AFGHANISTAN Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN
Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan
Dowlat-e Eslami-ye Afghanestan
CAPITAL: Kabul
FLAG: Three equal vertical bands of black (hoist), red, and green, with a white emblem centered on the
red band; the emblem features a temple-like structure encircled by a wreath on the left and right and by
a bold Islamic inscription above.
ANTHEM: Esllahte Arzi (Land Reform), beginning “So long as there is the earth and the heavens.”
MONETARY UNIT: The afghani (AF) is a paper currency of 100 puls. There are coins of 25 and 50 puls
and 1, 2, and 5 afghanis, and notes of 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 afghanis. Af1 = $0.0211 (or $1
= AF47.3) as of May 2003.
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES: The metric system is the legal standard, although some local units are still in
use.
HOLIDAYS: Now Rooz (New Year’s Day), 21 March; May Day, 1 May; Independence Day, 18 August.
Movable religious holidays include First Day of Ramadan, ‘Id al-Fitr, ‘Id al-‘Adha’, ‘Ashura, and Milad
an-Nabi. The Afghan calendar year begins on 21 March; the Afghan year 1376 began on 21 March
1997.
TIME: 4:30 PM = noon GMT.
1LOCATION, SIZE, AND EXTENT
Afghanistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia with a long,
narrow strip in the northeast (the Wakhan corridor). Afghanistan
is slightly smaller than the state of Texas, with a total area of
647,500 sq km (250,001 sq mi), extending 1,240 km (770 mi)
ne–sw and 560 km (350 mi) se–nw. Afghanistan is bounded on
the n by Turkenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, on the extreme
ne by China, on the e and s by Pakistan, and on the w by Iran,
with a total boundary length of 5,529 km (3,436 mi). Afghanistan’s
capital city, Kabul, is located in the east central part of the
country.
2TOPOGRAPHY
Although the average altitude of Afghanistan is about 1,200 m
(4,000 ft), the Hindu Kush mountain range rises to more than
6,100 m (20,000 ft) in the northern corner of the Wakhan panhandle
in the northeast and continues in a southwesterly direction
for about 970 km (600 mi), dividing the northern provinces from
the rest of the country. Central Afghanistan, a plateau with an
average elevation of 1,800 m (6,000 ft), contains many small fertile
valleys and provides excellent grazing for sheep, goats, and
camels. To the north of the Hindu Kush and the central mountain
range, the altitude drops to about 460 m (1,500 ft), permitting
the growth of cotton, fruits, grains, ground nuts, and other crops.
Southwestern Afghanistan is a desert, hot in summer and cold in
winter. The four major river systems are the Amu Darya (Oxus)
in the north, flowing into the Aral Sea; the Harirud and Morghab
in the west; the Helmand in the southwest; and the Kabul in the
east, flowing into the Indus. There are few lakes.
3CLIMATE
The ranges in altitude produce a climate with both temperate and
semitropical characteristics, and the seasons are clearly marked
throughout the country. Wide temperature variations are usual
from season to season and from day to night. Summer temperatures
in Kabul may range from 16° c (61° f) at sunrise to 38° c
(100° f) by noon. The mean January temperature in Kabul is 0° c
(32° f); the maximum summer temperature in Jalalabad is about
46° c (115° f). There is much sunshine, and the air is usually clear
and dry. Rainfall averages about 25 to 30 cm (10 to 12 in); precipitation
occurs in winter and spring, most of it in the form of
snow. Wind velocity is high, especially in the west.
4FLORA AND FAUNA
There are over 3,000 plant species, including hundreds of varieties
of trees, shrubs, vines, flowers, and fungi. The country is particularly
rich in such medicinal plants as rue, wormwood, and
asafetida; fruit and nut trees are found in many areas. Native
fauna include the fox, lynx, wild dog, bear, mongoose, shrew,
hedgehog, hyena, jerboa, hare, and wild varieties of cats, asses,
mountain goats, and mountain sheep. Trout is the most common
fish. There are more than 100 species of wildfowl and birds.
5ENVIRONMENT
Afghanistan’s most significant ecological problems are deforestation,
drought, soil degradation, and overgrazing. Neglect,
scorched earth tactics, and the damage caused by extensive bombardments
have destroyed previously productive agricultural
areas, and more are threatened by tons of unexploded ordnance.
Afghanistan has responded to the fuel needs of its growing population
by cutting down many of its already sparse forests. Consequently,
by late 2002, between 1 and 2% of Afghanistan’s land
area was forest land. That represented a 33% decrease from
1979. A four-year drought in 2002 emptied rivers and irrigation
canals. Another environmental threat is posed by returning refugees
to Afghanistan, of which there were over 4 million in Pakistan,
Iran, and other countries in 2002, who have migrated to
Kabul and other larger cities instead of returning to destroyed villages
and fields. This migration has placed stress on the infrastructure
of those cities, causing increased pollution and
worsening sanitation conditions.
By 2002, 11 species of mammals, 13 species of birds, and 4
plant species of were endangered. Endangered species in Afghanistan
included the snow leopard, long-billed curlew, Argali sheep,
musk deer, tiger, white-headed duck, Afghani brook salamander,
Kabul markhor, and the Siberian white crane. There were thought
to be fewer than 100 snow leopards in 2002. The country’s Caspian
tigers have virtually disappeared. In 2002, there was one
pair of Siberian white cranes, with one chick.
6POPULATION
The population of Afghanistan in 2003 was estimated by the
United Nations at 23,897,000, which placed it as number 46 in
population among the 193 nations of the world. In that year
approximately 3% of the population was over 65 years of age,
with another 43% of the population under 15 years of age. There
were 107 males for every 100 females in the country in 2003.
According to the UN, the annual population growth rate for
2000–2005 is 3.88%, with the projected population for the year
2015 at 35,473,000. The population density in 2002 was 42 per
sq km (110 per sq mi).
It was estimated by the Population Reference Bureau that 22%
of the population lived in urban areas in 2001. The capital city,
Kabul, had a population of 2,454,000 in that year. Other major
population centers include Kandaha¯r, 339,200; Maza¯r-e Sharif,
239,800; and Hera¯t, 166,600. According to the United Nations,
the urban population growth rate for 2000–2005 was 6.9%.
These figures are unreliable, however, because many city dwellers
have left their urban homes for refuge in rural areas. Approximately
20% of the population is nomadic.
Two decades of near constant warfare make Afghanistan’s
population—never certain in any case—even more difficult to
assess. As many as three million Afghans are estimated to have
died, and an additional six million sought refuge in Pakistan,
Iran, and elsewhere in the world during the worst of the fighting
when thousands of Soviet troops were present. The last official
census was taken in 1988.
7MIGRATION
Due to the U.S.-led bombing campaign in 2001–2002 carried out
against the Taliban regime, a large Afghan refugee population
was created in surrounding countries. The Afghan refugee population
in Pakistan in 2002 was approximately 3.7 million, and, in
Iran and the west, an additional 1.6 million. In 2002, there were
approximately 1 million internally displaced persons (IDP) within
the country. Since early-2002, there were many spontaneous
returnees, but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) began assisting refugees to repatriate in February
2002. As of October, more than over 1.5 million had returned to
their homes.
In mid-2002, there was a daily influx of homeless migrants
into Kabul, approximately 300–400 families a day. Seventy percent
of Kabul’s population was living in illegal structures.
In the summer of 2001, the majority of the over 1 million
internally displaced persons in Afghanistan had been driven off
their land and into refugee camps by ongoing conflict and four
years of drought. After September 11, 2001, the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) began to deliver shelter and
non-food supplies to help the IDPs survive the Afghan winter. It
dispatched road convoys from Iran, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan
to destinations in Afghanistan, carrying blankets, winter clothing,
tents, and other essential items. Following the winter, with the
defeat of the Taliban and the beginning of the spring planting season,
the IOM worked to return the IDPs to their villages from the
refugee camps. The IDP families were offered wheat, seeds, blankets,
soap, agricultural tools, and other items. In addition to the
IOM and the UNHCR, the International Committee of the Red
Cross and UNICEF have been heavily involved in repatriating refugees.
Underway in the country is also the Return of Qualified
Afghans program, designed to bring back Afghan professionals
living abroad to participate in rebuilding the country. The program
had returned 227 people by mid-2002. A further 343 people
were identified to fill key jobs in ministries and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
8ETHNIC GROUPS
About the middle of the second millennium bc, Indo-Aryans
began to move into and through the present area of Afghanistan.
Much later came other tribal groups from Central Asia—Pactyes
(from whom the present-day name “Pashtoons” derives), Sakas,
Kushans, Hephthalites, and others—and a procession of Iranians
and Greeks. In the 7th century ad, Arabs arrived from the south,
spreading the new faith of Islam. In the same century, Turks
moved in from the north, followed in the 13th century by Mongols,
and, finally, in the 15th century by Turko-Mongols. This
multiplicity of movements made Afghanistan a loose conglomeration
of racial and linguistic groups.
All citizens are called Afghans, but the Pashtoons (the name
may also be written as “Pushtun” or “Pukhtun,” and in Pakistan
as “Pathan”) are often referred to as the “true Afghans.” Numbering
about 38% of the population in 2001, they are known to
have centered in the Sulaiman range to the east; it is only in recent
centuries that they moved into eastern and southern Afghanistan,
where they now predominate. They have long been divided into
two major divisions, the Durranis and the Ghilzais, each with its
own tribes and subtribes.
The Tajiks, of Iranian stock, comprise nearly 25% of the population
and are mainly concentrated in the north and northeast. In
the central ranges are found the Hazaras (about 19%), who are
said to have descended from the Mongols. To the north of the
Hindu Kush, Turkic and Turko-Mongol groups were in the
majority until 1940. Each of these groups is related to groups
north of the Amu Darya and within the former USSR; among
them are the Uzbeks, who number about 6% of the population.
Other groups include the Aimaks, Farsiwans (Persians) and Brahiu.
In the northeast are the Kafirs, or infidels. After their conversion
to Islam at the end of the 19th century, they were given the
name of Nuristanis, or “people of the light.”
9LANGUAGES
Both Pashtu (or Pushtu) and Dari (Afghan Persian) are the official
languages of the country. Pashtu is spoken by about 35% of the
population while approximately 50% speak Dari. Although
Pashtu has a literature of its own, Dari, the language spoken in
Kabul, has been the principal language of cultural expression, of
the government, and of business. Both Pashtu and Dari are written
primarily with the Arabic alphabet, however, there are some
modifications. The Hazaras speak their own dialect of Dari. The
Turkic languages, spoken by 11% of the population, include
Uzbek and Turkmen, and the Nuristanis speak some seven different
dialects belonging to the Dardic linguistic group. There are
about 30 minor languages, primarily Balochi and Pashai, spoken
by some 4% of the population. Balochi belongs to the same linguistic
group, as do several languages spoken in the high Pamirs.
