 Hello and welcome to our video summarizing all you need to know about modern-day Afghanistan. My name is Barbara and in this video, we'll examine Afghanistan, particularly from the 1920s and onewards, including all the different leaders of Afghanistan, the different regime changes, wars that happened, but also Afghanistan as it stands today. So let's get started. So now Afghanistan has a very long history and a lot of this history has been dominated by foreign conquerors and strife among internally warring factions. This is shaped Afghanistan as we know it today. Positioned at the gateway between Asia and Europe, this land was conquered by Darius I of Babylonia around 500 BC, then Alexander the Great of Macedonia around 329 BC, among others. Mahmoud of Ghazni, an 11th century conqueror, created an empire from Iran to India and he was considered the greatest of Afghanistan's conquerors. Genghis Khan took over the territory in the 13th century, however, it wasn't until the 1700s that the area was united as a single country. By 1870, after the area had been invaded by various Arab conquerors, Islam has taken root. During the 19th century, Britain, looking to protect its Indian empire from Russia, attempted to annex Afghanistan, resulting in a series of British Afghan wars, the first between 1838 to 1842, the second between 1878 to 1820 and the third between 1919 and 1921. Now when it comes to post 1920s Afghanistan and what the focus of this video really is, we can begin with 1921, when the British Bili Gurd by the wake of the First World War, which was 1914 to 1918, which had caused great economic damage within the UK. It was also defeated in the third British Afghan war, which was 1919 to 1921. And hence it gave up on Afghanistan and Afghanistan became an independent nation. Concerned that Afghanistan had fallen behind the rest of the world, Ahmeer Amanullah Khan began a rigorous campaign of socio-economic reform as the first king of Afghanistan. In by 1926, he declared Afghanistan a monarchy rather than an emirate and he proclaimed himself king. He launched a series of modernization plans and attempted to limit the power of the loyal jerker, which was the National Council. Critics, frustrated by his policies, took up arms in 1928 and by 1929, the king abdicated and left the country. He was followed in 1933 by Mohammed Zahir Shah. He lived from 1914 to 2007 and he became king. As a new king, he brought a semblance of stability to the country and he ruled for the next 40 years. During his reign, he undertook a number of economic development projects, including irrigation, highway construction projects and a lot of which were backed by foreign aid, largely from the US and the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, which started in 1945, he was also able to maintain Afghanistan's neutral position in international politics. In 1934, the US then formally recognized Afghanistan. In 1947, Britain withdrew from India, creating the predominantly Hindu but secular state of India and also the Islamic state of Pakistan. The nation of Pakistan is significant because it has a long and largely uncontrolled border with Afghanistan and this has been the site of several conflicts. In 1953, the pro-Soviet general Mohammed Dawood Khan, a cousin of the king, became prime minister and he looked to the communist nation for economic and military assistance, the communist nation being the USSR. He also introduced a number of social reforms, including allowing women a more public presence. In 1956, the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to help Afghanistan and the countries became close allies. By 1957, as part of Dawood's free forms, women were allowed to attend university and enter the workforce and here you can see an image of Afghan women walking around in what today we could classify as Western clothing. However, in 1965, the Afghan Communist Party secretly formed. The group's principal leaders were Babrak Kamal and Noor Mohamed Taraki. In 1970, although King Zahir Shah had carried out economic reforms, these reforms seemed to have little effect outside Kabul area, which is in the capital city. In the early 1970s, Afghanistan suffered drought and famine and Pashto tribes along the Pakistan border continued to press for autonomy, in other words independence, from the central government. And the political structure in the capital was unable to deal with the country's economic problems. By 1973, in a bloodless coup on July 17th, Zahir Shah the king was deposed. The leader of the coup was General Mohamed Dawood Khan, his brother-in-law and prime minister and he proclaimed Afghanistan a republic and became its president. Zahir Shah formally abdicated on August 24th 1973 and then he went into exile in Italy. Now between 1975 and 1977, Khan proposed a new constitution that granted women rights and works to modernize the largely communist state. He cracked down on opponents, forcing many suspected of not supporting his government out. By 1978, however, Khan was killed in a communist coup. Norm Mohamed Taraki, one of the founding members of the Afghan Communist Party, took control of country as president and Barbara Kamal was named as deputy prime minister. They proclaimed independence from