Panjshir Valley

The Panjshir Valley, also spelled Panjsher Valley (PerB|دره پنجشير - "Dara-ye Panjšēr"; literally "Valley of the Five Lions") is a valley in north-central Afghanistan, 150km north of Kabul, near the Hindu Kush mountain range.cite news|title=Afghanistan gets rid of heavy arms in Panjshir|url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-03/06/content_2657769.htm|publisher=Xinhua|date=2005-03-06|accessdate=2006-11-22] Located in the Panjshir Province it is divided by the Panjshir River. The valley is home to more than 300,000 people, including Afghanistan's largest concentration of ethnic Tajiks.cite web|title=Afghanistan|work=Library of Congress Country Studies|publisher=Library of Congress|date=1997|url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+af0038)|accessdate= 2006-11-19] As of April 2004, it became the heart of Panjshir Province. [http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2006/20060705_5589.html]

Name

The name "Panjshir", literally meaning 'Five Lions', refers to five Wali (literally, "protectors"), highly spiritual brothers who were centered in the valley. Local legend has it that the five brothers built a dam for Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni in the early 11th century AD. The foundations serve today for a modern reservoir.

Military significance

The Panjshir Valley has long been a center of resistance to Afghan central governments and outside powers seeking to rule the region. The region was propelled into the news by the eponymous Panjshir Valley Incident, a 1975 anti-Communist uprising led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. The uprising ultimately failed when local people, hearing news that the central government of Daoud Khan was sending in outside troops to put down the uprising, turned against Massoud.cite book|last=Rubin|first=Barnett R.|title=The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, Second Edition|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|date=2002|id=ISBN 0-300-09519-8] Massoud would be more successful using the valley as the base for his Northern Alliance during the 1979-1989 Soviet war in Afghanistan. The Panjsher Valley was one of the main centers of rebellion by Afghan Mujahideen against the government of Mohammad Najibullah and the Soviet forces. It was during this time that Massoud earned his nickname of "the Lion of Panjsher".cite news|title=Profile: Afghanistan's 'Lion of Panjshir'|url=http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/09/bc868dd6-f1e9-413b-a013-2a2f590eedc5.html|publisher=Radio Free Europe|date=2006-09-05|accessdate=2006-11-22] The Panjshir was the only part of Afghanistan which successfully resisted Soviet control.cite news|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801903.html|date=2007-09-28|accessdate=2007-10-09|publisher=The Washington Post|last=Anderson|first=John Ward|title=A Haven of Prosperity in Afghanistan: U.S. Building Effort Blooms in Panjshir|page=A11] The Soviets launched nine offensives in the valley, all of which failed. Some sources estimate that close to 60% of all Soviet casualties of the Soviet-Afghan war occurred in the Panjshir Valley.Fact|date=February 2007

The valley would become an important point of resistance against the Taliban when they rose to power in 1996 after the Mujahideen civil wars.cite news|last=Tighe|first=Paul|publisher=Bloomberg|url=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a8PUw.191fYQ&refer=top_world_news|accessdate=2006-11-22|date=2005-01-09|title=Afghanistan's Disarmament Program Begins in Panjshir Valley]

Economy and natural resources

The Panjsher Valley has the potential to become a major center of emerald mining. As early as the 1st century AD, Pliny the Elder commented on gemstones from the region.cite journal|last=Bowersox|first=Gary|coauthors=Lawrence W. Snee, Eugene E. Foord, and Robert R. Seal II|title=Emeralds of the Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan|journal=Gems and Gemology|publisher=Gemological Society of America|date=1991|volume=Spring|pages=pp26–39] In the Middle Ages, Panjshir was famed for its silver mining and the Saffarids and Samanids minted their coins there. [cite encyclopedia|title=Pandjhir| encyclopedia = Encyclopaedia of Islam| edition = CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0|publisher=Koninklijke Brill NV|location=Leiden, The Netherlands|date=1999| ] As of 1985, crystals upwards of 190 carats had been found there, reported to rival in quality the finest crystals of the Muzo mine in Colombia. American reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan has sparked a development boom in the valley with the construction of new modern roads and a new radio tower that allows valley residents to pick up radio signals from the Afghan capital, Kabul.

References

See also

* Panjshir Province
* Panjshir River

External links

* [http://flickr.com/search/?q=panjshir&m=text Photographs from the Panjshir Valley]