Bilingualism is common.
10RELIGIONS
Almost all Afghans are Muslims. Approximately 84% are Sunnis;
15% are Shi‘is; others comprise only 1%. The Pashtuns, most of
the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, and the Turkmen are Sunnis, while the
Hazaras are Shi‘is. The country’s small Hindu and Sikh population
is estimated at less than 30,000. Before the 1978 Communist
coup, Islam was the official religion of Afghanistan; in an effort
to win over religious leaders, the Marxist regime set up a Department
of Islamic Affairs in 1981 and began providing funds for
new mosques and for the maintenance of old ones. Following the
overthrow of the Communist regime, an Islamic State was again
proclaimed.
In 1994 the Islamic militants who called themselves the Taliban—
literally “the Seekers,” a term used to describe religious stu-
dents—began to impose their strict form of Islam observance in
the areas that they controlled. The Taliban, composed mostly of
Pashtoons, were puritanical zealots. Women were ordered to
dress in strict Islamic garb and were banned from working or
from going out of their houses unless accompanied by a male relative.
Some men were forced to pray five times a day and grow
full beards as a condition of employment in the government.
Under the Taliban, repression of the Hazara ethnic group, who
were predominantly Shi’is, was severe.
Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the 1964 constitution has
been used as a basis for the definition of religious freedom and
practices. The 1964 constitution proclaims Islam the "sacred religion
of Afghanistan" and states that religious rites of the state
shall be performed according to Hanafi doctrine. Religious toleration
for non-Muslims has been granted, according to the 1964
constitution and the 2001 Bonn Agreement.
11TRANSPORTATION
Many roads were built in the years prior to 1979 to connect the
principal cities and to open up formerly isolated areas. As of
2002, Afghanistan had an estimated 21,000 km (13,000 mi) of
roads, of which 2,793 km (1,736 mi) were paved. Roads connect
Kabul with most provincial capitals and with Peshawar in Pakistan
through the Khyber Pass. The road from Herat to Mashhad
in Iran was completed in 1971. The Salang Tunnel through the
Hindu Kush, completed with Soviet assistance in 1964, considerably
shortened the travel time between Kabul and northern
Afghanistan. The tunnel was modernized in the mid-1980s. However,
in May 1997 the Tajik leader, Ahmad Shah Masud, blew up
P A R O P A M I SU S M T S.
HINDU KUSH
PAMIRS
Khyber
Pass
Khojak
Pass
Chagai Hills
Nowshak
24,557 ft.
7485 m.
¯
Kuh-e Fuladi
16,847 ft.
5135 m.
¯ ¯¯¯
Rigestan
Desert
Vakhan¯
Hamun-e
Saberi
¯ ¯
¯ ¯
Arghandab ¯
Farah ¯
Harirud
Morghab ¯
Amu
Dar'ya
Qonduz
Helmand
Kabul
Konar
Panj
Helmand
Gowd-e Zereh
Kcwkcheh
¸
Meymaneh
Khowst
Zareh
Sharan
Kowt-e
'Ashrow
Baraki
Towraghondi
Sar-e
Pol
Termez
Mazar-e Sharif
Dowlatabad
Khorugh
Qal'eh-ye Panjeh
Quetta
Kabul
Peshawar
Dushanbe
Qala¯t
Tayyeb¯at
Lashkar
G¯ah
Fara¯h
Zaranj
Z¯abol
Chaghchara¯n
Feyza¯bad
Ta¯loqa¯n
Kondu¯z
Baghla¯n
Balkh
Jala¯l¯ab¯ad
Cha¯r¯ikar
Isla¯ma¯ba¯d
Asma¯r
Qandaha¯r
Hera¯t
Shebergh¯an
Ghazni ¯
Shindand Garde¯yz
T U R K M E N I S T A N
P A K I S T A N
U Z B E K I S T A N T A J I K I S T A N
IRAN
CHINA
KYRGYZSTAN
W
S
N
E
Afghanistan
AFGHANISTAN
0 150 Miles
0 50 100 150 Kilometers
50 100
LOCATION: 29°28' to 38°30' N; 60°30' to 74°53' E. BOUNDARY LENGTHS: China, 76 kilometers (47 miles); Iran, 936 kilometers (582 miles); Pakistan, 2,430 kilometers
(1,511 miles); Tajikistan, 1,206 kilometers (750 miles); Turkmenistan, 744 kilometers (463 miles); Uzbekistan, 137 kilometers (85 miles).
the southern entrance of the tunnel in an effort to trap the invading
Taliban forces. It was reopened in January 2002. The Kandahar-
Torghundi highway in the south was completed in 1965. In
2002 there were 35,000 passenger cars and 32,000 trucks and
buses in use.
The Khyber Pass in Pakistan is the best known of the passes
providing land access to Afghanistan. Transit arrangements with
Iran provide an alternative route for its commercial traffic. However,
the great bulk of the country’s trade moves through the
former USSR. At the same time, Afghanistan’s highways are
badly damaged from years of warfare and neglect. Land mines
are buried on the sides of many roads. Over $1.2 billion in international
aid was pledged to rebuiding Afghanistan’s highways in
2002.
The only railways in the country in 2001 were a 9.6-km (6-mi)
spur from Gushgy, Turkmenistan to Towrghondi, a 15 km (9.3
mi) line from Termez, Uzbekistan to the Kheyrabad transshipment
point on the south bank of the Amu Darya, and a short
span into Spin Baldak in the southeast. There are no navigable
rivers except for the Amu Darya, on Turkmenistan’s border,
which can carry steamers up to about 500 tons. In 2002, there
were 46 airports, 10 of which had paved runways, and 2 heliports.
Ariana Afghan Airlines is the national carrier. Most of Ariana
Airlines planes were destroyed during the civil war in
Afghanistan. Ariana lost six of its eight planes in US-led air
strikes against the Taliban. Kabul's international airport
reopened to international humanitarian and military flights in
late January 2002 after the UN's Security Council lifted the ban
early that month, and it began international flight service to Delhi
soon after.
12HISTORY
Afghanistan has existed as a distinct polity for less than three centuries.
Previously, the area was made up of various principalities,
usually hostile to each other and occasionally ruled by one or
another conqueror from Persia and the area to the west or from
central Asia to the north, usually on his way to India. These
included the Persian Darius I in the 6th century bc, and 300 years
later, Alexander the Great. As the power of his Seleucid successors
waned, an independent Greek kingdom of Bactria arose with
its capital at Balkh west of Mazar-i-Sharif, but after about a century
it fell to invading tribes (notably the Sakas, who gave their
name to Sakastan, or Sistan). Toward the middle of the 3rd century
bc, Buddhism spread to Afghanistan from India, and for
centuries prior to the beginning of the 9th century ad, at least
half the population of eastern Afghanistan was Buddhist.
Beginning in the 7th century, Muslim invaders brought Islam
to the region, and it eventually became the dominant cultural
influence. For almost 200 years, Ghazni was the capital of a powerful
Islamic kingdom, the greatest of whose rulers, Mahmud of
Ghazni (r.997-1030), conquered most of the area from the Caspian
to the Ganges. The Ghaznavids were displaced by the Seljuk
Turks, who mastered Persia and Anatolia (eastern Turkey), and
by the Ghorids, who, rising from Ghor, southeast of Herat, established
an empire stretching from Herat to Ajmir in India. They
were displaced in turn by the Turko-Persian rulers of the Khiva
oasis in Transoxiana, who, by 1217, had created a state that
included the whole of Afghanistan until it disintegrated under
attack by Genghis Khan in 1219. His grandson Timur, also called
“Timur the Lame” or Tamerlane, occupied all of what is now
Afghanistan from 1365 to 1384, establishing a court of intellectual
and artistic brilliance at Herat. The Timurids came under
challenge from the Uzbeks, who finally drove the them out of
Herat in 1507. The great Babur, one of the Uzbek princes, occupied
Kabul in 1504 and Delhi in 1526, establishing the Mughal
Empire in which eastern Afghanistan was ruled from Delhi, Agra,
Lahore, or Srinagar, while Herat and Sistan were governed as
provinces of Persia.
In the 18th century, Persians under Nadir Shah conquered the
area, and after his death in 1747, one of his military commanders,
Ahmad Shah Abdali, was elected emir of Afghanistan. The
formation of a unified Afghanistan under his emirate marks
Afghanistan’s beginning as a political entity. Among his descendants
was Dost Muhammad who established himself in Kabul in
1826 and gained the emirate in 1835. Although the British
defeated Dost in the first Afghan War (1838-42), they restored
him to power, but his attempts and those of his successors to play
off Czarist Russian interests against the British concerns about
the security of their Indian Empire led to more conflict. In the second
Afghan War (1877–79), the forces of Sher Ali, Dost’s son,
were defeated by the British, and his entire party, ousted. Abdur
Rahman Khan, recognized as emir by the British in 1880, established
a central administration, and supported the British interest
in a neutral Afghanistan as a buffer against the expansion of Russian
influence.
Intermittent fighting between the British and Pushtun tribes
from eastern Afghanistan continued even after the establishment,
in 1893, of a boundary (the Durand line) between Afghanistan
and British India. An Anglo-Russian agreement concluded in
1907 guaranteed the independence of Afghanistan (and Tibet)
under British influence, and Afghanistan remained neutral in
both World Wars. Afghan forces under Amanullah Khan, who
had become emir in 1919, briefly intruded across the Durand
Line in 1919. At the end of brief fighting—the third Afghan
War—the Treaty of Rawalpindi (1919) accorded the government
of Afghanistan the freedom to conduct its own foreign affairs.
Internally, Amanullah’s Westernization program was strongly
opposed, forcing him to abdicate in 1929. After a brief civil war,
a tribal assembly chose Muhammad Nadir Shah as king. In his
brief four years in power, he restored peace while continuing
Amanullah’s modernization efforts at a more moderate pace.
Assassinated in 1933, he was succeeded by his son, Muhammad
Zahir Shah, who continued his modernization efforts, governing
for 40 years, even though sharing effective power with his uncles
and a first cousin, who served as his prime ministers.
In the 1960s, there was considerable tension between Pakistan
and Afghanistan as a result of Afghanistan’s effort to assert influence
among, and ultimately responsibility for, Pushtu-speaking
Pathan tribes living on both sides of the Durand Line under a policy
calling for the establishment of an entity to be called “Pushtunistan.”
The border was closed several times during the
following years, and relations with Pakistan remained generally
poor until 1977.
