BACKGROUND

Geo-strategic Environment

External Factors

The Afghan state came about as a result of the invasion of India by Nadir Shah of Persia, after which the Mughals lost control of all the territories west of the River Indus. When Nadir Shah was assassinated in AD 1747, Ahmed Shah Abdali, a twenty-three- year old Durrani Pushtun, was serving under him as the head of a 4,000-strong Afghan contingent in Meshad. On hearing of Nadir’s death, Ahmed Shah fought his way back from Meshad to Kandahar, where he was proclaimed Shah. It was he who in AD 1747 , founded the  kingdom of Afghanistan. With its capital at Kandahar. Afghanistan then was merely a confederation of tribes and khanates, with the central authority confined to the cities only.

The territory north of the Hindu Kush was still a part of the Bokhara emirate, Later, Ahmed Shah wrested Badakhshan from the Amir Darya as the border between the domains of the Amir and the newly-established Kingdom of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is a landlocked country which has stood at the crossroads of history ever since it was founded. In present times its location at the junction of three major powers, Iran, Pakistan, and China, with two other major powers, Russia and India, only a stone’s throw away, makes it vulnerable to outside interference whenever there is instability within.

Its linkage with Iran goes back to the sixth century. When Kabul was included in the Archaemenian Empire Ghazni was part of the Parsian Kingdom in the tenth century AD. For hundreds of years that followed, present day Afghanistan was divided between the Mughal and Persian domains, with the cities often changing hands. Kandahar and Heart remained Persian towns for centuries, which has given them a distinct Iranian flavour. The Abdalis are half Persian and half Pushtun, and have adopted much of Persian manners and dress, observed Olaf Caroe, who spent a life time amongst the Pathans. A threat from across the Iran Afghanistan border is something, therefore, which the Taliban cannot ignore.

The Tsars of Russia had made no secret of  their desire to expand their empire soutwards towards the warm waters of the Indian Occan. They were prevented from doing so by great Britain, which kept them at a safe distance from India. After the defeat of the British at the hands of the Afghans, the new rulers of Russia revived their interest in Afghanistan. In 1921 King Amanullah signed a treaty of Friendship with Moscow which helped the Sovicts  to establish a foothold in Afghanistan, leading many decades later, to the actual occupation of that country by Soviet forces. Even after the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia continues to work towards having a friendly regime below its soft underbelly, which puts it in conflict with the ultra-conservative Taliban of today.

When Sir Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, drew the boundary between Afghanistan and British India in 1893, he bifurcated the Afghan tribes that lived in that region. The Achakzais of Quetta, the Waziris of Waziristan, the Toris and mengals of Parachinar, the Shinwaris of Khyber, and the Mohmands of the Mohmand Agency have cousins still living in Afghanistan.