By j. T. Rogers
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- The Agencies: CIA, ISI, KGB, MI6 and More United States: CIA
- Afghanistan: The Mujahedin
- Glossary to the Play Allahu Akhbar
- B olt-action rifles
- Farsi
- Kabul
- L ee Enflield .303 Rifles
- People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan
- S tinger missiles
- Afghanistan’s Turbulent History 12
- Durand Line 13
- Gorbachev Glasnost, Perestroika and Leadership 14
- 1979: Iranian Revolution 15
- Sunni and Shia Islam Quick guide: Sunnis and Shias 16
- Ahmed Shah Massoud 1953 – 2001
- Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 1947
- Najibullah 1947 - 1996
- Discussion Questions About the play
- References and Further Reading Books
1989 The Soviets launch Operation Typhoon to beat back the mujahedin and remove the last of their troops from Afghanistan. General Boris Gromov crosses the Friendship Bridge into Soviet-controlled Uzbekistan. He is the last Soviet officer to leave Afghanistan. As rival mujahedin groups battle to take Kabul following Soviet withdrawal, the U.S. Embassy there is closed for security purposes. On November 9, the Berlin Wall comes down. The U.S. Congress cuts funding of the CIA’s Afghan program to $280 million. 1990 Fearing the Stingers will be used for terrorism, the CIA launches a highly classified program to buy the weapons back at a rate of $80,000 to $150,000 per missile. 1991 The U.S. and the Soviets pledge to stop funding the mujahedin and Najibullah’s Afghan government, respectively. On Christmas Day, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigns. The Soviet Union dissolves the next day. CIA authority to conduct covert action in Afghanistan ends and funding of the Afghan program is shut down. 1992 Najibullah’s government is toppled. A brutal civil war over Kabul ensues. 1996 The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist political movement, seize power in Kabul. They enforce a strict version of Islamic law that bans women from the workplace and enforces punishments including stoning to death. Najibullah is killed by the Taliban. His body is hung in central Kabul. 1997 The Taliban gain control of two thirds of Afghanistan and are recognized as legitimate rulers by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. 2001 On September 9, the leader of the opposition to the Taliban, Ahmed Shah Massoud, is assassinated. On September 11, the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda uses hijacked passenger planes to attack the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. President George W. Bush declares “War on Terror.” Operation Enduring Freedom begins. The U.S. and Great Britain launch a bombing campaign against Afghanistan in effort to destroy terrorist training camps. Ground forces enter 12 days later. 2002 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) takes formal control of Kabul’s peace force. 2004 In the first democratic election ever held in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is declared the winner and assumes the presidency. 2005 U.S. President George W. Bush and President Karzai announce a military partnership in the “war against international terror.” 2006 NATO forces take control of security in Afghanistan. 2008 President Bush sends an extra 4,500 troops into Afghanistan. As civilian deaths climb, more than 200 foreign troops perish in Afghanistan during the deadliest year for the U.S. 2009 NATO countries increase troops in Afghanistan—the U.S. sends an additional 17,000. President Barack Obama takes office and introduces a new strategy in Afghanistan. The U.S. sends 4,000 troops to support and train the Afghan army. In December, President Obama announces the deployment of 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan, bringing the total to 100,000. 2011 President Karzai visits Russia. It is the first state visit by an Afghan leader since the Soviet invasion. 2012 SEAL Team Six kills Osama bin Laden on a raid of his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. At the NATO Summit held in Chicago, a plan is endorsed to withdraw foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by 2014. 2014 By the end of the year, the transition of security responsibility to Afghan forces is to be complete.] 2024 The Strategic Partnership Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States is scheduled to end, with opportunity for renewal. The Country: Afghanistan Roughly the size of Texas, Afghanistan is a landlocked nation primarily made up of rugged mountains and plains. The Hindu Kush, whose parent mountain range is the Himalayas, stretches nearly 500 miles to divide Afghanistan’s northern provinces from the rest of the country. Natural dams along the peaks of this mountain range create the Band-e-Amir, which was established as Afghanistan’s first National Park in 2009. These interconnecting lakes are famous for their extraordinary deep blue color. The renowned Khyber Pass connects Peshawar, Pakistan with Jalalabad, Afghanistan and, ultimately, with Kabul. This impressive transnational pass now features a road and railroad that weave through barren, broken hills. It is one of the most historically and strategically significant passes of the region: Alexander the Great maneuvered his army through the Khyber toward the plains of India in 327 BCE; Darius I of Persia conquered the area around Kabul and moved his army south through the Pass in the 5th century; the British made their first advance northward through the Khyber Pass from British India in the 19th Century. In the last 10 years, NATO has used the pass to transport supplies to troops fighting Afghan insurgents. During the 4th and 5th centuries, when the Bamiyan province of central Afghanistan was a center for Buddhism, two gigantic statues of standing Buddha were carved out of the land, embellishing the living rock of a