the time). In response, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev started fomenting a Communist rebellion, which toppled Daoud's government and assassinated him in April 1978, sparking an all-out civil war – the very thing Zahir Shah had abdicated to avoid.\
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40	Infighting between various Communist factions led to [[UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan the Soviet Union intervening to restore order]] in 1979. The Soviets were not going to let a state in their sphere of influence go capitalist, and they were especially not going to let it go Islamic-fundamentalist as was happening in Iran. The Soviet prosecution of the War in Afghanistan differed from earlier counter-insurgency efforts in that there was no forcible relocation of populations from areas thought to be supporting the insurgency, as had helped immensely in the immediate post-WWII elimination of Fascist partisans in UsefulNotes/{{Belarus}} and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in western UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}}. However, perhaps a third of the population fled to Pakistan, facilitating the exchange of personnel and material between the two. The USA provided much of said material through Pakistan, arming and funding the Mujahideen - a hodgepodge of different factions united in fighting the Soviets.\
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42	The US provision of MANPADS (man portable air defense systems) to the Mujahideen forced the Soviet Army to abandon the use of helicopters to support light infantry patrols with gunfire and medical evacuation. This caused a spike in deaths and wounds to a level which was politically unsustainable for the Union, to the point that Zbigniew Brzezinski, the US National Security Advisor at the time, asserted that for the USSR the conflict had become "its UsefulNotes/VietnamWar". The Soviets withdrew in 1989, leaving a coherent and stable Communist state that sustained itself until 1992, but the civil war continued. This time, it was mainly between the Taliban (originally made of religious schools of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, aided by Al-Qaeda and headed by [[TheFaceless Mullah Muhammad Omar]]) and the Northern Alliance and its main man [[CulturedWarrior Ahmad Shah Massoud]], known in the region as the "Afghan who won the Cold War".
43
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Islamic Emirate and the US Invasion (1996-2001)]]
47	By the end of TheNineties, the cultivation and processing of opium into heroin for export had become the second most important sector of the Afghan economy after subsistence agriculture. World demand for heroin had reached an all time high by the end of TheNineties as the 'War on Drugs' raised profits for producers and traders all the way from Afghanistan, then competing with UsefulNotes/{{Myanmar}}, to North America. Opium taxes and heroin production served as an important source of revenue for the Taliban, which established control over most of the country by 1996 and declared the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.\
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49	The Emirate instituted Sharia law, [[StayInTheKitchen obligatory use of the burqa for women]], [[MonumentalDamage destroyed the country's non-Islamic monuments and cultural artefacts]], and did other unpleasant things. The same year the Emirate was proclaimed, it also welcomed UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, after his expulsion from UsefulNotes/{{Sudan}}, following pressure by UsefulNotes/SaudiArabia (which designated him ''persona non grata'' in 1994, as he was a critic of the country's alliance with the West), UsefulNotes/{{Egypt}} (which accused him of being linked to a plot to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak), and the United States. Al-Qaeda was formed in 1988 after an ideological split from Maktab al-Khidamat, an organization bin Laden co-founded during the Soviet-Afghan War to channel Arab support for the war. This was because al-Khidamat mainly served as a financial and arms support for the insurgents, while bin Laden favored a direct military force.\
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51	Meanwhile, Massoud continued to rule a rump state in the north, the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, better known as the Northern Alliance, where he had established democratic institutions and tried to give equal-gender rights, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of refugees that fled the Taliban to areas controlled by Massoud. During this period, most of the world, including the UN, recognized the Northern Alliance as the legitimate Afghan government, even after it had been reduced to controlling less than 10% of the country (mainly comprising Badakhshan Province) on the eve of the American invasion, while the Islamic Emirate was recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UsefulNotes/UnitedArabEmirates. Massoud tried to obtain help from external powers and, in 2001, [[IgnoredExpert even tried to warn them of a possible large-scale attack on the USA by Al-Qaeda]], to no avail.\
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53	On September 9, 2001, Massoud was assassinated by two affiliates of Taliban and al-Qaeda claiming to be reporters, who killed Massoud with bombs hidden in their filming equipment. Two days later, Al-Qaeda launched the September 11 attacks. The USA demanded the Taliban hand over the mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, and disband Al-Qaeda’s forces in the area (by then, Al-Qaeda was already a state within a state). After the predictable refusal, the USA successfully obtained the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations' permission to invade the country and disband the Taliban.