In 1964, a new constitution was introduced, converting
Afghanistan into a constitutional monarchy, and a year later the
country’s first general election was held. In July 1973, Muhammad
Daoud Khan, the king’s first cousin and brother-in-law, who
had served as prime minister from 1953 until early 1963, seized
power in a near-bloodless coup, establishing a republic and
appointing himself president, and prime minister of the Republic
of Afghanistan. He exiled Zahir Shah and his immediate family,
abolished the monarchy, dissolved the legislature, and suspended
the constitution. Daoud ruled as a dictator until 1977, when a
republican constitution calling for a one-party state was adopted
by the newly convened Loya Jirga (Grand National Assembly),
which then elected Daoud president for a six-year term.
Afghanistan Under Communist Rule
On 27 April 1978, Daoud was deposed and executed in a bloody
coup (the “Saur Revolution” because it took place during the
Afghan month of Saur), and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
emerged. Heading the new Revolutionary Council was Nur
Muhammad Taraki, secretary-general of the communist People’s
Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), assisted by Babrak
Karmal and Hafizullah Amin, both named deputy prime ministers.
The former Soviet Union immediately established ties with
the new regime, and in December 1978, the two nations concluded
a treaty of friendship and cooperation. Soon after the
coup, rural Afghan groups took up arms against the regime,
which increasingly relied on Soviet arms for support against what
came to be known as mujahidin, or holy warriors.
Meanwhile, the Khalq (masses) and Parcham (flag) factions of
the PDPA, which had united for the April takeover, became
embroiled in a bitter power struggle within the party and the government.
In September 1979, Taraki was ousted and executed by
Amin, who had beat out Karmal to become prime minister the
previous March and who now assumed Taraki’s posts as president
and party leader. Amin was himself replaced on 27 December
by Karmal, the Parcham faction leader. This last change was
announced not by Radio Kabul but by Radio Moscow and was
preceded by the airlift of 4,000 to 5,000 Soviet troops into Kabul
on 25–26 December, purportedly at the request of an Afghan
government whose president, Hafizullah Amin, was killed during
the takeover.
The Soviet presence increased to about 85,000 troops in late
January 1980, and by spring, the first clashes between Soviet
troops and the mujahidin had occurred. Throughout the early
and mid-1980s, the mujahidin resistance continue to build, aided
by Afghan army deserters and arms from the United States, Pakistan,
and the nations of the Islamic Conference Organization
(ICO). Much of the countryside remained under mujahidin control
as the insurgency waged on year by year, while in Kabul,
Soviet advisers assumed control of most Afghan government
agencies.
By late 1987, more than a million Afghans had lost their lives
in the struggle, while the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that some 5 million others had
sought refuge in Pakistan, Iran, and elsewhere. Soviet sources at
the time acknowledged Soviet losses of between 12,000 and
30,000 dead and 76,000 wounded. Soviet troop strength in
Afghanistan at the end of 1987 was about 120,000, while according
to Western sources, Afghan resistance forces numbered nearly
130,000.
In early 1987, Babrak Karmal fled to Moscow after being
replaced as the head of the PDPA in May 1986 by Najibullah,
former head of the Afghan secret police. Najibullah offered the
mujahidin a ceasefire and introduced a much publicized national
reconciliation policy; he also released some political prisoners,
offered to deal with the resistance leaders, and promised new
land reform. The mujahidin rejected these overtures, declining to
negotiate for anything short of Soviet withdrawal and Najibullah’s
removal.
International efforts to bring about a political solution to the
war—including nearly unanimous General Assembly condemnations
of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan—were pursued within
the UN framework from 1982 onward. Among these efforts were
“proximity talks” between Afghanistan and Pakistan conducted
by a Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Under
Secretary-General Diego Cordovez. After a desultory beginning,
these talks began to look promising in late 1987 and early 1988
when Soviet policymakers repeatedly stated, in a major policy
shift, that the removal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan was not
contingent on the creation of a transitional regime acceptable to
the former USSR. On 14 April 1988, documents were signed and
exchanged in which the USSR agreed to pull its troops out of
Afghanistan within nine months, the US reserved the right to continue
military aid to Afghan guerrillas as long as the USSR continued
to aid the government in Kabul, and Pakistan and
Afghanistan pledged not to interfere in each other’s internal
affairs.
The Russians completed the evacuation of their forces on
schedule 15 February 1989, but in spite of continuing pressure by
the well-armed mujahidin, the Najibullah government remained
in power until April 1992, when Najibullah sought refuge at the
UN office in Kabul as mujahidin forces closed in on the city.
Afghanistan After the Soviet Withdrawal
With the fall of the Najibullah government, the Seven-Party Alliance
(SPA) of the Islamic groups based in Pakistan moved to consolidate
its “victory” by announcing plans to set up an Interim
Afghan Government (AIG) charged with preparing the way for
elections. Meanwhile, they moved to assert their control of
Afghanistan, but their efforts to establish the AIG in Kabul failed
when within ten days of Najibullah’s departure from office, wellarmed
forces of the Hizb-i-Islami and Jamiat-i-Islami—two of the
seven SPA parties—clashed in fighting for the control of the capital.
In July, Jamiat leader Burhanuddin Rabbani replaced Sibghatullah
Mojaddedi as president of the AIG, as previously agreed by
all the SPA parties but the Hizb-i-Islami.
Continued fighting between Jamiat and Hizb-i-Islami militias
halted further progress, and Rabbani’s forces, under Commander
Ahmad Shah Masoud, dug in to block those under the control of
interim “Prime Minister” Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami
and his ally, General Rashid Dostum (a former PDPA militia
leader turned warlord from northern Afghanistan), from taking
control of Kabul. In a 24-hour rocket exchange in August 1992 in
Kabul, an estimated 3000 Afghans died, and before the end of the
year, upwards of 700,000 Afghans had fled the city. Deep differences
among the SPA/AIG leadership, embittered by decades of
bad blood, ethnic distrust, and personal enmity, prevented any
further progress toward creating a genuine interim government
capable of honoring the 1992 SPA pledge to write a constitution,
organize elections, and create a new Afghan polity. Despite UN
attempts to broker a peace and bring the warring groups into a
coalition government, Afghanistan remained at war.
Rise of the Taliban
By the summer of 1994 Rabbani and his defense minister, Ahmed
Shah Masoud, were in control of the government in Kabul, but
internal turmoil caused by the warring factions had brought the
economy to a standstill. It was reported that on the road north of
Kandahar a convoy owned by influential Pakistani businessmen
was stopped by bandits demanding money. The businessmen
appealed to the Pakistani government, which responded by
encouraging Afghan students from the fundamentalist religious
schools on the Pakistan-Afghan boarder to intervene. The students
freed the convoy and went on to capture Kandahar,
Afghanistan’s second-largest city. Pakistan’s leaders supported the
Taliban with ammunition, fuel, and food. The students, ultra-fundamentalist
Sunni Muslims who called themselves the Taliban
(the Arabic word for religious students, literally “the Seekers”)
shared Pashtun ancestry with their Pakistani neighbors to the
south. The Taliban also found widespread support among Afghan
Pashtuns hostile to local warlords and tired of war and economic
instability. By late 1996, the Taliban had captured Kabul, the capital,
and were in control of 21 of Afghanistan’s 32 provinces.
When Rabbani fled the capital, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia officially
recognized the Taliban government in Kabul. In areas under
Taliban control, order was restored, roads opened, and trade
resumed. However, the Taliban’s reactionary social practices, justified
as being Islamic, did not appeal to Afghanistan’s non-Pashtun
minorities in the north and west of the country, nor to the
educated population generally. The opposition, dominated by the
Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, and Turkoman ethnic groups, retreated to
the northeastern provinces.
In May 1997 the Taliban entered Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan’s
largest town north of the Hindu Kush and stronghold of Uzbek
warlord Rashid Dostum. In the political intrigue that followed,
Dostum was ousted by his second in command, Malik Pahlawan,
who initially supported the Taliban. Dostum reportedly fled to
Turkey. Once the Taliban were in the city, however, Pahlawan

6 Afghanistan
abruptly switched sides. In the subsequent fighting, the Taliban
were forced to retreat with heavy casualties. The forces of Ahmad
Shah Masoud, Tajik warlord and former defense minister in
ousted President Rabbani’s government, were also instrumental
in the defeat of the Taliban in Mazar. Masoud controlled the high
passes of the Panjshir Valley in the east of the country. The opposition
alliance was supported by Iran, Russia, and the Central
Asian republics, who feared that the Taliban might destabilize the
region.
By early 1998, the Taliban militia controlled about two-thirds
of Afghanistan. Opposition forces under Ahmad Shah Masoud
controlled the northeast of the country. Taliban forces mounted
another offensive against their opponents in August-September
1998 and nearly sparked a war with neighboring Iran after a
series of Shiite villages were pillaged and Iranian diplomats killed.
Iran, which supplied Masoud’s forces, countered by massing
troops along its border with Afghanistan. Although the crisis subsided,
tensions between the Taliban and Iran remained high.
Masoud’s opposition forces became known as the United Front
or Northern Alliance in late 1999.
Despite attempts to broker a peace settlement, fighting
between the Taliban and opposition factions continued through
1999 and into 2000 with the Taliban controlling 90% of the
country. In March 1999, the warring factions agreed to enter a
coalition government, but by July these UN-sponsored peace
talks broke down and the Taliban renewed its offensive against
opposition forces. By October, the Taliban captured the key
northern city of Taloqan and a series of northeastern towns,
advancing to the border with Tajikistan. Fighting between the
Taliban and Northern Alliance forces was fierce in early 2001.
In April 2001, Masoud stated that he did not rule out a peace
dialogue with the Taliban, or even of setting up a provisional government
jointly with the Taliban, but that Pakistan would have to
stop interfering in the conflict first. He stated that elections
would have to be held under the aegis of the UN and the “six plus
two” countries, including Iran, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,
as well as Russia and the US. The Northern Alliance
was receiving financial and military assistance from its old enemy
Russia as well as from Iran. In addition to Pakistan, the Taliban
was recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Masoud was assassinated
on 9 September 2001, by two men claiming to be Moroccan
journalists. His killers are thought to have been agents of al-
Qaeda acting in concert with the plotters of the 11 September
2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the
Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Post-11 September 2001
The 11 September 2001 attacks carried out against the US by
members of al-Qaeda marked the beginning of a war on terrorism
first directed against the Taliban for harboring Osama bin
Laden and his forces. On 7 October 2001, US-led forces launched
the bombing campaign Operation Enduring Freedom against the
Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. On 13 November the Taliban
were removed from power in Kabul, and an interim government
under the leadership of Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun leader
from Kandahar, was installed on 22 December. The campaign
continued, however, into 2002. In June 2002, a Loya Jirga, or
Grand Assembly of traditional leaders, was held, and Karzai was
elected head of state of a transitional government that would be
in place for 18 months until elections could be held. More than
60% of the cabinet posts in the government went to Ahmed Shah
Masoud’s Northern Alliance. Masoud was officially proclaimed
the national hero of Afghanistan on 25 April 2002. A special
committee collected signatures to award the Nobel Prize to
Masoud posthumously. Among those who signed the petition
were Czech President Vaclav Havel, American writer Elie Wiesel,
and deputies of the European Parliament. On 5 September 2002,
Karzai survived an assassination attempt, and another plot
against him was thwarted on 22 November. As of April 2003,
more than 10,000 coalition forces, led by 8,000 US troops, were
engaged in fighting remnants of the Taliban, al-Qaeda forces, and
former mujahidin commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in the eastern
and southern regions of Afghanistan.