Soviet influence and declared the policies to be based on Islamic principles, Afghan nationalism and socio-economic justice. Taraki signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, but a rivalry between Taraki and Hafizullah Amin, another influential communist leader, led to fighting between the two sides. At the same time, conservative and ethnic leaders who objected to social changes introduced by Khan began an armed revolt in the countryside. In June, the guerrilla movement, called the Majaheddin, known as those who engage in Jihad, was created to battle the Soviet-backed government. In 1979, the American ambassador Adolf Dobbs was killed. The US cut off assistance to Afghanistan. A power struggle then erupted between Taraki and deputy prime minister Hafizullah Amin. Taraki was then killed on September 14th in a confrontation with Amin supporters. The USSR then decided to invade Afghanistan on December 24th to bolster its faltering communist regime. On December 27th, Amin and many of his followers were executed and deputy prime minister Barbara Kamal became prime minister. This essentially led to what were the Afghan-Soviet war years. And do make sure you check out our other video which goes into detail on all the specific information you need to know about the Afghan and USSR war from its inception all the way to its ending. However here, we will gloss over some of these details. So, Barbara Kamal's new government, which had little popular support, forged even closer ties with the USSR, launching a ruthless purge of all domestic opposition. It began extensive land and social reforms that were bitterly resented by the devoutly Muslim and largely anti-communist population. But by the US, however, the major Heddin rebellion grew, spreading to all parts of the country. The Soviets initially left the suppression of the rebellion to the Afghan army, but the latter was beset by mass desertions and remained largely ineffective throughout the war. The Afghan war quickly settled down to a stalemate with more than 100,000 Soviet troops controlling the cities, larger towns and major garrisons and the Majahideen moving with relative freedom throughout the countryside. Soviet troops tried to crush the insurgency by various tactics, but the guerrillas generally eluded their attacks. The Soviets then attempted to eliminate the Majahideen civilian support by bombing and depopulating the rural areas. These tactics sparked a massive flight from the country. By 1982, some 2.8 million Afghans sought asylum in Pakistan, and another 1.5 million fled to Iran. The Majahideen were eventually able to neutralise Soviet air power through the use of a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile supported by the Soviet Union's Cold War adversary, the US. Now in 1984, although he claims to have travelled to Afghanistan immediately after the USSR's invasion, Saudi Islamist Osama bin Laden made his first documented trip to Afghanistan to aid anti-Soviet fighters. The UN investigated reported human rights violations in Afghanistan. By 1988, Osama bin Laden and 15 other Islamists formed the group Al-Qaeda, translated into the base, to continue what they saw as the holy war against the Soviets and others who they said opposed the goal of a pure nation governed by Islam. With the belief that the Soviets faltering war in Afghanistan was directly attributable to their fighting, they claimed victory in the first battle, but also they started to shift the focus to America, saying it was main obstacle to the establishment of a state based on Islam. In 1989, the US, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the USSR signed peace accords in Geneva, guaranteeing Afghan independence, and withdrawing 100,000 Soviet troops essentially drawing down the war with the USSR. Following Soviet withdrawal, the Mujahideen continued the resistance against the Soviet-backed regime of communist president Dr. Mohamed Najibullah, who had been elected president of the puppet Soviet state in 1986. Afghan guerrillas named Shabatullah Mojadidi as head of the exiled government. In 1992, the Mujahideen and other rebel groups with the aid of turncoat government troops stormed Kabul and ousted Najibullah from power. Ahmed Shah Nasood, a guerrilla leader, led the troops into the capital. The UN then offered protection to Najibullah and the Mujahideen, the group beginning to fracture as warlords fought over the future of Afghanistan, formed essentially largely Islamic state with Professor Rabani as president. By 1995, there was a newly formed Islamic militia called the Taliban and they rose to power with promises of peace. Most Afghans, exhausted by years of drought, famine, and civil war, approved the Taliban for upholding traditional Islamic values. The Taliban then outlawed cultivation of poppies for the poppy opium trade, crackdown on crime, and curtailing the education and employment of women. Women were then required to essentially be fully veiled and weren't allowed outside the house alone. Islamic law was enforced by public execution and amputation and the US refused to recognise the authority of the Taliban. In 1996, the Taliban seized Kabul and instituted a severe interpretation of Islamic law. That, for instance, forbade, as