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55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder:Post-US Invasion, Establishment of a UN-backed Administration, Continuation of the Civil War (2001-2021)]]
58	After the Taliban were overthrown, the former King Mohammed Zahir Shah returned to his country after 29 years of exile to open the Loya Jirga – a traditional meeting of tribal chieftains – which was to decide the future of Afghanistan. Once it became clear that the chiefs wanted to simply restore the monarchy, the U.S. (in a ''supremely'' shortsighted self-serving move) strong-armed the Loya Jirga into installing the American-educated Pashtun Hamid Karzai as president of an Afghan Republic instead – Zahir Shah was given the ceremonial position "Father of the Country", which died with him in 2007.\
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60	The [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush administration]] had hoped for a compliant puppet in Karzai, but ended up with a corrupt SpannerInTheWorks instead. Karzai's official Afghan federal government had been superficial and ineffectual, as its inability to engage in the production of heroin for export meant that its opponents had access to an immensely valuable source of revenue which it did not. UN (chiefly US) funding, trainers, personnel, and weapons+equipment for the federal government had been effectively checked. Donations had been forthcoming from wealthy parties within UsefulNotes/SaudiArabia and other neighboring states, training and combat power had been provided by mercenaries hired using heroin and charity funds, and weapons+equipment had been bought from traders in neighboring states or even from within the country itself. Perhaps the greatest problem facing the federal government had been the ability of its opponents to corrupt local and regional administrations, creating a number of areas which were not definitively under the control of either party and which could seemingly change hands overnight. In 2014, a botched presidential election to replace Karzai nearly erupted in yet another war before the two main candidates reached an agreement and power was handed to current president Ashraf Ghani, who was reelected in 2019.\
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62	Unlike UsefulNotes/{{Iraq}}, the War on Terror in Afghanistan was very much still a work in progress. While the Ba'athists have been rendered powerless since the Iraq War, the Taliban was still active, growing, and exerting support from some Afghanis vindictive against the international community for dragging the war indefinitely.[[note]]Despite what they've done, the Taliban rule of 1996-2001 was one of the few times where a significant majority of Afghans could enjoy a semblance of peace, [[DealWithTheDevil even if they had to sacrifice human rights for it]].[[/note]] The Taliban had taken advantage of Pashtuns' traditional disdain of the Durand Line to launch attacks from across the border in Pakistan. Meanwhile, groups affiliated with the Islamic State infiltrated the northern border in 2015 and are operating in Nangarhar Province, where they were opposed by both [[EnemyMine the UN-backed government and the Taliban]].\
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64	In 2018, the [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump Trump administration]] and the Taliban began talks for a ceasefire and a peace treaty, with the US pulling troops from the country on the condition that Afghanistan will not be used as a safe haven for terrorists. The talks had come and gone many times, as the Taliban refused to talk to the UN-backed government, which they saw as a Western puppet, while the US considered intra-Afghan talks as key to any peace. In May 2021, the [[UsefulNotes/JoeBiden Biden administration]] announced that it would pull all US troops from the country by September 11, 2021, the vicenary of the US World Trade Center attacks that marked the start of the War on Terror, leaving the UN-backed government to deal with the Taliban on its own. The US officially completed the withdrawal of all of its troops on August 31, 2021.\
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66	In a shocking reversal of fortunes, though, the Taliban didn't need even to wait for the US's complete withdraw before jumping back into the fray. In May 2021, they had held a sizeable minority of the country's provinces, but by August, they had completely [[CurbStompBattle steamrolled]] the Afghan army and police forces. The national forces, despite huge advantages in numbers and material, simply [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere melted away]], deserting their posts and abandoning entire cities, often without firing a shot. By August 15, the Taliban forces entered Kabul to zero resistance, taking the presidential palace and government buildings with the President himself having fled the country.\