13GOVERNMENT
Between 1964 and 1973, Afghanistan was a constitutional monarchy,
for the first time in its history. The head of government
was the prime minister, appointed by the king and responsible to
the bicameral legislature. This system gave way to a more traditional
authoritarian system on 17 July 1973, when Afghanistan
became a republic, headed by Muhammad Daoud Khan, who
became both president and prime minister. A new constitution in
1977 created a one-party state with a strong executive and a
weak bicameral legislature. The communist PDPA abrogated this
constitution after they seized power in April 1978.
Between 1978 and 1980, a communist-style 167-member Revolutionary
Council exercised legislative powers. The chief of state
(president) headed the presidium of that council, to which the 20-
member cabinet was formally responsible. A provisional constitution,
introduced in April 1980, guaranteed respect for Islam and
national traditions, condemned colonialism, imperialism, Zionism,
and fascism, and proclaimed the PDPA as “the guiding and
mobilizing force of society and state.” Seven years later, a new
constitution providing for a very strong presidency was introduced
as part of the PDPA’s propaganda campaign of “national
reconciliation.” Najibullah remained as president until April
1992 when he sought refuge at the UN office in Kabul as mujahidin
forces closed in on the city.
With the fall of the Najibullah government a Seven Party Alliance
(SPA) of the Islamic groups announced plans to set up an
Interim Afghan Government (AIG) charged with preparing the
way for elections. However, Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani coopted
the process by forming a leadership council that elected
him president. Subsequent fighting among warring factions
plunged the country into anarchy and set the stage for the emergence
of the ultra-conservative Islamic movement, Taliban, which
ousted the Rabbani government and as of mid-2000 controlled
all but the northern most provinces of the country. No new constitution
was drafted since the end of the Najibullah government.
The Taliban, led by Mullah Mohammed Omar, formed a sixmember
ruling council in Kabul which ruled by edict. Ultimate
authority for Taliban rule rested in the Taliban’s inner Shura
(Assembly), located in the southern city of Kandahar, and in Mullah
Omar.
With the fall of the Taliban in December 2001, an interim government
was created under the leadership of Hamid Karzai by an
agreement held in Bonn, Germany. He was elected head of state
in June 2002 of the "Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan
(ITGA),” by the Loya Jirga convened that month. He
named an executive cabinet, dividing key ministries between ethnic
Tajiks and Pashtuns. He also appointed three deputy presidents
and a chief justice to the country's highest court. Elections
for a new government were scheduled for 2003.
14POLITICAL PARTIES
Political parties have usually been illegal in Afghanistan, forcing
most political activity—influenced by ideological, linguistic, and
ethnic considerations—to operate underground or from abroad
(or both). The 1964 constitution provided for the formation of
political parties. However, since the framers of the constitution
decided that political parties should be permitted only after the
first elections, and since the Parliament never adopted a law governing
the parties’ operation, all candidates for the parliamentary
elections of August and September 1965 stood as independents.
Because a law on political parties was not on the books four years
later, the 1969 elections were also contested on a non-party basis.
Throughout the 1964–1973 period, however, the de facto existence
of parties was widely recognized. Subsequently, the framers
reversed their plan to allow political parties. Under the 1977 constitution,
only the National Revolutionary Party (NRP), the
ruler’s chosen instrument, was allowed.
The 1978 coup was engineered by the illegal People’s Democratic
Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) which had been founded in
1965. During its brief history, this Marxist party had been riven
by a bloody struggle between its pro-Soviet Parcham (flag) faction
and its larger Khalq (masses) faction. Babrak Karmal was the
leader of the Parcham group, while the Khalq faction was headed
until 1979 by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin. The
factional struggle continued after the 1978 coup, prompting the
Soviet intervention of 1979. Factional bloodletting continued
thereafter also, with repeated purges and assassinations of Khalq
adherents as well as bitter infighting within Parcham, this last
leading to Babrak Karmal’s replacement as PDPA secretary-general
in May 1986 by Najibullah.
The Islamic resistance forces opposing the PDPA government
and its Soviet backers in Afghanistan represented conservative,
ethnically-based Islamic groups which themselves have had a long
history of partisan infighting (and repression by successive Kabul
governments). They came together in the early 1980s to fight the
common enemy, the communist PDPA and the Soviet invaders
and, in 1985, under pressure from Pakistan and the United States,
they were loosely united into a Seven Party Alliance (SPA), headquartered
in Peshawar, Pakistan. By 1987, commando groups
affiliated with one or more of these seven parties controlled more
than 80% of the land area of Afghanistan.
With arms flowing in from outside the country—a flow not
halted until the end of 1991—the fighting continued, but with the
final withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989, the SPA
stepped up its military and political pressure on the communist
PDPA government. However, President Najibullah proved to
have more staying power than previously estimated, using Soviet
arms supplies, which continued until the end of 1991 to buttress
his position, while playing upon divisions among the resistance,
embracing nationalism and renouncing communism, and even
changing the name of the PDPA to the Wattan (Homeland) Party.
It was only in April 1992, with the Soviet Union now history, his
army defecting from beneath him, and the mujahidin closing on
Kabul that he sought refuge at the UN office in the capital, leaving
the city in the hands of the rival ethnic and regional mujahidin
militias.
The leaders of the mujahidin groups agreed to establish a leadership
council. This council quickly came under the control of
Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani who was subsequently elected
President by the council. Fighting broke out in August 1992 in
Kabul between forces loyal to President Rabbani and rival factions.
A new war for the control of Afghanistan had begun.
On September 26–27, 1996, the Pashtun-dominated ultra-conservative
Islamic Taliban movement captured the capital of Kabul
and expanded its control to over 90% of the country by mid-
2000. The Taliban were led by Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Ousted President Rabbani, a Tajik, and his defense minister
Ahmad Shah Masoud relocated to Takhar in the north. Rabbani
claimed that he remained the head of the government. His delegation
retained Afghanistan’s UN seat after the General Assembly
deferred a decision on Afghanistan’s credentials. Meanwhile, the
Taliban removed the ousted PDPA leader Najibullah from the UN
office in Kabul, tortured and shot him, and hung his body prominently
in the city. General Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, controlled
several north-central provinces until he was ousted on 25
May 1997 by his second in command Malik Pahlawan. Dostum
fled to Turkey, but he returned that October. The Shia Hazara
community, led by Abdul Karim Khalili, retained control of a
small portion of the center of the country.
After the fall of the Taliban, various warlords, leaders, and
political factions emerged in Afghanistan. Dostum, as head of
Jumbish-e Melli Islami (National Islamic Movement), consolidated
his power in Mazar-i-Sharif. He was named interim deputy
defense minister for the transitional government in 2002. Rabbani,
as nominal head of the Northern Alliance, is also the leader
of Jamiat-e-Islami, the largest political party in the alliance.
Ismail Khan, a Shiite warlord of Tajik origin earned a power base
in the western city of Herat by liberating it from Soviet control,
and for a time in the '90s, kept it from Taliban control. Khan is
thought to be receiving backing from Iran. Abdul Karim Khalili is
the leader of the Hezb-e-Wahdat (Unity Party) and the top figure
in the Shia Hazara minority. Wahdat is the main benefactor of
Iranian support, and the second most-powerful opposition military
party. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the most notorious of the warlords
who emerged from the fight against Soviet occupation,
leads the party Hezb-e Islami. Pir Syed Ahmed Gailani is a moderate
Pashtun leader and wealthy businessman who is also the
spiritual leader of a minority Sufi Muslim group. Gailani is supported
by pro-royalist Pashtuns and Western-educated elites of
the old regime. He has called for an Islamic constitutional republic.
Former King Zahir Shah, who said he had no intention of
returning to power, volunteered to help build a power-sharing
administration for the country. Shah is a Pashtun. Younis
Qanooni, an ethnic Tajik, who was named Interior Minister for
the interim government, was also the interior minister in the
country's previous interim administration, in 1996, before the
Taliban came to power, and has opposed the presence of U.N.
peacekeepers in Afghanistan. And Abdullah Abdullah, of the
Northern Alliance, was a close friend of Ahmad Shah Masoud.
Like Masoud, Abdullah is from the Tajik heartland of the Panshir
Valley, but his mother is Pashtun. He has been seen as less willing
to relinquish the Northern Alliance's grip on power.
15LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Afghanistan was traditionally divided into provinces governed by
centrally appointed governors with considerable autonomy in
local affairs. There are currently 32 provinces. During the Soviet
occupation and the development of country-wide resistance, local
areas came increasingly under the control of mujahidin groups
that were largely independent of any higher authority; local commanders,
in some instances, asserted a measure of independence
also from the mujahidin leadership in Pakistan, establishing their
own systems of local government, collecting revenues, running
educational and other facilities, and even engaging in local negotiations.
Mujahidin groups retained links with the Peshawar parties
to ensure access to weapons that were doled out to the parties
by the government of Pakistan for distribution to fighters inside
Afghanistan.
The Taliban set up a shura (assembly), made up of senior Taliban
members and important tribal figures from the area. Each
shura made laws and collected taxes locally. The Taliban set up a
provisional government for the whole of Afghanistan, but it did
not exercise central control over the local shuras.
The process of setting up the transitional government in June
2002 by the Loya Jirga took many steps involving local government.
First, at the district and municipal level, traditional shura
councils met to pick electors—persons who cast ballots for Loya
Jirga delegates. Each district or municipality had to choose a predetermined
number of electors, based on the size of its population.
The electors then traveled to regional centers and cast
ballots, to choose from amongst themselves a smaller number of
loya jirga delegates— according to allotted numbers assigned to
each district. The delegates then took part in the Loya Jirga.