steep mountain. Standing 175 and 120 feet tall respectively, these monuments were finished with plaster, painted and decorated. For thousands of years these statues made Bamiyan an internationally significant archeological site. In 2001, supreme Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar deemed the Bamiyan Buddhas un-Islamic symbols of idolatry—and on March 2, explosives and antiaircraft weapons destroyed the sculptures beyond repair. The landscapes and people of Afghanistan have been plagued by violence for thousands of years. The land is fruitful, enduring, filled with natural beauty. But history weighs on Afghanistan, and its iconic features feel more like the symbols and landmarks of a war-torn nation. Much of the turmoil in Afghanistan’s history stems from geography. In what is now known as the Great Game, Britain and Russia jockeyed for control of Central Asia during the 19th and 20th centuries. Both empires believed the locus of power lay in this land, one that was not particularly cohesive in its ethnic make-up, but rather dominated by the strength of various tribes. The first Anglo-Afghan war—there would be two more—began in 1839, when British and Indian troops marched north to protect against a Russian invasion. In 1893, in an effort to create a clear buffer state between Russia and British India, the British drew the Durand Line between British India and Afghanistan. This imposed boundary essentially split the vast and powerful Pashtun people in two; it still marks the southern border of Afghanistan, abutting Pakistan. Even after the conclusion of the Great Game, as the Tsarist Russian Empire became the Soviet Union, its communist republics remained focused on Afghanistan. After decades of investment in a Marxist Afghan government, the Soviet Union sent troops to Afghanistan in 1979. This decision to invade remains one of the great mysteries of the Cold War. It is commonly theorized that the Soviet Union wanted to conquer Afghanistan and push south through Pakistan in order to claim the warm-water port of Karachi, a vital anchorage for global trade. In the end, as with many great empires past, the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan with billions of dollars lost and more than 15,000 soldiers to bury. A young Winston Churchill, travelling through Afghanistan, once reported in The Daily Telegraph that the Pashtuns have “produced a code of honour so strange and inconsistent that it is incomprehensible to any logical mind.” Perhaps the future British Prime Minister was speaking to something singular about Afghanistan’s diverse population: the power of tribal law rivals the power of national law. Several major ethnic groups exist within Afghanistan’s boundary lines. They speak different languages, ascribe to different belief systems and belong to different sects of Islam. All of these cultures exist outside Afghanistan’s borders as well, a geographic incongruity that contributes to the nation’s complexity. Afghanistan has come to be known as the Graveyard of Empires. Indeed, the Soviet Union dissolved only two years after leaving Afghanistan. But the rolling plains and steep mountains also bury those native to the land, the people who have persisted in the face of a long history of occupation. During the Soviet invasion alone, between one and 1.25 million Afghans were killed, nearly 9 percent of the population. It is with this history, these losses sustained, that Afghanistan continues to endure. The Agencies: CIA, ISI, KGB, MI6 and More United States: CIA The Central Intelligence Agency is responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior U.S. policy makers. Led by William Casey from 1981-1987, officers of the agency’s clandestine services operated its foreign stations. During this period, the Islamabad Station Chief was responsible for the covert action program in support of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet-supported government. Pakistan: ISI The Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence is Pakistan’s premiere intelligence service. Between 1980 and 1987, Akhtar Abdur Rahman served as the director-general of the ISI, a division of the Pakistani military. Akhtar and the ISI worked closely with the CIA to funnel weapons and supplies into Afghanistan. Soviet Union: KGB The Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (in English, the Committee for State Security) was the foreign intelligence and domestic security agency for the Soviet Union. At one point the world’s largest foreign intelligence service, the KGB was actively involved in Soviet-Afghan policies and nurtured communist leadership throughout the country. It was led by Yuri Andropov until 1982, when he became General Secretary. Great Britain: MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service is the foreign section of the Secret Service Bureau in Great Britain, responsible for overseas intelligence collection. MI6 both ran its own operations in Afghanistan and collaborated with the CIA on others. Afghanistan: The Mujahedin Meaning “holy warriors,” this was the name given to the Afghan resistance against the invading Soviets. The group comprised many different factions, each associated with an ethnic identity. They fought the guerilla war on the ground with weapons and aid provided by the U.S. and other foreign nations. Glossary to the Play Allahu Akhbar Literally translated, “God is greater.” It is the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer, and is often associated with Islam’s jihadi movements. Amu Dar’ya River The border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. B  olt-action rifles
Bolt action is a kind of action in which the weapon’s bolt is operated manually by opening and closing the barrel. Not only do you have to cock the firing pin every time you fire, but it holds a very limited number of bullets. 