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68	Within hours, announcements were made for a formal transition of power as the Afghan government surrendered unconditionally. Remnants of government fighters, joined by Ahmad Massoud, son of the departed leader of the Northern Alliance, held out in the Panjshir Province for several weeks, until the Taliban came in early September and captured the provincial capital, forcing them to flee. All this meant that the efforts of the US military and their international partners to form a democratic government that served the country and its people over the past twenty years [[ShootTheShaggyDog were completely undone]]. Seems like they didn't learn from [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar last time]].\
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Second Islamic Emirate (2021-present)]]
72	The second Taliban takeover drove over 120,000 people, including Westerners, most government figures, and other vulnerable Afghans, to flee the country in a chaotic withdrawal that stained the reputation of the West. After several days of joyous triumph, though, the Taliban is soon faced with a few hard truths. First, memories of the first Islamic Emirate, including its brutal treatment of the opposition, hatred of entertainment, and seclusion of women, are still fresh in many people's minds. The Taliban has not been recognized by any countries abroad, with Western countries citing that they will not support a government that does not respect women's and minorities' rights, and the U.S. outright stating that any Afghan money stored in the country will not be accessible to the Taliban, including the majority of the bank account funds stored in the IMF. Second, the massive brain drain caused by the exodus of many educated Afghans meant that the country is in danger of being run to the ground by incompetent figures.\
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74	To confront these problems, the Taliban has tried to remedy its PR issues by presenting a more open-minded image, but it's unknown how true this promise will hold, as it has begun clamping down on women's rights (albeit not yet to the same extent as its first reign, e.g., girls are still allowed to go to school, but gender segregation is practiced). It also invited fleeing Afghans to return to the country by promising that they will not face reprisals, though the call has yielded little success. On top of policy issues, the Taliban also has to deal with the Islamic State, who is still working to subvert any government not aligned to its views, even if that government is the Taliban ([[NoTrueScotsman whom it thinks is too soft]]).
75	[[/folder]]
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77	[[folder:People]]
78	Ethnically, Afghanistan is dominated by the Pashtuns/[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Pakhtuns]],[[note]]"Pashtun" is the pronunciation of the southern dialects of Pashto, centered on Kandahar, whereas "Pakhtun" is the pronunciation of the northern dialects, centered on Kabul and Peshawar. This is the reason why the Pashtun province of Pakistan is called "Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa", since most Pakistani Pashtuns speak the northern dialects.[[/note]] who live in the south (roughly in the ancient provinces of Arachosia and Drangiana) and form 40% of the population. The Pashtuns' homeland, called "Pashtunistan", is divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are three times as many Pashtuns in the latter as there are in the former, making up the second largest ethnic group at 15% of the country's population, but Pashtun influence in Pakistani politics is rather minimal, as other ethnic groups like the Punjabis, Sindhis, and Muhajirs are historically more powerful.[[note]]There have been a few Pakistani presidents of Pashtun descent, but only one (Ghulam Ishaq Khan) is a native Pashto speaker. There is a single Pakistani Prime Minister (Imran Khan) of Pashtun descent, but he grew up in Lahore and speaks Punjabi as his first language.[[/note]] This is in contrast in Afghanistan, which has been pretty much dominated by the Pashtuns since the 18th century. The name "Afghan" is actually an archaic Persian designation of the Pashtuns, derived from the Bactrian word ''Abagano'', which means "faraway people". The endonym "Pashtun" has the same etymological derivation as "Persia", albeit descended through Eastern Iranian rather than Western Iranian, and it means "borderland" (as both Persians and Pashtuns lived in the borderlands of the Median Empire, the first ever superpower of Greater Iran).\
79
80	The second largest ethnic group, the Tajiks, mainly live in the north and west (in the ancient provinces of Bactria and Aria). They are a subset of Persians who live east of Herat; the term was first used by early Turks to refer to Persian-speaking Muslims, and it used to be pejorative. They speak a Persian dialect called Dari, which is mutually intelligible to Iranian Persian, although it tends to incorporate more archaic vocabulary, and its loanwords are predominantly from English rather than French. The reason their language is called Dari is because their Pashtun overlords wanted to distance them from their Iranian brethren, appropriating a term that originally had no connection with the Tajiks. (Dari referred to the courtly language of the pre-Islamic Iranian dynasty of the Sassanids, ''Zaban-i-Dari'', while ''Zaban-i-Farsi'' was the language of the common people.) The term was promoted by the Barakzai dynasty in the 1960s, but many Tajiks are resistant to the appellation, continuing to call their language "Persian" or "Farsi". The same issue occurs in Tajikistan, where the national language, another Persian dialect, is called "Tajik", because its former colonizer, the Soviets, wanted to distance it from Persian-speaking people outside their control.\