The warlords who rule various regions of the country exert
local control. The transitional government is attempting to integrate
local governing authorities with the central government, but
it lacks the loyalty from the warlords necessary to its governing
authority. More traditional elements of political authority—such
as Sufi networks, royal lineage, clan strength, age-based wisdom,
and the like—still exist and play a role in Afghan society. Karzai
is relying on these traditional sources of authority in his challenge
to the warlords and older Islamist leaders. The deep ethnic, linguistic,
sectarian, tribal, racial, and regional cleavages present in
the country create what is called “Qawm” identity, emphasizing
the local over higher-order formations. Qawm refers to the group
to which the individual considers himself to belong, whether a
subtribe, village, valley, or neighborhood. Local governing
authority relies upon these forms of identity and loyalty.
16JUDICIAL SYSTEM
Under the Taliban, there was no rule of law or independent judiciary.
Ad hoc rudimentary judicial systems were established based
on Taliban interpretation of Islamic law. Murderers were subjected
to public executions and thieves had a limb or two (one
hand, one foot) severed. Adulterers were stoned to death in public.
Taliban courts were said to have heard cases in sessions that
lasted only a few minutes. Prison conditions were poor and prisoners
were not given food. Normally, this was the responsibility
of the prisoners’ relatives who were allowed to visit to provide
them with food once or twice a week. Those who had no relatives
had to petition the local council or rely on other inmates.
In non-Taliban controlled areas, many municipal and provincial
authorities relied on some form of Islamic law and traditional
tribal codes of justice. The administration and implementation of
justice varied from area to area and depended on the whims of
local commanders or other authorities, who could summarily
execute, torture, and mete out punishments without reference to
any other authority.
As of 2002, Afghanistan's judicial system was fragmented,
with conflicts between such core institutions as the Ministry of
Justice, Supreme Court, and attorney general's office. In addition,
the judicial system's infrastructure was destroyed; the absence of
adequate court or ministry facilities, basic office furniture, and
minimal supplies made substantive progress difficult. There are
also tensions between religious and secular legal training with
regard to appointments of new judicial personnel. Until Afghanistan's
new constitution is adopted, the country's basic legal
framework will consist of its 1964 constitution and existing laws
and regulations to the extent that they accord with the Bonn
Agreement of 2001 and with international treaties to which
Afghanistan is a party. The Ministry of Justice is charged with
compiling current Afghan laws and assessing their compatibility
with international standards. However, texts of Afghan laws are
largely unavailable, even among attorneys, judges, law faculty,
and government agencies such as the Ministry of Justice. While in
power, the Taliban burned law books. There was no adequate law
library in the country as of June 2002.
17ARMED FORCES
Weapons information dates back to 1992, at which time there
were SU-17, MiG21, and Mi-8 combat aircraft in the country. In
1998, defense spending was estimated at $250 million or 14.7%
of GDP. In 2002, the US was leading the efforts in creation of a
national army. The international community as a whole made
commitments to helping Afghanistan build security institutions.
In 2002, Afghanistan requested $235 million from the UN for
60,000 men for the land army, 8000 for the airforce, and 12,000
border guards. Most of the army's infrastructure, barracks, and
depots were destroyed along with the Taliban.
18INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Afghanistan has been a member of the UN since 19 November
1946. Afghanistan also belongs to the Asian Development Bank,
the Colombo Plan, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific (ESCAP), the G-77, the Islamic Development
Bank (IDB), and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
19ECONOMY
Afghanistan’s economy has been devastated by over 20 years of
war. Hampered by an unintegrated economy until relatively late
in the post-World War II period, only in the 1950s did the building
of new roads begin to link the country’s commercial centers
with the wool and fruit-producing areas. Largely agricultural and
pastoral, the country is highly dependent on farming and livestock
raising (sheep and goats). In Afghanistan, 85 percent of the
people are engaged in agriculture. Industrial activity includes
small-scale production of textiles, soap, furniture, shoes, fertilizer,
cement, and handwoven carpets. The country has valuable mineral
resources, including large reserves of iron ore at Hajigak discovered
before the 2-decade old war, but only coal, salt, lapis
lazuli, barite, and chrome are available to be exploited. The discovery
of large quantities of natural gas in the north, for which a
pipeline to the former USSR was completed in 1967, increased
the country’s export earnings, at least until escalation of civil
strife in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Since the outbreak of war in the late 1970s, economic data
have been contradictory and of doubtful reliability. In September
1987, the Afghan foreign minister asserted that 350 bridges and
258 factories had been destroyed since the fighting began in
1979. By the early 1990s, two-thirds of all paved roads were
unusable, and the countryside appeared severely depopulated,
with more than 25% of the population—twice the prewar level—
residing in urban areas. What little is left of the country’s infrastructure
has been largely destroyed due first to the war, and then
to the US-led bombing campaign. Severe drought added to the
nation's difficulties in 1998-2001. The majority of the population
continues to suffer from insufficient food, clothing, housing, and
medical care, problems exacerbated by military operations and
political uncertainties. The presence of an estimated 10 million
land mines has also hindered the ability of Afghans to engage in
agriculture or other forms of economic activity. Inflation remains
a serious problem.
Opium poppy cultivation is the mainstay of the economy.
Major political factions in the country profit from the drug trade.
In 1999, encouraged by good weather and high prices, poppy
producers had increased the area under cultivation by 43 percent
and harvested a bumper crop—a record 4,600 tons, compared
with 2,100 tons the year before. A ban on poppy production cut
cultivation in 2001 by 97% to 1695 hectares (4188 acres), with a
potential production of 74 tons of opium. Afghanistan is a major
source of hashish, and there are many heroin-processing laboratories
throughout the country.
International efforts to rebuild Afghanistan were addressed at
the Tokyo Donors Conference for Afghan Reconstruction in January
2002, when $4.5 billion was collected for a trust fund to be
administered by the World Bank. Priority areas for reconstruction
included the construction of education, health, and sanitation
facilities, enhancement of administrative capacity, the development
of the agricultural sector, and the rebuilding of road, energy,
and telecommunication links.
20INCOME
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported that in 2000
Afghanistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated at
$21 billion. The per capita GDP was estimated at $800. The CIA
defines GDP as the value of all final goods and services produced
within a nation in a given year and computed on the basis of purchasing
power parity (PPP) rather than value as measured on the
basis of the rate of exchange. It was estimated that agriculture
accounted for 60% of GDP, industry 20%, and services 20%.
Foreign aid receipts amounted to about $15 per capita.
21LABOR
Afghanistan’s labor force is estimated at 10 million. As of 2002,
85% of the economically active population was engaged in agriculture.
The textile industry is the largest employer of industrial
labor; weaving of cloth and carpets is the most important home
industry. In 1978, the government established the Central Council
of Afghanistan Trade Unions in order to develop the trade
union movement. In the mid-1980s, the council had some
285,000 members. Under the Taliban, the government did not
have the means to enforce worker rights, as there was no functioning
constitution or legal framework that defined them. Little
was known about labor laws and practices under Taliban rule.
There is no information pertaining to minimum wages or work
hours and conditions. The vast majority of workers are in the
informal economy. Children as young as six years old are reportedly
working to help sustain their families.
22AGRICULTURE
About 12% of the land is arable and less than 6% currently is
cultivated. Normally, Afghanistan grew about 95% of its needs in
wheat and rye, and more than met its needs in rice, potatoes,
pulses, nuts, and seeds; it depended on imports only for some
wheat, sugar, and edible fats and oils. Fruit, both fresh and preserved
(with bread), is a staple food for many Afghans. Agricultural
production, however, is a fraction of its potential.
Agricultural production is constrained by an almost total dependence
on erratic winter snows and spring rains for water; irrigation
is primitive. Relatively little use is made of machines,
chemical fertilizer, or pesticides.
The variety of the country’s crops corresponds to its topography.
The areas around Kandahar, Herat, and the broad Kabul
plain yield fruits of many kinds. The northern regions from
Takhar to Badghis and Herat and Helmand provinces produce
cotton. Corn is grown extensively in Paktia and Nangarhar provinces,
and rice mainly in Kunduz, Baghlan, and Laghman provinces.
Wheat is common to several regions, and makes up 80% of
all grain production. Aggregate wheat production in 2002 was
estimated at 2.69 million tons, some 67 percent more than was
achieved in 2001. Following wheat, the most important crops in
2000 were barley (74,000 tons) corn (115,000 tons), rice
(232,800 tons), potatoes (235,000 tons), and cotton. Nuts and
fruit, including pistachios, almonds, grapes, melons, apricots,
cherries, figs, mulberries, and pomegranates are among Afghanstan's
most important exports.
Agricultural products accounted for about 53% of Afghanistan’s
exports in 2001, of which fruits and nuts were a large portion.
In some regions, agricultural production had all but ceased
due to destruction caused by the war and the migration of
Afghans out of those areas. A law of May 1987 relaxed the
restrictions on private landowning set in 1978: the limit of permitted
individual holding was raised from 6 to 18 hectares (from
15 to 45 acres). Opium and hashish are also widely grown for the
drug trade. Opium is easy to cultivate and transport and offers a
quick source of income for impoverished Afghans. Afghanistan
was the world's largest producer of raw opium in 1999 and 2000.
In 2000 the Taliban banned opium poppy cultivation but failed to
destroy the existing stockpile and presumably benefited substantially
from resulting price increases. Later, in 2001, the Taliban
reportedly announced that poppy cultivation could resume.
Much of Afghanistan's opium production is refined into heroin
and is either consumed by a growing South Asian addict population
or exported, primarily to Europe. Replacing the poppy
industry is a goal of the Karzai administration.
23ANIMAL HUSBANDRY
The availability of land suitable for grazing has made animal husbandry
an important part of the economy. Natural pastures cover
some 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) but are being overgrazed.
The northern regions around Mazar-i-Sharif and Maymanah
were the home range for about 6 million karakul sheep in
1998.
The output of livestock products in 1998, as projected by the
FAO, included 300,000 tons of cows’ milk, 201,000 tons of
sheep’s milk, 41,000 tons of goats’ milk, 18,000 tons of eggs,
16,000 tons of wool (greasy basis), and 16,000 tons of sheepand
goatskins. Much of Afghanistan’s livestock was removed
from the country by early waves of refugees who fled to Pakistan
and Iran. Total meat output in 2000 was 356,840 tons.
In 2001, the livestock population in Afghanistan had declined
by about 40 percent since 1998. In 2002, this figure was estimated
to have declined further to 60 percent. An FAO survey
done in the Northern Regions during the spring of 2002 showed
that in four provinces (Balkh, Juzjan, Saripol and Faryab), there
was a loss of about 84 percent of cattle (1997/98: 224,296 head;
2002: 36,471 head) and around 80 percent of sheep and goats
(1997/98: 1,721,021 head; 2002: 359,953 head).