Buzkashi Buzkashi, which literally translated means "goat grabbing," is the national sport of Afghanistan. Many historians believe that Buzkashi began with the Turkic-Mongol people, and it is indigenously shared by the people of Northern Afghanistan. In Buzkashi, a headless carcass is placed in the center of a circle and surrounded by the players of two opposing teams. The object of the game is to get control of the carcass and bring it to the scoring area. Although it seems like a simple task, it is not. Only the most masterful players (called chapandaz) ever even get close to the carcass. In order for someone to become a chapandaz, one must undergo a tremendous amount of difficult training. In fact, the best chapandaz are usually over the age of 40. The players are not the only ones who undergo arduous training; the horses that participate in buzkashi must train for five years before making it to the playing field. Buzkashi is indeed a dangerous sport, but intensive training and excellent communication between the horse and rider can help minimize the risk.
The winner of each match receives prizes, which have been put up by a sponsor. The top prizes are usually money, or fine clothes. To many Afghans, Buzkashi is not just a game, it is a way of life; a way in which teamwork and communication are essential to being successful.1
Also known as Persian, the official language of Iran. Dialects are spoken in Afghanistan (Dari) and Tajikistan (Tajik). Heritage Foundation A major right-wing think-tank with significant money and pull. Finds its stride—along with lots of money and passionate support—under Reagan’s administration. “A conservative research foundation has urged the Reagan Administration to adopt a broad new policy of underwriting anti-Communist insurgency, including the use of paramilitary forces to undermine governments in nine countries that ‘threaten United States interests.’ The recommendation is part of a military and foreign policy agenda drafted by the Heritage Foundation, which influenced the selection of personnel and the shaping of policy during the Administration's first term. The nine countries recommended as targets for unspecified ‘paramilitary assets’ are Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Iran and Libya.”2
Hindustan is the cultural and religious land of the people who speak the Hindu language and practice the Hindu religion. India’s borders were drawn by the British and include other cultures and religions, in addition to Hindu. According to Steve Coll, “if Soviet-backed communists took full control in Afghanistan, Pakistan would be sandwiched between two hostile regimes—the Soviet empire to the west and north, and India to the east.”3 Kabul The capital of Afghanistan, and its largest city. During the 1970s, it was a thriving city of culture and education. Khan The best translation for khan would be “count.” A khan would be a member of the “upper class” because he owns land.4 Khyber Pass The Khyber Pass is a 33-mile narrow pass that weaves high and low through the mountains from Peshawar, Pakistan to Jalalabad, Afghanistan. It has played an important role in transporting humans and weapons during the Soviet-Afghan conflict, as well as others in the region. Many previous conflicts are believed to have been inspired by the Khyber Pass’ importance as a trade route—it is the only path through the mountains from the north to the south, toward the Indian Ocean. Many of the weapons the CIA funneled into Afghanistan through the ISI were carried by mule, in addition to Toyota truck, through the Khyber Pass to reach the mujahedin. Land mines “… helicopters dropped mines on mountain passes. Afghanistan would soon become littered with mines, many of them plastic-encased ‘butterfly mines’ that twirled to the ground, where they were difficult to spot.”5 Most of the 10-16 million land mines planted in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion were done so by Soviet and Afghan government forces. As of 1988, approximately 25,000 people had been killed by land mines.6
This weapon was first invented in 1918. Policy makers in Washington did not believe the Afghan mujahedin had the military capability to defeat the Soviets, so the CIA was given permission to secretly ship weapons to the mujahedin. “The first guns shipped in were single-shot, bolt-action .303 Lee Enfield rifles, a standard British infantry weapon until the 1950s. With its heavy wooden stock and antique design, it was not an especially exciting weapon, but it was accurate and powerful. CIA logistics officers working from Langley secretly purchased hundreds of thousands of the .303 rifles from Greece, India and elsewhere … ”7 Panjshir Valley A large valley in the north of Afghanistan. It features some of the country’s most beautiful sites and lush landscapes. Culturally, it is dominated by Tajiks, and it was strategically important during the Afghan War because of its location on the Soviet border. This is where Massoud and his troops were stationed. They were very successful, largely because of Massoud’s ability to create strategies based on a geographic understanding of the land. 