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82	The third largest ethnic group, Hazaras, are descendants of Mongols and Turks who intermarried with the locals, shifted to speak a Mongolian/Turkic-influenced Persian, and adopted Shia Islam, a legacy of Safavid control over the land. The community has historically suffered marginalization and racism from others. Their homeland is called the Hazarajat, located in the heart of the country, centered around the provinces of Bamiyan, Daykundi, and Ghor.\
83
84	Other ethnic groups include the Uzbeks, Aimaqs/nomadic Tajiks, Turkmens, Baloch, Nuristanis, Pamiris, and Kyrgyz. The Nuristanis were formerly pagan, until they were proselytized to Islam by Abdur Rahman Khan, the guy who negotiated the Durand Line with the British; before the conversion, their homeland, Nuristan ("land of light"), was called Kafiristan ("land of the infidels"). Their languages actually form a distinct third branch within Indo-Iranian, meaning they are equally distinct from Iranian languages like Pashto as they are from Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi. The Pamiris of Badakhshan, alongside the Pashtuns, are one of the last remnants of Eastern Iranian-speaking people that used to be widespread in Central Asia. They include the nomads of the Wakhan Corridor, a panhandle jutting out of the northeastern corner of the country, separating Pakistan from Tajikistan and giving Afghanistan a small border with China. The Pamiris have been traditional adherents of Nizari Ismailism[[note]] a branch of Shia Islam who believes that the imamate does not end with the Mahdi, but continues to this day[[/note]] since the 11th century.\
85
86	Contrary to popular perception, Afghanistan has a well-established Arab community that dates back to the Middle Ages. They have, however, been long assimilated into the Tajik population and no longer speak Arabic. The misconception is because of the so-called "Afghan Arabs", foreign Muslims who came to Afghanistan to help the mujahideen during their fight against the Soviets in the 1980s. [[NonIndicativeName Many of them weren't even Arabs and did not speak Arabic as their first language]], although some were (the most famous being UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden).\
87
88	Although Afghanistan is almost entirely Muslim, there is a tiny percentage (less than 1%) of people practicing other faiths. They consist of around sixteen thousand or so Baháʼís, several thousand Christians and Sikhs, and a couple hundred Hindus. Non-Muslim presence has significantly diminished since the civil war; before then, as much as 16% of the population were non-Muslims. It also briefly gained attention in the West for the presence of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zablon_Simintov a single Jew]] in the late 2000s and 2010s, who refused to leave even during the height of the first Taliban rule. However, he departed for Israel when the group retook the country in 2021.\
89
90	Most Afghans have OnlyOneName, as surname is not required by law.[[note]]Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah has a RepetitiveName because he grew tired of Western journalists pestering him for a surname, as his full name was originally just "Abdullah".[[/note]] However, a lot of Afghans belong to clans, since clan politics is a reality in the country. Some people choose to use their clan name as their surname while traveling abroad, even though it's not a surname per se. Tribal names from Pashtunistan tend to incorporate "-zai" (e.g., Barakzai, Achakzai, Yousafzai), which means "[[UsefulNotes/{{Patronymic}} son of]]" in Pashto.\
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder:Miscellaneous]]
94	The reason Afghanistan is called the "Graveyard of Empires" is because [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption every major modern power that has tried to establish a foothold in Afghanistan or lasting control over it has eventually wrung its hands and given up]]. The country is just too poor, and asserting effective control too difficult, for anyone with half a brain to continue seriously believing that it's worth it once the costs start stacking up - every effort to establish even a foothold has become a massive resource-sink. Even the Soviets – who were never exactly renowned for their sensitivity to public opinion – quit once their inability to use chopper support made the going too tough.\
95
96	Despite all the problems, the country is still a marvelous tourist site. You’d be surprised how much SceneryPorn you can get from a bunch of mountains and sand. Monuments are a fair game, too, especially if you're interested in Persian and Turco-Mongol architecture as can be seen in the mosques and shrines. The country used to host one of the largest Buddhist statues in the world: the Bamyan Buddha. However, the Taliban blew it up in 2001.