mentioned, female education, prescribed severing of hands and even execution as punishment for petty crimes. The same year, Osama bin Laden essentially was welcomed to Afghanistan, having been expelled from Sudan, and he established al-Qaeda's headquarters there. In 97, the Taliban then publicly executed the former leader Najibullah and ethnic groups in the north under Masood's Northern Alliance in the south, aided in part by Hamid Karzai, continued to battle the Taliban for control of the country. In 1998, following al-Qaeda bombings of two American embassies in Africa, notably one of them being Kenya, as shown in this image, President Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks against bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan. Their attacks missed the Saudi and other leaders of the terrorist group. By 2000, Osama bin Laden was considered an international terrorist and he was widely believed to be hiding in Afghanistan where he was cultivating thousands of followers in terrorist training camps. The US demanded that he be extradited to stand for trial for the US embassy bombings in Africa. The Taliban refused to extradite him and the UN punished Afghanistan with sanctions, restricting trade and economic development. By March 2001, ignoring international protests, the Taliban carried out the threat to destroy Buddhist statues in Bamiyan Afghanistan, saying they are an affront to Islam and this was seen as a huge tragedy, particularly from an anthropological perspective. On September 4th, 2001, a month after arresting them, the Taliban put eight international aid workers to trial for spreading Christianity. Under Taliban rule, pressilitizing is punishable by death. The group was held in various Afghan prisons for months and finally released on November 15th. On September 9th, 2001, Masoud, still head of the Northern Alliance and the nation's top insurgent, was killed by assassins posing as journalists. Then the main turning point became September 11th, 2001. hijackers essentially commandeered four commercial planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington DC and a Pennsylvania field, killing thousands of people. Days later, US officials said bin Laden, the Saudi exile believed to be hiding in Afghanistan, was a prime suspect. In the aftermath of these attacks, US President George W. Bush coalesced around a strategy of first outs in the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al-Qaeda, though others contemplated actions also in Iraq, including long-standing plans to topple President Saddam Hussein. Bush demanded that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar deliver to the US authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who are hidden in Afghanistan and when Omar refused, US began implementing a plan for war. Now this led to the next major war that Afghanistan faced, especially from an international perspective, and this was between 2001 and 2014. So essentially the Afghanistan war was an international conflict in Afghanistan, which began in 2000 triggered by the September 11 attacks in New York and other parts of the US. This war consists of three phases, the first phase being toppling the Taliban, which was brief and it lasted just two months. The second phase, from 2002 to 2008, was marked by US strategy of defeating the Taliban militarily and rebuilding core institutions of the Afghan state. The third phase was a returned classic counter-insurgency doctrine. It began in 2008 and accelerated with the US President Barack Obama's 2009 decision to temporarily increase the US troops presence in Afghanistan. A larger force was used to implement a strategy of protecting the population from Taliban attacks and supporting efforts to reintegrate insurgents into Afghan society. The strategy became coupled with a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Beginning in 2011, security responsibilities would be gradually handed over to the Afghan military and police. The new approach largely failed to achieve its aims however. Insurgent attacks and civilian casualties remained stubbornly high while many of the Afghan military and police units taking over security duties appeared to be ill-prepared to hold off the Taliban. By the time that the US and NATO combat missions formally ended in December 2014, the 13 year Afghanistan war had become the longest war ever fought by the US. Also in 2001 however, another important event happened in Afghanistan. Essentially, Harmed Karzai, who was a royalist and ethnic passion, was sworn in as the leader of the interim government of Afghanistan. He entered Afghanistan after living in exile for years in neighboring Pakistan. At the UN-sponsored conference to determine an interim government, Karzai already had the support of the US and by the end of the conference was elected leader of the 6 month government. Beginning in 2005, violence increased as the Taliban reasserted its presence with new tactics modelled on those being used by insurgents in Iraq. Whereas early in the war the Taliban had focused on battling the US and NATO forces in open combat, a strategy that largely failed to inflict significant damage, their adoption of the use of suicide bombings and buried bombs known as