Dost Mohammed Khan declared himself ruler in 1823. The British felt that Dost Mohammed was courting Russia. In 1838, a British Expeditionary force marched into Afghnaistan and arrested Dost Mohammed in 1940 after taking Kabul. The British then exiled him into India and replaced him with the previous ruler Shah Shujah Durani.
After a year, the British grew complacent and withdrew some of their forces as popular resistance grew. They also stopped paying the subsidies to the Ghilzai tribe who controlled the routes between Kabul and Peshawar. A British brigade was sent in 1841 to clear the route to India through the Khyber pass. But, the resistance from the Ghilzai tribesmen halted the brigade at Jalalabad equidistant from Kabul and the Khyber pass.
In 1841 there was a popular uprising in Kabul against the British. The commander of the British garrison was not up to the task and asked for reinforcements from Kandahar and a brigade was dispatched but it had to turn back due to heavy snowfall. The son of Dost Mohammed, Akbar Khan arrived at Kabul and became Amir. He had the British troops blockaded in an encampment
The British Commander was forced to sign a peace treaty by which the British were allowed safe passage up to Jalalabad by the king. The result was a slaughter of the British army as they marched and only 1 British surgeon and a handful of Indian Sepoys reached Jalalabad out of the 4500 plus 12000 civilains who started from Kabul.
In retribution the British sent another army in 1842. This force took Kabul and levelled all the great bazaar and the bigger buildings of Kabul. Akbar Khan died a British prisoner in 1847 possibly poisoned by his own father.
Dost Mohammed too remained a British prisoner till 1841 when they freed him. The British after their revenge on Kabul left him in peace and he died in 1863 due to natural causes. The British withdrew their military forces from Afghanistan in 1878.
But till the battle for Kabul, the British have never suffered a defeat in India and it affected the morale of the Bengal regiment which consisted of the bulk of troops that were stationed in Kabul before the massacre.
After Dost Mohammed came Abdur Rehman Khan. He died in 1901 and his son Habibullah Khan came to power. During world war one he was met by officials of the Axis powers who asked him to declare full independence from Britain and enter the war on their side. Habibullah Khan did not yield. But this caused a discontent among the population and he was assassinated in 1919 and Amanullah Khan came to power. He was a staunch supporter of an anti British expedition and initiated a war on the British by entering India through the Khyber pass.
Now the Amir Amanullah was a liberal. He encouraged women’s education and abolished the Burkha. This alienated many tribal’s and religious leaders which led to the Afghan civil war in 1928-29. With overwhelming armed opposition Amanullah had to abdicate the throne in 1929. Later his cousin Nadir Shah came to power as Amir.
Nadir Shah’s son Zahir Shah succeeded him in 1933 and ruled till 1973. His reign was challenged by the tribal revolts of Zadran, Safi, Mangal and Wazir tribesmen between 1944 onwards, but they were snuffed out by 1947.
Strong relations were pursued with Axis powers Germany, Italy and Japan. However, it remained neutral in the 2nd World War. Later due to the cold war both the US and the Soviet Union built Afghanistan’s main highways, airports and other infrastructure.
Zahir Shah maintained close relations with both the US and the Soviet Union the cold war enemies and benefited from both sides. In 1973, when Amir Zahir Shah was in Italy, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup abolished the monarchy and became its first President.
Thus Afghanistan remained peaceful from 1933 to 1978, a period of some 45 years (there was trouble only 3 years between 1944-47 due to the tribal revolts), up till 1973 under Amir Zahir Shah and later up to 1978 under Daoud Khan who launched a bloodless coup.
Troubles came into Afghanistan with the Communist PDPA ( People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) in 1978. They seized power in a bloody coup against the President Daoud Khan in April 1978. This is called the Saur revolution (so much for the fancy name it screwed the life of all Afghans very comfortably). It set up a communist government with Nur Mohammed Taraki as the President. This idiotic move catapulted Afghanistan into a hotbed of terrorism.
The PDPA initiated many reforms including land distribution and brutally suppressed all political dissidents. This caused unrest that slowly spiralled into a civil war by 1979 waged by the Mujahideen and the Maoist guerrillas. Pakistan supported these guerrillas with arms and training camps and the US too supported them through the ISI. The Soviet Union too is in the fray and sent thousands of military advisors to the PDPA. Things soured further when the PDPA itself had internal fissured and split into two factions, the dominant Khalq and the moderate Parcham.
