Afghanistan has been invaded many times, its boundaries and governments almost always in dispute. Invaders include the Mughal rulers of South Asia, Russian Tsars, Soviet Union, British Empire, and currently a coalition force of NATO troops with UN-backing led by US armed forces.
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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 BC as part of his string of conquests. Among the cities conquered were 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 Lung) 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, during 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. For the entire period, tribal cross-border warfare was constant, and parts of the Pashtun homeland were annexed to British India and referred to as the North-West Frontier Province.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan occurred on December 24, 1979, leading to the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott and kick-starting United States funding for Islamic Mujahideen groups who opposed the invasion. The local Mujahideen, along with fighters from several different Arab nations (Pathan tribes from Pakistan also participated in the war; they were supported by ISI), eventually succeeded in forcing the Soviet Union out. This was a factor in the dissolution of Soviet communism, because it led to protests (similar to American Vietnam War protests) in the Soviet Union. Eventually, in-fighting within the Mujahideen led to the rise of warlords in Afghanistan, and from them emerged the Taliban.
In 2001 the United States invaded Afghanistan. The invasion was launched to capture Osama bin Laden, who was accused of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The US military forces did not capture him, though they toppled the Taliban government, and disrupted Osama bin laden's Al-Qaeda network. The Taliban government had given shelter to Bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by United States Armed Forces. The Taliban leadership survives in hiding in Afghanistan, largely in the southeast, and continues to launch terrorist attacks against forces of the United States, its allies, and the current government of President Hamid 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 for Al-Qaeda militants. The Canadian military assumed leadership and almost immediately began an offensive against areas where the Taliban guerrillas had encroached. At the cost of a few dozen of their own soldiers, the British, American, and Canadian Forces managed to kill over 1,000 alleged Taliban insurgents and sent thousands more into retreat. Many of the surviving insurgents, however, began to regroup and further clashes are expected by both NATO and Afghan National Army commanders.