Middle East Desk : Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan has been ravaged by war for more than a quarter of a century. In 1979, the Soviets invaded to support a Communist government that had staged a coup the year before, greatly expanding the ranks of an insurgency by Islamist militias known as the mujahideen. Sunni mujahideen trained by Pakistan, funded by Saudi Arabia and armed by the United States, as well as Shiite fighters backed by Iran, fought the Soviets until they withdrew in 1989.

The Communist government fell three years later to the combined forces of the mujahideen, but this Northern Alliance swiftly broke apart and civil war raged throughout the ensuing decade. By 1996, a Pakistani-backed faction, the Taliban, had gained control of most of the country, imposing a severe version of Islamic law, but fighting continued in the north. In the course of the war, millions of Afghan refugees fled into neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US and the reconstituted Northern Alliance drove the Taliban from power. The US and other donor nations committed to massive aid packages for the new government, installed through presidential elections in 2004 and parliamentary elections the next year. Refugees began to return.

Two thirds of the country lives in extreme poverty, with high unemployment and much of the arable land given over to opium poppy cultivation. Donor funds have been inadequate to the tremendous humanitarian and reconstruction needs, and both government and NGO recipients stand accused of inefficiency and corruption. The writ of the central government scarcely extends beyond the capital of Kabul, and much of the countryside remains divided into the fiefdoms of former mujahideen “warlords.” As the US draws down its troop levels and more European soldiers move in, Taliban forces are regrouping, and the Afghan war appears to be accelerating anew.

Facts and Figures »