Background
Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian Empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in increased democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 communist countercoup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-communist mujahidin rebels. A series of subsequent civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy. Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, a US, Allied, and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Usama BIN LADIN.A UN-sponsored Bonn Conference in 2001 established a process for political reconstruction that included the adoption of a new constitution, a presidential election in 2004, and National Assembly elections in 2005. In December 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan and was reelected in August 2009. In February 2020, the US and the Taliban signed the “US-Taliban Agreement,†which contained commitments by the US related to the withdrawal from Afghanistan of military forces of the US, its allies, and Coalition partners, as well as commitments by the Taliban related to counterterrorism, among other topics. Following a US drawdown of virtually all of its troops, a summer 2021 Taliban offensive quickly overran the country and the Taliban took over Kabul in August of 2021.Â
Location
Southern Asia, north and west of Pakistan, east of Iran
Area Comparative
Almost six times the size of Virginia; slightly smaller than Texas
Maritime Claims
none (landlocked)
Climate
Arid to semiarid; cold winters and hot summers
Population Distribution
Populations tend to cluster in the foothills and periphery of the rugged Hindu Kush range; smaller groups are found in many of the country's interior valleys; in general, the east is more densely settled, while the south is sparsely populated
Natural Hazards
Damaging earthquakes occur in Hindu Kush mountains; flooding; droughts
Geography Note
Landlocked; the Hindu Kush mountains that run northeast to southwest divide the northern provinces from the rest of the country; the highest peaks are in the northern Vakhan (Wakhan Corridor)