97
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	!!Afghanistan in media:
101
102	!!![[AC:Anime & Manga]]
103
104	* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'': Balalaika, leader of the local branch of TheMafiya, is a veteran of the Soviet intervention. So are all of her top underlings. It messed them up pretty bad. In spite of the mental and physical scars they endured there, the combat experience they garnered has resulted in them arguably being the deadliest faction in the series.
105
106	!!![[AC:Comic Books]]
107
108	* Sooraya Qadir, a.k.a. Dust from ''Comicbook/XMen'', is Afghan.
109
110	!!![[AC:Film]]
111
112	* ''Afganskiy Izlom''
113	* ''The Beast''
114	* ''Film/{{Baran}}'': a 2001 Iranian film which portrays Afghan refugees working as cheap labour in a construction site.
115	* ''Film/CharlieWilsonsWar''
116	* ''Film/IronMan1'': Afghanistan is now the setting of Tony Stark's origin story to reflect the geopolitical situation of the time of the film's release. Ho Yinsen, Tony Stark's mentor figure, is re-imagined as a Pashtun, while he was Vietnamese in the comics.[[note]]Though oddly, he keeps his Vietnamese name[[/note]]
117	* ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'': Film/JamesBond is brought to the country at the time of the Soviet-Afghan war and teams up with the Mujahideen to ruin the drug smuggling operations of a RenegadeRussian.
118	* ''Film/TheManWhoWouldBeKing''
119	* ''Film/NinthCompany''
120	* ''Film/{{Osama}}''
121	* ''Film/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'': Dastan and Tamina visit the Hindu Kush mountains in the second act.
122	* ''Film/RamboIII'': [[Franchise/{{Rambo}} John Rambo]] goes OneManArmy on the Soviets to help the Mujahideen.
123	* ''Film/SpiesLikeUs''
124	* ''Film/WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot''
125
126	!!![[AC:Literature]]
127
128	* ''The Cardinal of the Kremlin''
129	* ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'': Sousuke's DarkAndTroubledPast begins in the battlefields of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. The anime, due to [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents/SeptemberEleventh debuting less than a year after 9/11]], changed the country's name to the fictional "Helmajistan."
130	* ''Literature/TheManWhoWouldBeKing''
131	* Most of the novels of Creator/KhaledHosseini:
132	** ''Literature/TheKiteRunner''
133	** ''Literature/AThousandSplendidSuns''
134	** ''Literature/AndTheMountainsEchoed''
135	* ''Zinky Boys''
136	* ''Literature/TheBreadwinner''
137	* ''Literature/AStudyInScarlet'': The novel opens with Dr Watson returning from service in Afghanistan, and the first clue we have of Sherlock Holmes's remarkable powers is that immediately on seeing Watson, he knew he had been in Afghanistan.
138
139	!!![[AC:LiveActionTV]]
140
141	* ''Series/BombPatrolAfghanistan''
142	* ''Series/{{JAG}}''
143	* ''Series/KaboulKitchen''
144	* ''Series/TheBrave'': Episode 4 is based off of the 2001 Mazar-e-Sharif prison uprising, though the episode itself is set in 2017.