Pashtun culture Pashtun is the dominant culture within the lines of Afghanistan. It straddles the border between southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan “As part of the [Soviet] government’s ongoing drive to modernize the country, many Afghans were sent to the Soviet Union for education. After their political indoctrination there, it was probably inevitable that a communist party would form in Afghanistan. Communist in all but name, the PDPA was founded on January 1, 1965 … The party received funding from the KBG and maintained close ties to the Kremlin.”8 Pravda Daily, state-owned newspaper published in Moscow and distributed nationwide in the U.S.S.R.; it was the “official organ” of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 
Refugee camps During the Soviet invasion, many Afghans were forced to leave their homes and their native land. They came through the Khyber Pass to Peshawar, where several large refugee camps were erected. One of the largest of the 150 refugee camps in Pakistan was Jalozai, which hosted an estimated 70,000 people at its peak. Within a year of the Soviet invasion more than one million Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan. Peshawar became a dominant ethnic center for Pashtuns; there were now more Pashtuns living in Pakistan than Afghanistan. Hekmatyar trained many Afghan and foreign guerilla mujahedin warriors in Jalozai and Shamsatoo (another large refugee camp outside of Peshawar). It is believe that Osama bin Laden visited Hekmatyar’s operation inside of Jalozai in 1987.9 R  PG-7
R Saab “sir” in Pashto Salaam alaikum Literally, “Peace be unto you.” A standard greeting among Muslims. Its customary response is “Wa alaikum salaam,” which translates to “And unto you, peace.” Spetsnaz Soviet special purpose forces. Initially not sent into Afghanistan, these troops were deployed to achieve military success, and they often did. S  tinger missiles Stinger missiles are portable, shoulder-fired weapons that are destructive and easy to carry. Its heat-seeking guidance system worked “uncannily”10 and proved highly effective in downing Soviet helicopters and aircraft. Tajik culture The Tajiks of Afghanistan are located in the northeast part of the country. The Tajik culture straddles the border between northern Afghanistan and southern Tajikistan, at the time, a Soviet bloc nation. Tajik is a Persian culture and they speak a Tajik, a Farsi dialect. Udru A Afghanistan’s Turbulent History12 From BBC News: Afghanistan's descent into conflict and instability in recent times began with the overthrow of the king in 1973. Zahir Shah was in Italy for an eye operation when he was deposed in a palace coup by his cousin, Mohammad Daoud. Daoud declared Afghanistan a republic, with himself as president. He relied on the support of leftists to consolidate his power, and crushed an emerging Islamist movement. Defining moment But towards the end of his rule, he attempted to purge his leftist supporters from positions of power and sought to reduce Soviet influence in Afghanistan. It was this that helped lead to a defining moment in Afghanistan's recent history—the communist coup in April 1978, known as the Saur, or April Revolution. President Daoud and his family were shot dead, and Nur Mohammad Taraki took power as head of the country's first Marxist government, bringing to an end more than 200 years of almost uninterrupted rule by the family of Zahir Shah and Mohammad Daoud. But the Afghan communist party, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan—or PDPA—was divided, and splits emerged. Ruthless leader Hafizullah Amin, who had become prime minister, was opposed to Taraki, and in October 1979 Taraki was secretly executed, with Amin becoming the new president. Amin, known for his independent and nationalist inclinations, was also ruthless. He has been accused of assassinating thousands of Afghans. To the Soviets in Moscow, he was looked upon as a threat to the prospect of an amenable communist government bordering Soviet Central Asia. In a swift chain of events in December 1979, Amin was assassinated and the Soviet Red Army swept into Afghanistan. Babrak Karmal was flown from Czechoslovakia, where he was Afghan ambassador, to take over as the new president, albeit as a puppet leader acceptable to Moscow. Million killed The Soviet occupation, which lasted until the final withdrawal of the Red Army in 1989, was a disaster for Afghanistan. About a million Afghans lost their lives as the Red Army tried to impose control for its puppet Afghan government. Millions more fled abroad as refugees. Groups of Afghan Islamic fighters—or mujahedin—fought endlessly to try to force a Soviet retreat, with much covert support from the United States. After nearly 10 years, the Soviet Union eventually withdrew, leaving in power President Najibullah, who had replaced Karmal as leader. He hung on for three years after the Red Army's departure, but fell in 1992 as the United Nations was trying to arrange a peaceful transfer of power. The mujahedin swept victoriously into Kabul. After a short interim measure, Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani became president of the new Islamic Republic.