24FISHING
Some fishing takes place in the lakes and rivers, but fish does not
constitute a significant part of the Afghan diet. Using explosives
for fishing or so-called dynamite fishing is trend that has become
very popular since the 1980’s and is common practice in the
country. The annual catch was about 1,000 tons in 2000.
25FORESTRY
Afghanistan’s timber has been greatly depleted, and since the
mid-1980s, only about 3% of the land area has been forested,
mainly in the east. Significant stands of trees have been destroyed
by the ravages of the war. Exploitation has been hampered by
lack of power and access roads. Moreover, the distribution of the
forest is uneven, and most of the remaining woodland is presently
found only in mountainous regions in the southeast and south.
The natural forests in Afghanistan are mainly of two types: (1)
dense forests, mainly of oak, walnut and other species of nuts
that grow in the southeast, and on the northern and northeastern
slopes of the Sulaiman ranges; and (2) sparsely distributed short
trees and shrubs on all other slopes of the Hindu Kush. The dense
forests of the southeast cover only 2.7% of the country. The
destruction of the forests to create agricultural land, logging, forest
fires, plant disease and insect pests are all causes of the reduction
in forest coverage. However, the most important factor in
this destructive process is illegal logging and clear-cuttings by timber
smugglers. According to a report in 1997, two and half million
cubic feet of lumber were smuggled out of Afghanistan
between 1995 and 1996, and sold in Pakistan with permission
from the Pakistani Government of that time. However, the unofficial
numbers for the amount of lumber smuggled into Pakistan
from Afghanistan is estimated to be much higher than this.
26MINING
Afghanistan has valuable deposits of barite, beryl, chrome, coal,
copper, iron, lapis lazuli, lead, mica, natural gas, petroleum, salt,
silver, sulfur, and zinc. Reserves of high-grade iron ore, discovered
years ago at the Hajigak hills in Bamyan Province, are estimated
to total 2 billion tons.
On average, some 114,000 tons of coal were mined each year
during 1978–84. It is estimated that the country has 73 million
tons of coal reserves, most of which is located in the region
between Herat and Badashkan in the northern part of the country.
Production in 2000 amounted to 200,000 tons. In 2000,
Afghanistan produced 13,000 tons of salt, 3,000 tons of gypsum,
5,000 tons of copper, and 120,000 tons of cement. Deposits of
lapis lazuli in Badakhshan are mined in small quantities. Like
other aspects of Afghanistan’s economy, exploitation of natural
resources has been disrupted by war. As well, the remote and rug- ged terrain, and an inadequate transportation network usually
have made mining these resources difficult.
27ENERGY AND POWER
Two decades of warfare have left Afghanistan’s power grid badly
damaged. As of October 2002, only 6% of the population had
access to electricity. In 2000, net electricity generation was 0.4
billion kWh, of which 36% came from fossil fuel, 64% from
hydropower, and none from other sources. In the same year, consumption
of electricity totaled 453.8 million kWh. Total installed
capacity at the beginning of 2001was 0.497 million kW. Three
hydroelectric plants were opened between 1965 and 1970, at
Jalalabad, Naghlu, and Mahi Par, near Kabul; another, at Kajaki,
in the upper Helmand River Valley, was opened in the mid-1970s.
In addition to the Naghlu, Mahi Par, and Kajaki plants, other
hydroelectric facilities that were operational as of 2002 included
plants at Sarobi, west of Kabul; Pol-e Khomri; Darunta, in Nangarhar
province; Dahla, in Kandahar province; and Mazar-i-
Sharif. In 1991, a new 72-collector solar installation was completed
in Kabul at a cost of $364 million. The installation heated
40,000 l of water to an average temperature of 60°C (140°F)
around the clock. Construction of two more power stations, with
a combined capacity of 600 kW, was planned in Charikar City.
The drought of 1998–2001 negatively affected Afghanistan’s
hydroelectric power production, which resulted in blackouts in
Kabul and other cities. Another generating turbine is being added
to the Kajaki Dam in Helmand province near Kandahar, with the
assistance of the Chinese Dongfeng Agricultural Machinery Company.
This will add 16.5 megawatts to its generating capacity
when completed. The Dahla Dam in Kandahar province was
restored to operation by 2001, along with the Breshna-Kot Dam
in Nangarhar province, which has a generating capacity of 11.5
MW. The 66-MW Mahipar hydro plant is operating as well.
Natural gas was Afghanistan’s only economically significant
export in 1995, going mainly to Uzbekistan via pipeline. Natural
gas reserves were once estimated by the Soviets at 140 billion cu
m. Production started in 1967 with 342 million cu m but had
risen to 2.6 billion cu m in 1995. In 1991, a new gas field was discovered
in Chekhcha, Jowzjan province. Natural gas was also
produced at Shiberghan and Sar-i-Pol. As of 2002, other operational
gas fields were located at Djarquduk, Khowaja Gogerdak,
and Yatimtaq, all in Jowzjan province. As of 1997, natural gas
production was 543,000 cu m (19 million cu ft). It was used
domestically for urea production, power generation, and at a fertilizer
plant.
In August 1996, a multinational consortium agreed to construct
a 1,430 km (890 mi) pipeline through Afghanistan to carry
natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, at a cost of about $2
billion. However US air strikes led to cancellation of the project
in 1998, and financing of such a project has remained an issue
because of high political risk and security concerns. As of 2002
interim president Hamid Karzai was attempting to revive the
pipeline project.
A very small amount of crude oil is produced at the Angot field
in the northern Sar-i-Pol province. Another small oilfield at Zomrad
Sai near Shiberghan was reportedly undergoing repairs in
mid-2001. Petroleum products such as diesel, gasoline, and jet
fuel are imported, mainly from Pakistan and Turkmenistan. A
small storage and distribution facility exists in Jalalabad on the
highway between Kabul and Peshawar, Pakistan. Afghanistan is
also reported to have oil reserves totaling 95 million barrels and
coal reserves totaling 73 million tons.
28INDUSTRY
As with other sectors of the economy, Afghanistan’s already
beleaguered industries have been devastated by over two decades
of civil strife and war that left most of the countries factories and
even much of the cottage industry sector inoperative. Still in an
early stage of growth before the outbreak of war, industry’s development
has been stunted since; those few industries that have
continued production remain limited to processing of local materials.
The principal modern industry is cotton textile production,
with factories at Pol e Khomri, Golbahar, Begram, Balkh, and
Jabal as Saraj, just north of Charikar. Important industries in
2000 included textiles, soap, furniture, shoes, fertilizer, cement,
handwoven carpets, natural gas, coal, and copper.
Carpet making is the most important handicraft industry, but
it has suffered with the flight of rug makers during the civil war
and since the 2001 US-led bombing campaign. Carpet-making is
centered around the north and northwest regions of the country.
Afghan carpets are made of pure wool and are hand-knotted, and
much of the work is done by women. Production has fluctuated
widely from year to year, increasing somewhat during the early
1990s with the establishment of selected “zones of tranquility”
targeted for UN reconstruction assistance. Other handicrafts
include feltmaking and the weaving of cotton, woolen, and silk
cloth. Wood and stone carving have been concentrated in the
northeastern provinces, while jewelrymaking has been done in
the Kabul area. The making of leather goods has also been a
handicraft industry.
29SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The Afghanistan Academy of Sciences, founded in 1979, is the
principal scientific institution. As of 2002, it had about 180 members.
Prospective members of the Academy must take a written
exam, present samples of their work, and pass a proficiency exam
in one of the official languages of the UN. Many Afghan scientists
migrated to Europe, the US, and Pakistan during over two
decades of war. Under the Taliban, professors who did not teach
Islamic studies were relieved of their duties.
The Department of Geology and Mineral Survey within the
Ministry of Mines and Industries conducts geological and mineralogical
research, mapping, prospecting and exploration.
The Institute of Public Health, founded in 1962, conducts public
health training and research and study of indigenous diseases,
has a Government reference laboratory, and compiles statistical
data.
Kabul University, founded in 1932, has faculties of Science,
Pharmacy, Veterinary Medicine, and Geo-Sciences. Its faculty
numbers close to 200. The University of Balkh has about 100
faculty members. Bayazid Roshan University of Nangarhar,
founded in 1962, has faculties of Medicine and Engineering—its
faculty numbers close to 100. The Institute of Agriculture,
founded in 1924, offers courses in veterinary medicine. Kabul
Polytechnic College, founded in 1951, offers post-graduate
engineering courses. Kabul Polytechnic was the site of the June
2002 Loya Jirga, and the international community spent over $7
million to refurbish part of the campus for the assembly.
Buildings on campus had suffered heavy bomb damage. During
the 1990s, the campus was shelled and looted by mujahidin
groups who fought amongst themselves for control of the capital.
Boarding students studying under the rule of the Taliban lived in
makeshift dormitories.
30DOMESTIC TRADE
Kabul, Kandah ¯ ar, Maz ¯ ar-e-Sharif, and Her ¯ at are the principal
commercial cities of eastern, southern, northern, and western
Afghanistan, respectively. The first two are the main distribution
centers for imports arriving from the direction of Pakistan; the
latter two, for materials arriving from Iran and the former USSR.
Hours of business vary. The destruction of paved roads has
severely constrained normal domestic trade in most rural parts of
the country. Heavy fighting in Kabul has completely destroyed
the city’s infrastructure.
31FOREIGN TRADE
Although the Taliban had brought a repressive order to the 90%
of the country under its rule, it was unable to attract foreign
investment as long as it was unable to gain international recognition.
Hyperinflation had increased the number of Afghanis (the
country’s currency) needed to equal one US dollar from 50 in the
early 1990s to a virtually worthless 42,000 in 1999. On October
7, 2002, the first anniversary of the start of the US-led bombing
campaign in Afghanistan, a new Afghan currency came into use.
Also called the Afghani, the new notes were worth 1000 of the
old notes, which were phased out. The government will exchange
the dostumi currency, which is used in northern Afghanistan and
named after the region’s warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, into new
Afghanis at half the value of old Afghanis. Around 1800 tons of
old Afghanis were due to be burned or recycled.
The value of exports, including fruits and nuts, carpets, wool,
cotton, hides and pelts, and gems totaled an estimated $1.2 billion
in 2001. Imports, including food, petroleum products, and
most commodity items totaled an estimated $1.3 billion.
Principal trading partners in 2000 (in percentages) were as follows:
COUNTRY EXPORTS IMPORTS
Pakistan 27.8 23
India 7.7
Turkmenistan 7.1
Japan 9.9
China (inc. Hong Kong) 4.9
Kenya 8
Belgium 13
Finland 6.8
Kazakhstan 10.9
32BALANCE OF PAYMENTS
Between 1951 and 1973, Afghanistan’s year-end international
reserves were never lower than $38 million or higher than $65
million. Development of the natural gas industry and favorable
prices for some of the country’s agricultural exports led to
increases in international reserves, to $67.5 million in 1974 and
to $115.4 million as of 31 December 1975. Exploitation of natural
gas also freed Afghanistan from extreme dependence on petroleum
imports and from the rapid increases in import costs that
most countries experienced in 1973 and 1974. Increased trade
with the former USSR and Eastern Europe in the late 1970s and
1980s resulted in a reduction of foreign exchange earnings, since
trade surpluses are counted as a credit against future imports.
