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1. Afghanistan
   Afghanistan was a monarchy from 1747 to 1973, when military officers overthrew the king and established a republic. In 1979 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) invaded Afghanistan, starting the Soviet-Afghan War. The United States supplied military aid to the guerrilla insurgents who fought the Soviet-backed Afghan government. After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the country erupted in civil war. An Islamic fundamentalist movement called the Taliban seized control of Kābul in 1996. The Taliban gave refuge to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, against the United States, U.S. military forces invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001.
2. Afghanistan -- Women
   Afghanistan's legislative body is a parliament consisting of two houses: the Wolesi Jirga, the House of the People, and the Meshrano Jirga, House of Elders. The former is constituted by 250 members elected to five-year terms directly by the people, in proportion to the population of each province; a requirement of two women from each province has been instituted. In the Meshrano Jirga, one third of the members are elected by provincial councils for four years, on third are elected by district councils of each province for three years, and one third are appointed by the president for five years?of which a half of the elected positions must be women.
3. Afghanistan -- Eastern Afghanistan
   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.
4. Afghanistan -- Afghanistan Trade
   Afghanistan is a culturally mixed nation, a crossroads between the East and the West, and has been an ancient focal point of trade and migration. It has an important geostrategical location, connecting South, Central and Southwest Asia. During its long history, the land has seen various invaders and conquerors, while on the other hand, local entities invaded the surrounding vast regions to form their own empires. Ahmad Shah Durrani created the Durrani Empire in 1747, with its capital at Kandahar.[11] Subsequently, the capital was shifted to Kabul and most of its territories ceded to former neighboring countries. In the 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in "The Great Game" played between the British Indian Empire and Russian Empire. On August 19, 1919, following the third Anglo-Afghan war, the country regained full independence from the United Kingdom over its foreign affairs.
5. Afghanistan -- Modern Afghanistan
   Modern Afghanistan has been in turmoil since the late 1970s. After infighting among ministers who deposed the long-ruling royal family, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and installed a sympathetic regime in the capital, Kabul. Anticommunist Muslim rebels—known as mujahedeen, or holy warriors—received support from the United States and from many Muslim countries, particularly Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Joining the Afghan mujahedeen were several thousand Muslim volunteers from abroad. After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, rival Afghan factions fought a fierce civil war that led to the rise of the Taliban, who ruled until the U.S.-led invasion toppled the regime in 2001.
6. Afghanistan -- Countrys
   Afghanistan is a country at a unique nexus point where numerous Indo-European civilizations have interacted and often fought, and was an important site of early historical activity. Through the ages, the region has been home to various people, among them the Aryan (Indo-Iranian) tribes, such as the Kambojas, Bactrians, Persians, etc. It ... has been conquered by a host of people, including the Median and Persian Empires, Alexander the Great, Kushans, Hepthalites, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols. In recent times, invasions from the British, Soviets, and most recently by the Americans and their allies have taken place. On the other hand, native entities have invaded surrounding regions in Iranian plateau and Indian subcontinent to form empires of their own.
7. Osama -- Taliban Afghanistan
   As you might expect from this sad story, "Osama" is a harsh chronicle of life under the oppressive rule of the Taliban through the eyes of an innocent girl. She is made to face the unflinching way the new rulers will put down any question to their authority and is terrified enough as a young girl. But, when she is forced to pose as a boy the terror increases tenfold and she lives in mortal fear every minute.
8. Afghanistan -- Afghan Taliban
   Afghanistan's best performance in international competition was in the 1951 Asian Games when they finished 4th. At present Afghanistan has low participation levels in football compared to many countries, and the game was not encouraged under the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001. Afghanistan played no international fixtures from 1984 to 2003, since when the team rose to a peak of 173rd in the FIFA World Rankings.
9. The War at Home -- Afghanistan
   The war in Iraq and Afghanistan does not just happen "over there." Here in Tucson, we have families learning to get along without their loved ones, veterans who come back changed by the experience and trying to fit back into their old lives and companies who are trying to get by minus employees deployed with the National Guard.
10. Afghan History -- Afghanistan Unveiled
    Nineteenth century Afghan history was in large measure a struggle to retain independence in the face of expanding Russian and British empires (hence the incredibly bloody Anglo-Afghan wars, and Abdurrahman Khan's conquests to the north). The replacement of the Romanovs by the Bolsheviks did little to change this. Neither did the dissolution of the British Raj in 1947, since it coincided with the beginning of the Cold War. At this point Afghanistan really did find itself between the devil and sea. It badly needed development aid, which the Soviets were much more willing to give than the Americans, in large part because Afghanistan had a long-standing and often-acrimonious dispute over its southern border, first with British India and then with Pakistan, the regional American client-state. The result was much more Soviet influence than the leaders of the monarchial period, or indeed most Afghans who thought about the matter, really liked, an influence the Soviets naturally did what they could to increase.

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