But their victory was soon soured by infighting, as the mujahedin factions failed to agree on how to share their new power. During the Soviet occupation it was predominantly rural areas that suffered military onslaught as the Red Army tried to flush out the mujahedin. But when the mujahedin took over, it was the turn of urban areas to suffer from the conflict. This was especially true of the capital, Kabul, about half of which was literally flattened. Tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives, and the country slid more and more into a state of anarchy. It was towards the end of 1994 that the Taliban emerged in the southern city of Kandahar, heart of Afghanistan's Pashtun homeland. Their initial appeal—and success—was based on a call for the removal of the mujahedin groups. Taliban years At first they succeeded in gaining control of Pashtun areas with little fighting. Mujahedin commanders defected to their ranks. But as their control spread to other, especially non-Pashtun, areas, the fighting intensified. The Taliban went on to control about 90% of the country. It was in 1996, as they captured Kabul, that much of the outside world first reacted in dismay to the Taliban’s extreme Islamic policies, especially towards the place of women in society. As Taliban control spread, the Western world intensified pressure on the Taliban to ban the growth of opium poppies, Afghanistan being the source of most opiates reaching Europe. The United States, in particular, also began their pressure on the Taliban to give up the militant Saudi, Osama Bin Laden, whom the Taliban described as their "guest" in Afghanistan. Washington blamed Bin Laden for masterminding the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on 11 September 2001. The following month the US and its allies began air attacks on Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban’s Afghan opponents to sweep them from power. Kabul was retaken in November and by early December the Taliban had given up their stronghold of Kandahar.
On 5 December 2001 Afghan groups agreed a deal in Bonn for an interim government, at the head of which Pashtun royalist Hamid Karzai was then sworn in. The Bonn conference, held under UN auspices, forged a political blueprint leading to elections scheduled for summer 2004. In June 2002 a loya jirga, or grand council, elected Mr. Karzai as interim head of state. A second loya jirga in January 2004 adopted a new constitution. In September, 2002, Mr. Karzai survived an assassination attempt in Kandahar blamed on the Taliban. There have been other near misses since. A number of his ministers and other senior figures have been less fortunate. Mr. Karzai has been able to exert little control beyond the capital. Turf wars between local commanders have been a feature of the post-Taliban period. And the Taliban themselves have re-emerged as a fighting force, worsening the security situation first in the east and south-east, and then across much of the country. Thousands have been killed in the violence in recent years, including many militants and foreign and Afghan troops, as well as large numbers of civilians. Durand Line13 Afghanistan shares borders with six countries, but the approximate 1500-mile-long Durand Line along Pakistan remains the most dangerous. Kabul has never recognized the line as an international border, instead claiming the Pashtun territories in Pakistan that comprise the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and parts of North West Frontier Province along the border. Incidents of violence have increased on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border since the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In the last several years, U.S. officials and national intelligence reports have repeatedly attributed the growing strength of al-Qaeda and resurgence of the Taliban to safe havens in this border region. By early 2009, there was growing consensus in Washington that to win the war in Afghanistan, it had to address the chaos in Pakistan's tribal areas. In March 2009, Gen. David McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan, told the Newshour the only way to break the stalemate is to take “an Afghanistan-Pakistan approach to this insurgency.” Historical Conflict The region that is today known as Afghanistan was long torn by ethnic and tribal rivalries. It started evolving as a modern state in the early nineteenth century when the British East India Company began expanding in the northwest of British-held India. This was also the time of the “great game”—the geopolitical struggle between the British and the Russian empires. The British held the Indian subcontinent while the Russians held the Central Asian lands to the north. Their spheres of influence overlapped in Afghanistan. Britain, concerned about Russian expansion, invaded Afghanistan in 1839 and fought the First Anglo-Afghan War. This led to a decade of machinations between the British and the Russians and two more bloody wars, at the end of which in 1919, Afghanistan won its independence. Durand Line The Durand Line is named after foreign secretary of the colonial government of India, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, who