Invasions of Afghanistan

Persian Conquests

While relatively little detail is known, parts of the region of nowadays Afghanistan came under rule of the Median kingdom for a short time.

Afghanistan partially fell to the Achaemenid Empire after it was conquered by Darius I of Persia. The area was divided into several provinces called satrapies, which were each ruled by a governor, or satrap. These ancient satrapies included: Aria (Herat); Arachosia (Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, Bamiyan and Quetta); Bactriana (Balkh); Sattagydia (Ghazni); and Gandhara (Kabul, Jalalabad, Peshawar).

Greek Conquest and Kushan Invasions

Alexander the Great invaded what is today Afghanistan in 330 BC as part of war against Persia. Comprising the easternmost satrapies of Persia, Afghanistan provided some challenging battles in his conquest of the remaining lands of Persia. Renamed Bactria, and settled with his Ionian veterans, Alexander began his invasion of India from what is now Jalalabad, attacking the Indus River basin through the Khyber Pass. Several cities in Afghanistan are named for Alexander, including Alexandria Arachosia, now called Kandahar (a contraction of Iskandahar). Following the death of Alexander and the partition of his kingdom, the Province of Bactria was under the rule of Alexander's former general, Seleucus, who now formed the Seleucid Dynasty, with its capital in Babylon. But the Greek Soldiers in Bactria, based on the remoteness of their territory, declared independence, defeated Seleucid armies sent to reconquer them, and founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, which lasted for more than three centuries in Afghanistan, and western India. This Greek Kingdom called Bactria carried on Greek culture while completely cut off from Europe for three centuries. One of the cities, Ai-Khanoum was excavated in 1970s, showing a complete Greek city with an acropolis, amphitheater, temples, and numerous statues. Greeks of Bactria transmitted the art of sculpting human likeness to India and the Far East. Bactrian King Menander I converted to Buddhism after staging multiple theological and philosophical debates between his Greek priests and Indian Buddhist monks. Menander I is remembered in Buddhist Sutras as "King Milinda of the Yunani." The Ionian origin of the Greek veterans who settled Bactria is remembered to this day by the Afghan word for Greeks, which is "Ionani." Bactrian Greeks left a legacy of coinage, architecture, and Buddhist art, which comprised the Ghandara culture, especially the Greco-Buddhist Art affecting all of East Asia to this day. The last Greek Kingdom in Afghanistan was conquered by the Kushan invaders in the first century AD, a full three centuries after Alexander. But Greek language continued to be used by the Kushans in their coinage for the next several centuries.

Conquest by Arab Caliphate

In the seventh to ninth centuries, following the disintegration of the Sassanid Persian Empire and Roman Empire, leaders in the world theatre for the last four centuries and archrivals, the area was again invaded from the west, this time by Umar, second Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, in the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan, eventually resulting in the conversion of most of its inhabitants to Islam. This was one of many Muslim conquests following the establishment of a unified state in the Arabian Peninsula by the prophet Muhammad. At its height, Muslim control - during the period of the Umayyad Caliphate - extended from the borders of China to the Iberian Peninsula (modern day Spain and Portugal), the Middle East, North Africa, parts of southern Europe, parts of south East Europe, parts of central Asia, and parts of South Asia.

Mongol Empire

In the Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia (1219-1221), Genghis Khan invaded the region from the northeast in one of his many conquests to create the huge Mongol Empire. His armies slaughtered thousands in the cities of Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad etc. After Genghis Khan returned to Mongolia, there was a rebellion in the region of Helmand which was brutally put down by his son and successor, Ogedei Khan, who put all male residents of Ghazni and Helmand to the sword in 1222; the women were enslaved and sold. Thereafter most parts of Afghanistan other than the extreme south-eastern remained under Mongol rule as part of the Ilkhanate and Chagatai Khanate.

The Hazara people claim to be descendants of the Mongol invaders, though this is disputed as the first mention of Hazara people is made by Babur in the 16th century.^[3] The Hazara constitute the majority of Shia adherents in Afghanistan today. Additionally, many areas of Afghanistan are named after Mongol leaders, including Band-e-Timur (meaning "Timur's block") in Maywand District in Kandahar Province, the only district never taken from the Taliban throughout the western intervention of the 21st century, Jaghatu District (named in honor of Chagatai) in Wardak Province, and the village of Wech Baghtu in Shah Wali Kot District, named after Batu.^[4]

Conquest by Tamerlane (Timur) and Mughal Empire

From 1383 to 1385, the Afghanistan area was conquered from the north by Timur, leader of neighboring Transoxiana (roughly modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and adjacent areas), and became a part of the Timurid Empire. Timur was from a Turko-Mongol tribe and although a Muslim, saw himself more as an heir of Genghis Khan. Timur's armies caused great devastation and are estimated to have caused the deaths of 17 million people. He brought great destruction on Afghanistan's south, slaughtering thousands and enslaving an equal number of women. Allied with the Uzbeks, Hazaras and other Turkic communities in the north his dominance over Afghanistan was long-lasting, allowing him for his future successful conquests in Central Anatolia against the Ottomans.^[5]

In the next period, many of the Eastern and Southern parts of Afghanistan came under rule of various dynasties based in other parts of South Asia, such as by the Delhi Sultanate. After the slow disintegration of the Timurid Empire in 1506, the Mughal Empire was later established in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India by Babur in 1526, who was a descendant of Timur through his father and possibly a descendant of Genghis Khan through his mother. By the 17th century, the Mughal Empire ruled most of India, but later declined during the 18th century.

