- Invasions of Afghanistan
Purpose of invasions
From a geopolitical sense, controlling Afghanistan is vital in controlling Southern Asia. Afghanistan played an important part in the
Great Game power struggles. Current struggles over Afghanistan can be viewed as an extension of the struggle over control over Southern Asia and its natural resources, as well as its strategic location in the middle ofEurasia . Historically, the conquest of Afghanistan has also played an important role in the invasion ofIndia from the west through theKhyber Pass .History of invasions
Ancient invasions
The first historically documented invasion of the region that is now called "Afghanistan" was made by Alexander the Great in 330 BC as part of his string of conquests. Among the cities conquered was
Herat andKandahar .Later, the region was invaded from the west by the Arab Muslims, causing the conversion of most of its inhabitants to
Islam . Later, it was invaded twice from the north and east by the Mongols (once byGenghis Khan , once by Timur Lung) in a drive to conquer bothIndia and the heartlands ofDar al-Islam .British invasion
During the nineteenth century, independent Afghanistan was invaded twice from
British India , during theFirst Anglo-Afghan War of 1838–1842, and again in theSecond Anglo-Afghan War of 1878–1880, both times with the intention of limiting Russian influence in the country, and quelling local tribal leaders. For the entire period, tribal cross-border warfare was constant, and the area was known in India andEurope as theNorth-West Frontier .oviet invasion
The
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan occurred onDecember 24 ,1979 , prompting a Western boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, and kick starting US-funding for radical, armedIslamic resistance groups. LocalMujahideen , along with fighters from several differentArab nations, eventually succeeded in forcing the Soviets out, in the USSR's most humiliating military defeat, and was a factor in the dissolution of Sovietcommunism . In-fighting between the Mujahideen led to feudal warlords in Afghanistan, and from that the violent fundamentalist Taliban regime.American invasion
At the start of the 21st century, Afghanistan again found itself in conflict with a Western power. The 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan was publicly stated to have been launched to capture
Osama bin Laden , whom the U.S. government claimed to have masterminded theSeptember 11, 2001 terrorist attacks . Although theUS military forces did not capture him, they succeeded in toppling the radical politico-religiousTaliban government, and seriously disrupting Osama bin laden'sAl-Qaeda network. The Taliban government had given shelter to Bin Laden and become notorious for their human rights violations. The Taliban leadership survives in hiding in Afghanistan, largely in the southeast, and continues to launch guerrilla attacks against forces of the United States, its allies, and the current government of PresidentHamid Karzai .In 2006, the US forces turned over security of the country to
NATO -deployed forces in the region, integrating 12,000 of their 20,000 soldiers with NATO's 20,000. The remainder of the US forces continued to search forAl-Qaeda militants. TheCanadian military assumed leadership and almost immediately began an offensive against areas where the Taliban guerrillas had encroached. At the cost of only a few dozen of their own soldiers, the British, American, andCanadian Forces managed to kill over 1,000 alleged Taliban insurgents and send thousands more into retreat. Many of the surviving insurgents, however, began to regroup and further clashes are expected by both NATO andAfghan National Army commanders.ee also
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Afghanistan
*History of Afghanistan
*International Security Assistance Force
*Provincial Reconstruction Team
*War rugs References
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