demarcated the frontier between British India and Afghanistan in 1893. The line was drawn after negotiations between the British government and Afghan King Abdur Rahman Khan, founder of modern Afghanistan. This line brought the tribal lands (now a part of Pakistan) under British control. Barnett R. Rubin, director of studies at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, writes in Foreign Affairs that the British established a three-tiered border to separate their empire from Russia. The first frontier separated the areas of the Indian subcontinent under direct British administration from those areas under Pashtun control (today this line divides those areas administered by the Pakistani state from the FATA). The second frontier, the Durand Line, divided the Pashtun tribal areas from the territories under Afghanistan’s administration. This now forms the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The outer frontier, Afghanistan’s border with Russia, Iran, and China, demarcated the British sphere of influence. The Pakistan side of the Durand Line border includes the provinces of Balochistan, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and the seven tribal agencies of the FATA. On the Afghan side, the frontier stretches from Nuristan province in the northeast to Nimruz in the southwest. The British devised a special legal structure called the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) to rule the tribal lands and this continues to be the legal regime in the FATA today. Tribal Connections The ongoing border frictions are due in large part to tribal allegiances that have never recognized the century-old frontier. Forty percent of Afghanistan’s population is made up of Pashtuns; in Pakistan, Pashtuns represent 15 percent to 20 percent of the country’s population. Ethnic Balochis also live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border as well as in neighboring Iran. “People on both sides of the Durand line consider it a soft border,” Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, told CFR.org in 2007 (he was then the director of Boston University’s Center for International Relations). He adds: “Pashtuns consider it their own land even though there is also a loyalty to the respective states along with a desire to freely move back and forth.” Frederick Grare of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes that the Pashtun question is "an ethnic, political and geopolitical problem." At the time of India’s partition, Pashtuns were only given the choice of either becoming a part of India or Pakistan. Many Pashtun nationalists on both sides of the Durand Line continue to demand an independent state of Pashtunistan. In Balochistan too, several organizations demand an independent state. 
Gorbachev Glasnost, Perestroika and Leadership14 From The Academy of Leadership “What would you call it when the country is being ruled by old men who keep dropping dead, and the country is left without normal leadership?” In only three years, the Soviet Union lost three leaders: Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko. One after another, the men chosen as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR fell dead, and one of the world's two super powers looked lost and rudderless, mired in a hopeless war in Afghanistan, locked in a ruinous arms race with the United States, occupying half of Europe but unable to supply the basic needs of its own people. A new leader, the youngest man to lead the Soviet Union since the 1920s, promised change. The stated principles of Mikhail Gorbachev's administration were "glasnost" and "perestroika," or openness and restructuring, words which became known throughout the world. Gorbachev allowed a freedom of expression Russia and many other states of the Soviet Union had not known in their long history. The rise of democracy in Russia and the end of the Cold War division of Europe are the direct result of Mikhail Gorbachev's extraordinary term of office as leader of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was born in the village of Privolnoye near Stavropol, Russia. From the age of 13 he worked on a collective farm, where his father was a mechanic. He was an exceptional student and earned a law degree at Moscow University where he joined the Communist Party and became Secretary of the law department's Young Communist League. After returning to the Stavropol area he rose in the League hierarchy to become Regional Secretary of the League, and in 1961 first became a delegate to the Party Congress. He spent the 1960s working his way up through the territorial bodies of the Party and continuing his education in agronomy and economics. As an agricultural administrator and party leader in his native region, he acquired a reputation for innovation and incorruptible honesty, and he soon rose in the Party hierarchy. He was first elected to the Supreme Soviet in 1970, and served on commissions dealing with conservation, youth policy, and foreign affairs. In 1971 he was elected to the Central Committee. In 1978 he became First Secretary of the Stavropol territorial committee and by 1980 was a full member of the Politburo.
