LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Afghanistan: Eastern Afghanistan
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Although warfare in Afghanistan during the late 20th cent. caused substantial population displacement, with millions of refugees fleeing into Pakistan and Iran, regional ethnicity remains generally the same as it had been before the unrest. Tajiks live around Herat and in the northeast; Uzbeks live in the north, and nomadic Turkmen live along the Turkmenistan border. In the central mountains are the Hazaras, of Mongolian origin. In the eastern and south central portions Afghans (or Pashtuns), who make up the country's largest ethnic group, are dominant, and Baluchis live in the extreme south. Dari (Afghan Persian), Pashto (Afghan), and various Turkic tongues (mainly Uzbek and Turkmen) are the country's principal languages. A unifying factor is religion, almost all the inhabitants being Muslim; the large majority are Sunni, the minority (numbering over two million and mainly Hazaras), Shiite.
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At the start of 2007 reports of the Taliban's increasing presence in Afghanistan led the US to consider longer tours of duty and even an increase in troop numbers. According to a report filed by Robert Burns of Associated Press on January 16, 2007, "U.S. military officials cited new evidence that the Pakistani military, which has long-standing ties to the Taliban movement, has turned a blind eye to the incursions." Also, "The number of insurgent attacks is up 300 percent since September, 2006, when the Pakistani government put into effect a peace arrangement with tribal leaders in the north Waziristan area, along Afghanistan's eastern border, a U.S. military intelligence officer told reporters." In 2008 another 3,200 U.S. troops will be sent to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.
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Relative Location Afghanistan is landlocked, and situated in both the northern and eastern [H]emispheres. It's positioned in the Middle East, a recognized geographical region of southwestern Asia. It's bordered by the countries of China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
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KABUL, Afghanistan - Six U.S. troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. The attack, the most lethal against American forces this year, made this year the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
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Across Afghanistan, thousands of people rallied behind the country’s biggest-ever peace effort, on 21 September, even as fighting continued in the south. From Kandahar to Kunduz, from Herat to Jalalabad, peace events were taking place, and on a scale never seen before in Afghanistan. In the capital, Kabul, some 1500 people gathered at one of the city’s best known schools. President Hamid Karzai released a Peace Day statement via national radio. In the eastern city of Jalalabad at least 500 people joined a peace march, a day after thousands poured through the streets of the western city of Herat in what media reports described as one of the biggest rallies Afghanistan has ever seen. In the Central Highlands around 200 people took part in a clean up campaign for peace in Band-e-Amir national park Enthusiastic celebrations took place in Kandahar and Zabul provinces on 20 September and doves and balloons were released into the air.
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The loss of a military helicopter with 17 Americans aboard in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday comes at a time of growing insecurity here. For the first time since the United States overthrew the Taliban government three and a half years ago, Afghans say they are feeling uneasy about the future.
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Eastern Afghanistan