145	* ''Series/SEALTeam'': Thanks to the show's RippedFromTheHeadlines story structure, Afghanistan is a frequent mission location for the series.
146	** Season 1 Episode 9 takes place on the China-Afghanistan border region, where the [=SEALs=] must help a Russian defector and his wife cross the border and meet up with U.S. forces ready to evacuate them. The second half of the season takes place entirely in Afghanistan as the team is on a long-term deployment to find out who orchestrated the deaths of fellow SEAL unit Echo Team.
147	** In Season 3 Episode 17, Bravo Team again deploys to Afghanistan to provide security during [[RippedFromTheHeadlines the U.S. military's drawdown from the region due to a pending peace agreement with the Taliban.]]
148	** Bravo returns to the country again in Season 5 Episode 7 to rescue a CIA agent who was left behind in the U.S.'s disastrous withdrawal from the country and is being held by the Taliban. Ray half-jokes that they spend more time in Afghanistan than they do with their families.
149
150	!!![[AC:VideoGames]]
151
152	* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2''
153	* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII''
154	* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'' (tutorial mission only)
155	* ''VideoGame/Hitman2SilentAssassin''
156	* ''VideoGame/{{Insurgency}}''
157	* ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' (2010 reboot)
158	* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain''
159	* ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter 3''
160	* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellBlacklist''
161
162	!!![[AC:Webcomics]]
163
164	* ''Webcomic/AfganisuTan''
165
166	!Other
167
168	* AfghanMedia
169	----
170	[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/flag_of_afghanistan_5.png]]
171	[[AC:The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan flag]]
172	->This flag is used by the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, and is the internationally recognized flag of the country. The black, red, and green stripes symbolize the colonial period, the revolutions, and independent Afghanistan, respectively. At the center is the coat-of-arms.
173
174	->Afghanistan has frequently switched flags over its history. Since 1700, Afghanistan has gone through a total of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Afghanistan 26 different flags designs]], plus a period during which it did not have a flag at all.
175	----
176	[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/national_emblem_of_afghanistan.png]]
177	[[AC:Emblem of Afghanistan]]
178	->The coat-of-arms features a mosque with a ''mihrab'' (niche facing Mecca), flanked by two Afghan flags; above the mosque are the worlds "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great"), and below is the Islamic year 1298 (1919, the year of its independence from Britain); surrounding the mosque is a wreath of wheat, above which is the ''shahada'' (the Islamic creed), and below is a scroll containing the country's name in Pashto).
179	----
180	[[AC:The Afghan national anthem]]
181
182	->دا وطن افغانستان دی
183	->دا عزت د هر افغان دى
184	->كور د سولې، كور د تورې
185	->هر بچى يې قهرمان دى
186
187	->دا وطن د ټولو كور دى
188	->د بلوڅو، د ازبكو
189	->پــښــتــنو او هزاراو
190	->د تركمنو، د تاجكو
191
192	->ور سره عرب، ګوجر دي
193	->پاميريان، نورستانيان
194	->براهوي دي، قزلباش دي
195	->هم ايماق، هم پشايان
196