The Sikh Empire invasion

In the early 1846 the Battle of Jamrud was fought between the Sikhs under Maharajah Ranjit Singh and the Afghans under Emir Dost Muhammad Khan. Since the consolidation of the Sikh Empire in Punjab, Maharajah Ranjit Singh had turned the wave of invasions on Afghanistan. The Afghans had been losing their long held territories to Sikhs over the preceding years due to internal conflicts, and had seen their once mighty empire shrink with the loss of the Punjab region, Multan, Kashmir, Derajat, Hazara and Peshawar. Maharaja Ranjit Singh availed himself of anarchy in Kabul and made as invasion of Peshawar, the South-West-Eastern frontiers of Peshawar with Punjab having been neglected by Sultan Yar Mohammed Khan and Dost Mohammad Khan, the then Afghan governors of Peshawar who found themselves helpless and vacated the city. Punjabi forces with Mian Ghausa and Diwan Mohkam Chand leading the charge With Sardar Nalua as general of Cavalry didn't had to face any fight what so ever. Maharaja appointed Jahan Dad Khan, ex governor of Attock as new governor of Peshawar in November 1818.

British invasions

During the nineteenth century, Afghanistan was invaded twice from British India, during the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838–1842 with the intention of limiting Russian influence in the country and quelling raiding from across the border. Unlike previous invasions of Afghanistan, the 1842 invasion failed. After the Indian Mutiny, they launched a second invasion for the same reasons in the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878–1880, and succeeded, capturing the major cities and forcing Afghanistan into a subservient quasi-client status. A final conflict emerged in the Third Anglo-Afghan War, when the Afghan government tried to use the aftermath of World War One to break with British overlordship, but after Afghan defeats on the field it ended with a compromise that saw Afghan control over its' foreign affairs be reasserted at the expense of having a permanent British diplomatic mission in Kabul. Some of the legacies of their invasions are the Durand Line.

Soviet intervention

The Soviet Union, along with other countries, was a direct supporter of the new Afghan government after the Saur Revolution in 1978. However, Soviet-style reforms introduced by the government such as changes in marriage customs and land reform were not received well by a population deeply immersed in tradition and Islam. By 1979, fighting between the Afghan government and various other factions within the country, some of which were supported by the United States and other countries, led to a virtual civil war. The Afghan government requested increasing Soviet military support and eventually direct military involvement. Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sent the 40th Army into Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. This event led to the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow by the United States and other countries, and kick-started U.S. funding for Islamic Mujahideen groups who opposed the Afghan government and the Soviet military presence. The local Mujahideen, along with fighters from several different Arab nations (Pathan tribes from Pakistan also participated in the war; they were supported by ISI), eventually succeeded in forcing the Soviet Union out. This was a factor in the dissolution of Soviet communism, because it led to protests (similar to American Vietnam War protests) in the Soviet Union.^[6] Eventually, in-fighting within the Mujahideen led to the rise of warlords in Afghanistan, and from them emerged the Taliban.^[7] The Soviets left behind the only highway in the country as well as many concrete structures built in main cities, as well as still used air fields.

Invasion by the United States and NATO

U.S. Army soldiers prepare a Humvee to be sling-loaded by a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Bagram on July 24, 2004.

On October 7, 2001 the United States, supported by some NATO countries including the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as other allies, began an invasion of Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom. The invasion was launched to capture Osama bin Laden, who was accused of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The US military forces did not capture him, though they toppled the Taliban government and disrupted bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network. The Taliban government had given shelter to Bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by United States Armed Forces in Pakistan. The Taliban leadership survives in hiding throughout Afghanistan, largely in the southeast, and continues to launch guerrilla attacks against forces of the United States, its allies, and the current government of President Ashraf Ghani.

In 2006, the US forces turned over security of the country to NATO-deployed forces in the region, integrating 12,000 of their 20,000 soldiers with NATO's 20,000. The remainder of the US forces continued to search for Al-Qaeda militants. The Canadian military assumed leadership and almost immediately began an offensive against areas where the Taliban guerrillas had encroached. At the cost of a few dozen of their own soldiers, the British, American, and Canadian Forces managed to kill over 1,000 alleged Taliban insurgents and sent thousands more into retreat. Many of the surviving insurgents, however, began to regroup and further clashes are expected by both NATO and Afghan National Army commanders.