Foreign exchange reserves declined from $411.1 million at the
close of 1979 to $262 million as of 30 May 1987. The public foreign
debt in 1997 stood at $5.49 billion. Reliable statistics are not
available for the ensuing years. However, the US Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) reports that in 2001 the purchasing power
parity of Afghanistan’s exports was $1.2 billion while imports
totaled $1.3 billion resulting in a trade deficit of $100 million.
33BANKING AND SECURITIES
The government central bank, the Bank of Afghanistan, was
founded in 1939. In 1999, the UN Security Council passed a resolution
placing the Bank of Afghanistan on a consolidated list of
persons and entities whose funds and financial resources should
be frozen, due to the fact that the bank was controlled by the Taliban
regime. The Interim Administration of Afghanistan
requested in January 2002 that the bank be removed from the
consolidated list, and the Security Council agreed.
All banks in Afghanistan were nationalized in 1975. In the
early 1980s there were seven banks in the country, including the
Agricultural Development Bank, the Export Promotion Bank, the
Industrial Development Bank, and the Mortgage and Construction
Bank.
There is no organized domestic securities market.
34INSURANCE
The fate of the Afghan National Insurance Co., which covered
fire, transport, and accident insurance, is unknown as of 2002.
35PUBLIC FINANCE
The fiscal year ends 20 March. Budget breakdowns have not been
available since 1979/80, when revenues totaled Af15,788 million
and expenditures Af16,782 million. In 2002, the Interim and
Transitional governing authorities were working with donor aid
agencies to finance the rebuilding of Afghanistan’s infrastructure
and society. The Interim Administration was supported by the
Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, UNDP,
and the World Bank. An Implementation Group was established
to operate an “Operational Costs Trust Fund” for Afghanistan,
to be effective when the UNDP “Start-up Fund” ceased, to cover
expenditures normally financed by domestic revenue. The Operational
Costs Trust Fund will cease to operate when the situation
in Afghanistan would approach fiscal normality, estimated by
2006, when the government would be able to finance most or all
of its own costs.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates that in
2000 Afghanistan’s external debt totaled $5.5 billion.
36TAXATION
In the early 1980s, direct taxes accounted for about 15% of government
revenues. The share provided by indirect taxes declined
from 42% to 30%, as revenues from natural gas and state enterprises
played an increasing role in government finance. Tax collection,
never an effective source of revenue in rural areas, was
essentially disabled by the disruption caused by fighting and mass
flight. Under the Taliban, arbitrary taxes, including those on
humanitarian goods, were imposed.
37CUSTOMS AND DUTIES
Before the turmoil of the late 1970s, customs duties, levied as a
source of revenue rather than as a protective measure, constituted
more than one-fourth of total government revenue. As of 1993,
both specific and ad valorem duties of 20–35% were levied on
imports. Other costs included service and Red Crescent charges;
monopoly and luxury taxes; authorization and privilege charges,
and a commission-type duty.
After the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s warlords collected
customs duties for themselves rather than transferring the funds
to the Interim and Transitional authorities in Kabul. In May
2002, it was estimated that between $6 and $7 million in customs
duties were paid each month at Afghanistan’s borders with Pakistan,
Iran, and Uzbekistan, very little of which went into the government
treasury.
38FOREIGN INVESTMENT
A 1967 law encouraged investment of private foreign capital in
Afghanistan, but under the PDPA government, Western investment
virtually ceased. Between 1979 and 1987, the former USSR
provided technical and financial assistance on more than 200
projects, including various industrial plants, irrigation dams, agricultural
stations, and a new terminal at the Kabul airport. After
1990, reconstruction investments from Russia, Japan, and the US
were channeled through the United Nations. The Taliban called
for Western support to help reconstruct Afghanistan, but Western
donors—already reluctant to support UN programs in the country—
did not respond. After the fall of the Taliban, head-of-state
Hamid Karzai encouraged foreign countries for direct investment
in Afghanistan, first to reach the people in the provinces who
require salaries and owe taxes, and then to invest in businesses
that would lead to industrial and technological development.
39ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
As of 2002, the World Bank was managing an Afghan Reconstruction
Trust Fund (ARTF) to assist the Interim Administration
in funding physical reconstruction projects, including in the
health sector, as well as managing expenses such as salaries for
state employees. The ARTF began in May 2002, as a joint proposal
of the World Bank, the UN Development Program (UNDP),
the Asian Development Bank, and the Islamic Development
Bank. It was set up to streamline international support to
Afghanistan by organizing aid pledges within a single mechanism.
Contributions to the ARTF are anticipated to total more than
$60 million in the first year, and $380 million over 4 years. As of
November 2002, pledges of funding for Afghanistan reached
more than $4.5 billion for the first 30 months.
40SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Social welfare in Afghanistan has traditionally relied on family
and tribal organization. In the villages and small towns, a tax is
levied on each man to benefit the poor. Disabled people are cared
for in social welfare centers in the provincial capitals. Most other
welfare activities are still unorganized and in private hands. In the
early 1990s, a social insurance system provided old age, disability,
and survivors’ pensions, sickness and maternity benefits, and
workers’ compensation.
Women have traditionally had few rights in Afghanistan, with
their role limited largely to the home and the fields. Advances in
women’s rights were made from 1920 onward, and by the time of
the communist coup, women attended school in large numbers,
voted and held government jobs—including posts as cabinet ministers,
and were active in the professions. The Communist regime
also promoted women’s rights, but the victory of the extremely
conservative Taliban in 1996 reversed this trend. Strict limits on
the freedoms of women were put in place. Women were only
allowed to appear in public if they were dressed in a chadri, or
burka, a long black or blue garment with a mesh veil covering the
face, and only if accompanied by a male. The Taliban also
banned girls from attending school, and prohibited women from
working outside the home. Certain restrictions on women were
reportedly lifted in 1998. Women were allowed to work as doctors
and nurses as long as they treated only women, and were
able to attend medical schools. Widows with no means of support
were allowed to seek employment.
The human rights record of the governing Taliban was
extremely poor. Taliban forces were responsible for disappearances
and political killings, including massacres and summary
executions. In areas controlled by the Taliban, Islamic courts and
religious police imposed strict order based on conservative interpretations
of Islamic law that mandated, among other measures,
public execution for adultery and amputation for theft. Homes
were burned and livestock destroyed in a military offensive in the
summer of 1999 that resulted in the forcible relocation of many
civilians. Basic freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, and association
were abridged under Taliban rule.
With the end of the Taliban, women and girls were permitted
to attend schools and universities, and the enforced wearing of
the burka was ended. Men were allowed to shave, music and television
were permitted, and a host of Taliban-imposed restrictions
on society ended. A broad-based, pluralistic society is being fostered,
with a high degree of respect for human rights and basic
freedoms.
41HEALTH
Starvation, disease, death, war, and migration had devastating
effects on Afghanistan’s health infrastructure in the 1990s.
According to the World Health Organization, medication was
scarce. Infectious diseases accounted for more than half of all
hospital admissions (mostly malaria and typhoid) in 1994. Even
before the war disrupted medical services, health conditions in
Afghanistan were inadequate by western standards. A national
medical school was established in 1931 and, in the following
year, the first tuberculosis hospital was built. In 1990, for every
100,000 people, 278 were stricken with tuberculosis.
Efforts to take medical services to war-ravaged areas of
Afghanistan and to areas left without public health programs due
to the termination of services were waged by volunteer medical
programs from France, Sweden, the US, and other countries.
In 1991, there were 2,233 doctors, 510 pharmacists, 267 dentists,
1,451 nurses, and 338 midwives. Between 1985-1995 only
29% of the population had access to health services. During
those same years, few of the population had access to safe water
(10%) and adequate sanitation (8%). For children under one the
immunization rates were as follows: tuberculosis (44%), diphtheria,
pertussus, and tetanus (18%), polio (18%), and measles
(40%) between 1990–94.
In 2002, estimated life expectancy was 46.6 years—one of the
lowest in the world—and infant mortality was estimated at 145
per 1,000 live births, which makes the country have the world's
fourth highest mortality rate for children under age 5. The maternal
mortality rate in 2002 was one of the highest in the Central
Asia region with 1,600 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
The death rate in 2002 was 17 per 1,000 people. Cholera reached
epidemic proportions with 19,903 cases reported in 1995. In
2002, 80,000 children a year were dying of diarrheal disease.
From 1978 to 1991, there were over 1,500,000 war-related
deaths. It is estimated that 3767 civilians died because of US
bombs in Afghanistan between October 7 and December 7 of
2001. Approximately 300–400 civilians were killed betweeen
October 2001 and July 2002.
As of 2002, Afghanistan had an average of four hospital beds
for every 10,000 people. Most of the country's facilities are in
Kabul, and those needing treatment must traverse the countryside
to get there. Health care is being provided by the international
community primarily. Some military field hospitals were set up as
a result of the US-led coalition war. There are some medical facilities
supported by the Red Cross operating in the country. In 24
of 31 provinces there are no hospitals or medical staff. For every
10,000 people in the country, there is an average of 1.8 physicians.
Primary care physicians are most needed for pediatrics,
women’s health, internal medicine, and ob-gyn. Afghan physicians
need training and retraining to upgrade their skills and
knowledge base.
42HOUSING
Houses in farming communities are built largely of mud brick
and frequently grouped within a fortified enclosure, to provide
protection from marauders. The roofs are flat, with a coating of
mixed straw and mud rolled hard above a ceiling of horizontal
poles, although in areas where timber is scarce, separate mud
brick domes crown each room. Cement and other modern building
materials are widely used in cities and towns. Every town has
at least one wide thoroughfare, but other streets are narrow lanes
between houses of mud brick, taller than those in the villages and
featuring decorative wooden balconies. The war and bombing
campaign has severely damaged or destroyed countless houses.
According to an official report, there were 200,000 dwellings in
Kabul in the mid-1980s. The latest available figures for 1980–88
show a total housing stock of 3,500,000 with 4.4 people per
dwelling.