197	->دا هيواد به تل ځلېږي
198	->لكه لمر پر شنه آسمان
199	->په سينې كې د آسيا به
200	->لكه زړه وي جاويدان
201
202	->نوم د حق مو دى رهبر
203	->وايو الله اكبر
204	->وايو الله اكبر
205	->وايو الله اكبر
206	[[note]]
207	->Dā watan Afgānistān dai,
208	->dā izat də har Afgān dai
209	->Kor də sole, kor də ture,
210	->har bačai ye qahramān dai
211
212	->Dā watan də ttolo kor dai,
213	->də Baločo, də Uzbəko
214	->də Pax̌tun aw Hazārawo,
215	->də Turkməno, də Tāǰəko
216
217	->Wər sara Arəb, Guǰər di,
218	->Pāmiryān, Nuristānyān
219	->Brāhuwi di, Qizilbāsh di,
220	->ham Aymāq, ham Pašāyān
221
222	->Dā hiwād ba təl dzaleγ̌i,
223	->ləka lmar pər šnə āsmān
224	->Pə sine ke də Āsyā ba,
225	->ləka zrrə wi ǰāwidān
226
227	->Num də haq mo dai rahbar,
228	->Wāyu Allāhu Akbar,
229	->Wāyu Allāhu Akbar,
230	->Wāyu Allāhu Akbar
231	[[/note]]
232
233	--
234
235	->این کشور افغانستان است
236	->این عزت هر افغان است
237	->خانهٔ صلح، خانهٔ شمشیر
238	->هر فرزندش قهرمان است
239
240	->این کشور خانهٔ همه است
241	->از بلوچ، از ازبک
242	->از پشتون و هزارها
243	->از ترکمن و تاجک
244
245	->هم عرب و گوجر است
246	->پامیری‌ها، نورستانی ها
247	->براهوی است و قزلباش است
248	->هم آیماق و پشه‌ای ها
249
250	->این کشور همیشه تابان خواهد بد
251	->مثل آفتاب در آسمان کبود
252	->در سینهٔ آسیا
253	->مثل قلب جاویدان
254
255	->نام حق است ما را رهبر
256	->میگویم الله اکبر
257	->میگویم الله اکبر
258	->میگویم الله اکبر
259	[[note]]
260	->In kishvar Afghānistān ast
261	->in izzat har Afghān ast
262	->Khāni-yi-sulih, khāni-yi-shamshēr
263	->har farzandish qahramān ast
264
265	->In kishvar khāni-yi-hame ast
266	->az Baloch, az Uzbek
267	->az Pashtun o Hazāraha
268	->az Turkman o Tājik
269
270	->ham Arab o Gujar ast
271	->Pāmirihā, Nuristānhā
272	->Brāhui ast o Qizilbāsh ast
273	->ham Āymāq o Pasha-yi-hā
274
275	->In kishvar hamēshi tābān khwahda bud
276	->misl āftāb dar āsmān kabud
277	->Dar sēni-yi-āsyā
278	->misl qalb jāvidān
279
280	->Nām haq ast mā rā rahbar
281	->Mēgoēm Allāh hu Akbar
282	->Mēgoēm Allāh hu Akbar
283	->Mēgoēm Allāh hu Akbar
284	[[/note]]
285
286	--
287
288	->This land is Afghanistan,
289	->it is the pride of every Afghan
290	->The land of peace, the land of sword,
291	->each of its sons is brave
292
293	->This is the country of every tribe,
294	->The land of Balochs and Uzbeks
295	->Pashtuns and Hazaras,
296	->Turkmens and Tajiks
297
298	->With them, there are Arabs and Gujjars,
299	->Pamiris, Nuristanis
300	->Brahuis, and Qizilbash,
301	->also Aimaqs and Pashais
302
303	->This land will shine for ever,
304	->like the sun in the blue sky
305	->In the chest of Asia,
306	->it will remain as heart for ever
307
308	->We will follow the one God
309	->We all say, "Allah is the greatest!",
310	->we all say, "Allah is the greatest!",
311	->we all say, "Allah is the greatest!"
312	----
313	[[AC:Government]]
314	* Unitary presidential Islamic republic
315	** President: Amrullah Saleh
316	** 1st Vice President: vacant
317	** 2nd Vice President: Sarwar Danish
318
319	Due to TV Tropes's policy regarding terrorist material, we will recognize only the UN-backed government and their symbols.
320	----
321	[[AC:Miscellaneous]]
322	* '''Capital and largest city:''' Kabul
323	* '''Population:''' 32,225,560
324	* '''Area:''' 652,230 km² (251,830 sq mi) (40th)
325	* '''Currency''': Afghan afghani (؋) (AFN)
326	* '''ISO-3166-1 Code:''' AF
327	* '''Country calling code:''' 93
328	* '''Highest point:''' Noshakh (7492 m/24,580 ft) (6th)

Context UsefulNotes / Afghanistan