IEDs, which has improvised explosive devices, these began to cause heavy casualties. Between January 2005 and August 2006, Afghanistan endured 64 suicide attacks, a tactic that had been virtually unknown in the country's history before then. At first these attacks caused relatively few casualties, but as training and the availability of high powered explosives increased, the death toll began to climb. In one especially vicious attack on November 2007, at least 70 people, many of them children, were killed as the parliamentary delegation visited the northern town of Baglan. Less than a year later, a bombing at the Indian Embassy of Kabul killed more than 50 people. The Afghan government accused elements of Pakistan's intelligence service of complicity in the attack, a charge that Pakistan denied. The Taliban's resurgence also corresponded with the rise in anti-American and anti-Western sentiments among Afghans. These feelings were nurtured by the sluggish pace of reconstructions, allegations rather of prisoner abuse at US detention facilities, widespread corruptions in the Afghan government and civilian casualties caused by the US and NATO bombings. In May 2006, a US military vehicle crashed and killed several Afghans, an event that sparked violent anti-American riots in Kabul, the worst since the war began. Later that year, NATO II command of the war across the country, American officials said that the US would play a lesser role in that the face of the war would become increasingly international. This shift reflected the greater need for US troops and resources in Iraq, where sectarian warfare was reaching alarming levels. By contrast, the war in Afghanistan was still regarded in Washington as a relative success. For commanders on the ground in Afghanistan, however, it was apparent that the Taliban intended to escalate its campaign, launching more frequent attacks and intensifying its fundraising from wealthy individuals and groups in the Persian Gulf. Another source of money was Afghanistan's resurgent opium industry. International pressure had forced the Taliban to curb poppy cultivation during the final year in power, but after removal in 2001, the opium industry made a comeback, with revenues in some areas of the country benefiting the insurgency. Western backed campaigns to eliminate poppy cultivation or to encourage farmers to grow other cobs had little impact. Afghanistan soon became the supplier of over 90% of the world's opium. The US, meanwhile, had only limited success in killing or capturing Taliban commanders. In early 2007, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the Taliban's number three leader, was captured in Pakistan, and months later, Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's top military commander, was killed in fighting with US forces. However, those were the exceptions. Top insurgent leaders remained at large, many of them in the tribal regions of Pakistan that adjoined Afghanistan. This reality prompted US to start targeting insurgent leaders who lived in Pakistan with missiles fired from remotely piloted drones. The CRA program of targeted killings was publicly denied by US officials, but was widely acknowledged in private. Pakistani officials in turn denounced the strikes in public, but privately approved of them, as long as civilian casualties were limited. The US repeatedly threatened to expand its drone strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal areas and into regions such as Balakistan, if Pakistan didn't demonstrate greater cooperation by killing the Taliban, a group it had long fostered. In 2008, the international community pledged more than 15 billion in aid to Afghanistan's donors at a conference in Paris, while Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised to fight corruption in the government. In 2009, President Barack Obama named Richard Halbrook as a special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Obama also announced a new strategy for the Afghanistan war that would dispatch more military and civilian trainers to the country, in addition to the 17,000 war combat troops he previously ordered. The strategy also included assistance to Pakistan in his fight against militants. In 2010, President Obama accepted General Stanley McChrystal's resignation as top commander in Afghanistan over critical comments he made in a Rolling Stone article, and he nominated General David Petraeus as head of US Central Command as his replacement. In 2011, the US forced overtake a compound in Atabad, Pakistan, and killed Al-Qaeda's leader Osama bin Laden on the 2nd of May in this year. In 2012, President Hamid Karzai called for American forces to leave Afghan villages and pull back the bases after US soldiers killed 16 Afghan civilians inside their homes. In 2013, the Afghan army took over all military and security operations from NATO forces. In 2014, Ashraf Ghani became the President of Afghanistan in September after two rounds of voting, claims of election fraud, and a power sharing agreement with main rival Abdullah Abdullah. In December, NATO officially ended its combat mission in Afghanistan. However, US-led NATO troops do remain to train and advise Afghan forces. 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