In 2002, over 100,000 shelters were needed throughout
Afghanitan for returning refugees, internally displaced persons,
and the extremely poor who had very limited covered space, in
both rural and urban areas. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) is the leader in the firld of shelter. Other funders
include the UN Development Program, the International Organization
for Migration, and CARE International, while the agencies
implementing the programs are the Ministry for Rural Rehabilitation
and Development (MRRD) in Afghanistan, the United
Nations Human Settlement Program (Habitat), the International
Rescue Committee (IRC) as well as an assortment of international
and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
43EDUCATION
Adult illiteracy for the year 2002 for males was 49%; females,
79%. This is the highest illiteracy rate in Asia. Education is free
at all levels. Primary education lasts for six years and is theoretically
compulsory for 6 years, but only 53% of boys and 5% of
girls were enrolled in elementary school in 2002. Boys and girls
are schooled separately. A teacher has on average 58 pupils in an
elementary school classroom, but only 28 students in a secondary
school classroom. Only 32% of the males and 11% of females
graduating from elementary school continue into secondary education.
Vocational training is provided in secondary schools and
senior high schools, and six percent of students are enrolled in the
vocational system. Secondary education lasts for another six
years. Children are taught in their mother tongue, Dari (Persian)
or Pashtu (Pashto), during the first three grades; the second official
language is introduced in the fourth grade. Children are also
taught Arabic so that they may be able to read the Koran
(Qur’an). The school year extends from early March to November
in the cold areas and from September to June in the warmer
regions. The school-aged population in Afghanistan is 6,650,000.
In addition to the secular public education system, the traditional
Islamic madrassa school system is functioning. At the
madrassas, children study the Koran, the Hadith (Sayings of the
Prophet Mohammad), and popular religious texts.
Under the Taliban regime, girls were not allowed to have education
at all levels. All teachers have civil service status. The educational
system is totally centralized by the state.
The University of Kabul, which is now coeducational, was
founded in 1932. In 1962, a faculty of medicine was established
at Jalalabad in Nangarhar Province; this faculty subsequently
became the University of Nangarhar. By 2002 a total of 8 universities
had been established in Afghanistan along with 9 pedagogical
institutes. The number of Afghans enrolled in higher
education was expected to double from 26,000 to 52,000 by
2003. An estimated one thousand women throughout Afghanistan
participated in university entrance examinations in 2002.
44LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS
For centuries, manuscript collections were in the hands of the rulers,
local feudal lords, and renowned religious families. Printing
came fairly late to Afghanistan, but with the shift from the handwritten
manuscript to the printed book, various collections were
formed. Kabul has a public library (1920) with 60,000 volumes,
and the library of the University of Kabul has 250,000 volumes.
There is a library at Kabul Polytechnic University with 6,000 volumes
and a government library, at the ministry of education, also
in Kabul, with 30,000 volumes.
Prior to the devastating civil war, the Kabul Museum (founded
in 1922) possessed an unrivaled collection of stone heads, basreliefs,
ivory plaques and statuettes, bronzes, mural paintings,
and Buddhist material from excavations at Hadda, Bamian,
Bagram, and other sites. It also contained an extensive collection
of coins and a unique collection of Islamic bronzes, marble
reliefs, Kusham art, and ceramics from Ghazni. In nearly a
decade of warfare, however, the museum was plundered by the
various armed bands, with much of its collection sold on the
black market, or systematically destroyed. As of 2003, the Kabul
museum is slowly beginning some restoration. Also in Kabul, is
the Kabul University Science Museum, with an extensive zoological
collection and a museum of pathology. There are provincial
museums at Bamyan, Ghazni, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Maimana,
and Kandahar. Major religious shrines have collections of valuable
objects. Due to the chaotic political situation in the 1990s, it
is impossible to determine the state of any of its collections.
In March 2001, the Taliban dynamited the Bamiyan Buddhas
and sold the debris and the remains of the original sculpture.
Small statues of the Buddhas in Foladi and Kakrak were
destroyed. Most of the statues and other “non-Islamic art” works
in the collections of the Kabul Museum were destroyed, including
those stored for security reasons in the Ministry of Information
and Culture. UNESCO has undertaken a plan to conserve the
archaeological remains and the minaret at Jam, and to make it a
World Heritage site. The minaret was built at the end of the 12th
century and at 65 meters is the second tallest in the world after
the Qutub Minar in New Delhi.
45MEDIA
Limited service to principal cities and some smaller towns and villages
is provided by the government-operated telegraph and telephone
services. Prior to 2001, there were some 30,000 telephones
currently in use. Local telephone networks were not operating
reliably in 2002. There is no commercial satellite telephone service
locally. The first television broadcast took place in 1978. As
of 1997, there were 63 radios and 4 television sets per 1,000 population.
Prior to the fall of the Taliban, the major newspapers, all headquartered
in Kabul, (with estimated 1999 circulations) were Anis
(25,000), published in Dari and Pashto; Hewad (12,200), and
New Kabul Times (5,000), in English. In January 2002, the independent
newspaper Kabul Weekly was published after having disappeared
when the Taliban seized power. The first issue carried
news in Dari, Pashto, English, and French. UNESCO is providing
aid to journalists and technical media staff, including those of
national television. It works to strenghthen the Afghan News
Agency by training journalists, and has projects for the development
of public service broadcasting. More than 100 high-quality
television productions from all over the world were sent to Radio
Television Afghanistan in 2002. That year, an Internet-equipped
computer training center was established within the Ministry of
Education in Kabul.
46ORGANIZATIONS
Organizations to advance public aims and goals are of recent origin
and most are sponsored and directed by the government. The
National Fatherland Front, consisting of tribal and political
groups that support the government, was founded in June 1981
to bolster the PDPA regime and to promote full and equal participation
of Afghan nationals in state affairs.
The Women’s Welfare Society carries on educational enterprises,
provides training in handicrafts, and dispenses charitable
aid, while the Maristun, a social service center, looks after children,
men, and women and teaches them crafts and trades. The
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
(RAWA), established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977, is an independent
political organization of Afghan women focusing on
human rights and social justice.
With political changes in the country throughout the past
decade, a number of new women’s groups have developed. These
include the Afghan Women Social and Cultural Organization
(AWSCO, est. 1994), the Afghan Women’s Educational Center
(AWEC, est. 1991), the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN, est.
1995), the Educational Training Center for Poor Women and
Girls of Afghanistan (ECW, est. 1997), the New Afghanistan
Women Association (est. 2002 as a merger of the Afghan Women
Journalist Association and the Afghan Feminine Association),
and the World Organization for Mutual Afghan Network
(WOMAN, est. 2002).
The Union of Afghanistan Youth is a national non-government
organization representing the concerns of the nation’s youth and
young adults in the midst of transition and reconstruction. The
organization serves as a multi-party offshoot of the Democratic
Youth Organization of Afghanistan (DYOA), which has worked
closely with the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan.
Though the Scouting Movement of Afghanistan was disbanded in
1978, the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM)
began conducting seminars in July 2003 to encourage and support
the rebirth of scouting programs.
The Red Crescent, the equivalent of the Red Cross, is active in
every province, with a national chapter of Red Crescent Youth
also active. An institute called the Pashto Tolanah promotes
knowledge of Pashto literature and the Historical Society (Anjuman-
i-Tarikh) amasses information on Afghan history. The
Afghan Carpet Exporters’ Guild, founded in 1987, promotes foreign
trade of Afghan carpets and works for the improvement of
the carpet industry.
47TOURISM, TRAVEL, AND RECREATION
The tourism industry, developed with government help in the
early 1970s, has been negligible since 1979 due to internal political
instability. A passport and visa are required for entrance into
Afghanistan. In 1999, the UN estimated the daily cost of staying
in Kabul at $70. Approximately 61% of these costs were estimated
to be the price of a room in a guest house. As travel was
highly restricted in the country due to the US-led campaign
against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, it is unknown what the daily
cost of staying in the country was in 2002.
48FAMOUS AFGHANS
The most renowned ruler of medieval Afghanistan, Mahmud of
Ghazni (971?–1030), was the Turkish creator of an empire
stretching from Ray and Isfahan in Iran to Lahore in India (now
in Pakistan) and from the Amu Darya (Oxus) River to the Arabian
Sea. Zahir ud-Din Babur (1483–1530), a Timurid prince of
Ferghana (now in the former USSR), established his base at Kabul
and from there waged campaigns leading to the expulsion of an
Afghan ruling dynasty, the Lodis, from Delhi and the foundation
of the Mughal Empire in India.
Many eminent figures of Arab and Persian intellectual history
were born or spent their careers in what is now Afghanistan. Al-
Biruni (973–1048), the great Arab encyclopedist, was born in
Khiva but settled in Ghazni, where he died. Abdul Majid Majdud
Sana‘i (1070–1140), the first major Persian poet to employ verse
for mystical and philosophical expression, was a native of
Ghazni. Jalal ud-Din Rumi (1207–73), who stands at the summit
of Persian poetry, was born in Balkh but migrated to Konya (Iconium)
in Turkey. The last of the celebrated Persian classical poets,
Abdur Rahman Jami (1414–92), was born in Khorasan but spent
most of his life in Herat. So did Behzad (1450?–1520), the greatest
master of Persian painting.
The founder of the state of Afghanistan was Ahmad Shah
Abdali (1724–73), who changed his dynastic name to Durrani.
He conquered Kashmir and Delhi and, with his capital at Kandahar,
ruled over an empire that also stretched from the Amu Darya
to the Arabian Sea. Dost Muhammad (1789–1863) was the
founder of the Muhammadzai (Barakzai) dynasty. In a turbulent
career, he both fought and made peace with the British in India,
and unified the country. His grandson, Abdur Rahman Khan
(1844–1901), established order after protracted civil strife.
Amanullah Khan (1892–1960), who reigned from 1919 to 1929,
tried social reforms aimed at Westernizing the country but was
forced to abdicate. Muhammad Nadir Shah (d.1933), who was
elected king by a tribal assembly in 1929, continued Amanullah’s
Westernization program. His son, Muhammad Zahir Shah
(b.1914), was king until he was deposed by a coup in July 1973.
Lieut. Gen. Sardar Muhammad Daoud Khan (1909–78), cousin
and brother-in-law of King Zahir, was the leader of the coup and
the founder and first president of the Republic of Afghanistan.
Leaders in the violent years since the 1978 “Saur Revolution”
have been Nur Muhammad Taraki (1917–79), founder of the
PDPA; Hafizullah Amin (1929–79), Taraki’s successor as president
of the Revolutionary Council and secretary-general of the
PDPA; Babrak Karmal (1929), leader of the pro-Soviet Parcham
group of the PDPA and chief of state from December 1979 until
May 1986; and Dr. Najibullah (1947–96), former head of the
Afghan secret police who was brutally executed by the Taliban
militia after they seized control of Kabul.
49DEPENDENCIES
Afghanistan has no territories or colonies.
50BIBLIOGRAPHY
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