The death of the long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, presented a brief opportunity for change in the Soviet Union. Brezhnev's successor, Yuri Andropov, appeared to be grooming Gorbachev as his own successor, but after Andropov's unexpected death, Gorbachev was passed over for the top spot and the aged Konstantin Chernenko came. to power. When Chernenko too died barely a year after taking power, it was at last clear to the Party hierarchy that younger leadership was needed and Gorbachev became General Secretary. He was ready to make long overdue reforms in the Soviet system. For six years Gorbachev carried off a delicate balancing act, forcing reforms on a recalcitrant old guard, while trying to contain the demand for change from radical reformers within and without the Communist Party. He permitted an unprecedented freedom of expression in the USSR and ended the disastrous Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan. By 1989 the demand for reform had spread to the Soviet satellite states of Central Europe. Gorbachev notified the Communist leaders of those countries that he would not intervene militarily to keep them in power as his predecessors had done. Without the support of the Red Army, these dictatorships were quickly forced to yield to their democratic opposition, and Gorbachev began the withdrawal of the remaining Soviet forces from Central Europe. In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his foreign policy initiatives. Gorbachev continued to press for democratization in the Soviet Union and permitted free elections in Russia and the other republics of the Soviet Union. He survived an attempted coup by Communist hardliners in 1991 but relinquished office after the elected presidents of the constituent republics undertook to replace the old Soviet Union with a Confederation of Independent States. Since leaving office, he has continued to advocate the development of private ownership in a market economy, and the non-violent resolution of conflicts in a democratic society. In 1992 he inaugurated the International Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies, known as the Gorbachev Foundation. Gorbachev has served as President of the organization since its founding. The following year, he inaugurated a new environmental organization, Green Cross International. I  n the 1990s, Gorbachev was a vocal critic of Russian President Boris Yeltsin's privatization policies, and of Yeltsin's efforts to expand the powers of the presidency. Gorbachev himself mounted an unsuccessful campaign for President of Russia in 1996. He founded a new political movement, the Social Democratic Party of Russia, in 2001, but it won few adherents. Gorbachev stepped down as head of the party in 2004 and it was later decertified by the national government. Gorbachev formed a new faction, the Union of Social Democrats in 2007, but within a year he set this aside and joined billionaire financier Alexander Lebedev in founding the Independent Democratic Party.
Gorbachev owns a part interest in the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which generally opposes the ruling party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev, but he has expressed support for some of Medvedev's foreign policy positions, including military action in South Ossetia. Gorbachev has opposed American foreign policy in a number of areas, such as intervention in the former Yugoslavia, as well as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has also been critical of U.S. economic policy and the role of the International Monetary Fund. In 2009, Gorbachev joined his former adversary Lech Walesa and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a public observance of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although he has not played a major role in post-Soviet Russian politics, Mikhail Gorbachev's role in the historic transformation of the former Soviet Union has won him recognition around the world as one of the most influential statesmen of the 20th century.
The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had ruled Iran since inheriting the throne from his father in 1941. During the Cold War between the U.S. and its allies and the Soviet Union, the Shah sided with the West and served as a bulwark against Soviet power and the spread of Communism in the region. Washington also viewed the Shah as a leader who could show the authoritarian Arab governments of the Middle East the way to modernization, if not democracy. Beginning in the 1960s, he pushed through major reforms that gave more rights to women, improved education and health care, and gave peasants land-ownership rights. Using Iran's vast oil wealth and American and Western aid, the Shah brought an ancient but backward nation into the 20th century, creating one of the region's most advanced economies. Relations with the U.S. were so strong that President Jimmy Carter traveled to Tehran for a New Year's Eve dinner in 1977, toasting the Shah and his nation as "an island of stability" in the Middle East. But beneath the surface Iran was smoldering. In a nation that is 90 percent Shiite Muslim (the second-largest Islamic denomination, after Sunni) the conservative clergy were furious at the nation's liberalization. Landowners decried the Shah's efforts to redistribute land to sharecropping farmers, upending centuries of feudalism. And in a pattern that has preceded other revolutions including those in France and Russia, even the urban middle class the Shah had helped create with his economic reforms began to demand a greater share of power and more political freedoms as their fortunes improved. To be sure, the Shah had brought some of the ill will on himself. Iran's economic boom had bred rampant corruption, even within the royal family. And the Shah, with