In Sep 1979 President Taraki of the PDPA was assassinated by fellow Khalq member and PM Hafizullah Amin. His leadership was miserable and thousands of people went missing in the country. Displeased with him, the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan in Dec 1979 and killed Amin 3 days later. A Soviet backed regime was installed under Babrak Karmal (of the Parcham faction of the PDPA) as the President. More Soviet troops were deployed in Afghanistan to stabilize the Karmal regime.
Now, how can other nations keep quiet when the Soviet Union is making its presence felt in Afghanistan? So, the US, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China aided the guerrillas with weapons including 2000 stinger missiles, while the Soviets supported the PDPA government.
This is blatant interference into the affairs of the country by everyone like hawks measuring their prey. The internal war lasting 9 years cost the lives of between 0.5 million to 2 million Afghans. When we remember that the Afghan population currently is only about 4 crores these are very high casualties. It also displaced about 6 million people who fled to Iran and Pakistan and that is about 15% of its population. What can be more tragic?
Heavy bombardment in the war destroyed many villages in the countryside and also some cities like Herat and Kandahar. Millions of landmines were planted everywhere. Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province acted as a base for helping the rebels with the Deobandi Ulema of the area supporting Jihad.
Finally Gorbachev himself who sent the army into Afghanistan thought enough was enough and felt that it was futile and he cannot go on maintaining their army in Afghanistan like that when their own economy is getting affected on account of it. So the Soviet Union started pulling back its troops in May 1988 and it was completed by February 1989.
Even when the Soviet Union was withdrawing its troops the US continued to supply arms to the rebels who attacked the withdrawing Soviet troops. Such are the acts of big powers.
After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in 1989 there was a civil war and the PDPA regime under Najibullah collapsed in 1992. Various Mujahideen factions committed widespread rape, murder and extortion. The civil war between various factions went on till the Taliban emerged on the scene in 1994.
This is a movement from the Islamic madrassas from Pakistan which had military support from Pakistan. Now the big boy has arrived to take charge (of the civil war of course). They slowly advanced their spread into Afghanistan and finally drove out the Government of Rabbani from Kabul in 1996. The Taliban then enforced the harsh Sharia law as per which even listening to music is a sin to be punished. During its rule the Taliban committed massacres against civilians in Afghanistan. They denied UN food supplies to civilians and burnt farms and homes of thousands of people.
To resist the Taliban a Northern alliance was formed by Massoud and Dostum. This alliance was defeated by the Taliban in 1997-98 in Mazar E Sharif. Pakistan sent thousands of army to help the Taliban in its battles against the Northern Alliance. By the year 2000, the Northern Alliance only controlled 10% of the country in the Northeast. In Sep 2001 Massoud was assassinated by a two member Arab suicide squad.
In October 2001 the USA invaded Afghanistan with the ISAF to remove Taliban from power and the Taliban hegemony came to an end. Hamid Karzai was installed as the President in Dec 2001.
Taliban forces then regrouped in Pakistan. Over the next decade the ISAF and Afghan troops attacked the Taliban but could not fully defeat them. The ISAF (the bulk is from the US) has now completed a full 20 years in Afghanistan spending all that money but nothing had been accomplished.
They cannot remain there forever, so they finally decided to withdraw now. The moment the withdrawal started the Taliban struck back and has now come back to power with lightning speed. So all the effort of the US for 20 years and all that money has gone down the drain. Neither has the Soviet intervention for 9 years achieved anything. So, the 29 years of foreign power intervention has only ruined the country into a civil war and catapulted a dangerous outfit like the Taliban into power.
The Soviet Union initially and later the US have played with the country like a pawn with Pakistan aiding the process. The entire turmoil in Afghanistan faces today is because of these 2 countries playing games. Ultimately both countries despite intervening could not get any lasting solution and they not only wasted their own money but caused a huge loss of life to that country.
Of course it was the Soviet Union that made the first move to aid the communists, destroying the peace the country enjoyed for a long time. It was the communist PDPA that initiated all this nonsense and paved the way for the invasion of first the Soviet Union and then the USA. The US initially abetted the Mujahideen and supplied them with 2000 stinger missiles through Pakistan, all in the name of stopping the Soviet Union.
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