AFGHANISTAN A VIEW
Afghanistan is located in South-Central Asia. Afghanistan, a key trade
route linking South and East Asia with Europe and the Middle East, has
long been a coveted prize for empire-builders, and over the millennia
great armies have attempted to subdue it by erecting grand monuments
have erected memories of their efforts. The signs are now in ruins. The
country's dangerous desert and mountain landscape put an end to many
imperial ambitions, Afghanistan's modern borders were set in the 19th
century in the context of the rivalry between Imperial Britain and
Tsarist Russia, which Rudyard Kipling dubbed "the great game". Modern
Afghanistan became a front in the struggle for political ideology and
commercial clout. In the last quarter of the 20th century, Afghanistan
suffered the devastating effects of a civil war, exacerbated by the
military invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union (1979–89). In
subsequent armed conflicts, a surviving Afghan communist regime opposed
Islamist insurgents (1989–92), and after a brief rule by mujahideen
groups, a hard-line movement of religious students – the Taliban – took
the country's ruling parties and warlords to task. rose up against it
and established a theocratic regime (1996-2001) that soon fell under the
influence of a group of well-funded Islamists led by a Saudi Arabian
exile, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban regime collapsed in December 2001
amid an ongoing US-dominated military campaign against Taliban fighters
and bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. Shortly thereafter, anti-Taliban
forces agreed on a period of transitional leadership and government that
would result in a new constitution and the formation of a
democratically elected government.