Invasions of Afghanistan
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Afghanistan has been invaded many times, and its boundaries and legitimate government have almost always been in dispute. Invaders include the Mughal rulers of South Asia, the Russian Tsars, the Soviet Union, the British Empire, and currently the United States.
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 of Eurasia. Historically, the conquest of Afghanistan has also played an important role in the invasion of India from the West through the Khyber Pass.
The first historically documented invasion of the region that is now called Afghanistan was made by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. as part of his string of conquests. Among the cities conquered was Herat and Kandahar.
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 by Genghis Khan, once by Timur Lang) in a drive to conquer both India and the heartlands of Dar al-Islam.
During the Nineteenth Century, independent Afghanistan was invaded twice from British India, firstly in the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838–1842, and again in the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878–1880, both times with the intention of limiting Russian influence in the country, and quelling local tribal leaders. Both invasions ended in total defeat for the British forces, and despite sustaining heavy losses, Afghan warlords maintained their grip on power. For the entire period, tribal cross border warfare was constant, and the area was known in India and Europe as the North-West Frontier.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan occurred in December of 1979, prompting a Western boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, and kickstarting U.S. funding for radical, armed Islamic resistance groups. Local Mujahadeen, along with fighters from several different Arab nations, eventually succeeded in forcing the Soviets out, in the USSR's most humiliating military defeat, and was a factor in the dissolution of Soviet communism. In-fighting between the Mujahedeen led to feudal warlords in Afghanistan, and from that the violent fundamentalist Taliban regime.
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 the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Although the US military forces did not capture him, they succeeded in toppling the radical politico-religious Taliban government, and seriously disrupting Osama bin ladin's Al-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 south, and continues to launch guerrilla attacks against forces of the US, its allies, and the current government of President Hamid Karzai.
In 2006, the US forces turned security for the country over to NATO deployed forces in the region, integrating their 12,000 of their 20,000 soldiers with NATO's 20,000. The remainder of the US forces continued to search for Al-Qaeda terrorists. The Canadian 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, and Canadian forces managed to kill over 1,000 alleged Taliban fighters and send thousands more into retreat. Many of the surviving guerrillas, however, began to regroup and further clashes are expected by both NATO and Afghan government military commanders.
[edit] See also
- Afghanistan
- History of Afghanistan
- International Security Assistance Force
- Provincial Reconstruction Team
- War rugs
- Doctor Watson
- Rambo III