American assistance, had created SAVAK, his secret police, which imprisoned, tortured, or killed thousands of the Shah's opponents. America's role in Iran's Westernization had also spurred anger. In the years before the revolution, Americans "were everywhere in Iran," writes Robin Wright, the author of The Last Great Revolution. They were "advising its government officials, training its military, building its oil rigs, teaching in its schools, and peddling [American] cars, language, fashions, industrial products, and culture." To many Iranians, this was welcome progress, but to many others the American influence came to represent a threat to their ancient Persian culture. (Although Iran is in the Middle East, its people are not Arab.) That helped the Shiite clergy mobilize opposition to the Shah, spearheaded by Ayatollah Khomeini, who was living in exile in Iraq and later in France. In January 1978, with Khomeini's encouragement, students in Qum, a holy city for Shiites, began street protests against the monarchy. After police opened fire, killing 20, the protests spread throughout Iran and swelled to hundreds of thousands, then millions of people. At first, Western leaders thought the Shah's grip on power was too strong to be broken. But by September, he was forced to impose martial law and ban protests, which continued anyway, along with widespread strikes and violent confrontations with security forces. By December, 2 million Iranians were on the streets of Tehran, demanding that the Shah abdicate. 'God's Government' O With the monarchy now history, moderate opposition leaders tried to turn Iran into a modern parliamentary democracy, but within a month Khomeini had seized power and declared the establishment of "God's government": an Islamic theocracy, ruled by clerics acting in accordance with Sharia, or Islamic law. The new constitution provided for an elected legislature and President, but the real power lay with a small and secretive group of clerics (or mullahs) called the Council of Guardians, headed by Khomeini, the Supreme Leader. Khomeini loathed the United States, which he called "the Great Satan" and "an enemy of Islam." Iranian anger at the U.S. reached a fever pitch that October when President Carter allowed the Shah, who was suffering from cancer, to come to the U.S. for treatment. On November 4, thousands of young Iranians, many of them college students, swarmed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, seizing 66 Americans inside. (Thirteen were released after a couple of weeks and one was released months later due to illness.) "They seemed to be kids about 20 years old . . . kids from small towns with rather strict upbringings," one hostage, John Limbert, recalled. "Many of them had never seen an American before." In the U.S., vigils were held and yellow ribbons displayed to signify concern for the hostages. Iran demanded the return of the Shah for their release, but Washington refused. The hostage crisis riveted the nation for more than a year. Americans were unaccustomed to, and embarrassed by, feeling so powerless. As the nation's frustration grew, President Carter ordered a rescue operation in April 1980, but it failed when a U.S. helicopter and military plane collided in the Iranian desert, killing eight American servicemen. At home, the hostage crisis, along with the struggling U.S. economy, helped Ronald Reagan defeat Carter's bid for a second term in the 1980 presidential election. The Shah, who later sought refuge in Egypt, died in July 1980, but the hostages, held for 444 days, were not released until the moment Reagan took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1981. Radical Islam vs. the West The hostage crisis, Khomeini would later say, helped the revolution to solidify its hold on Iran. But if the Islamic Revolution succeeded, it failed the many Iranians who hoped it might lead to democracy. The Shah's efforts at Westernization were reversed. Women were ordered to wear head coverings and full body cloaks called chadors; gangs of religious zealots roamed the streets enforcing the mullahs' moral edicts; political opponents were imprisoned and tortured as ruthlessly as under the Shah. Khomeini's death in 1989 did nothing to ease the enmity between Iran and the U.S. Today, America accuses Iran, now led by Ayatollah Ali Khomeini and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of developing nuclear weapons in secret and supporting Islamic militant groups that the U.S. considers terrorist organizations, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Beyond that, the revolution and hostage crisis helped set the stage for a radical Islamic movement that turned to terrorism in its battle against the West, leading to the 9/11 attacks against America. "The capture of the U.S. embassy in Tehran was a glimpse of something new and bewildering," according to Mark Bowen, author of Guests of the Ayatollah. "It was the first battle in America's war against militant Islam, a conflict that would eventually engage much of the world. Iran's revolution wasn't just a localized power struggle; it had tapped a subterranean ocean of Islamist outrage." Sunni and Shia Islam Quick guide: Sunnis and Shias16 From BBC News Muslims are split into two main branches, the Sunnis and Shias. The split originates in a dispute soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad over who should lead the Muslim community. The great majority of Muslims are Sunnis— estimates suggest the figure is somewhere between 85% and 90%. The two communities share fundamental beliefs—the "oneness" of Allah, that Muhammad was the last prophet, prayer, fasting and the pilgrimage to Mecca, for example. But there are differences in doctrine, ritual, law, theology and religious organization. They also often seem to be in competition. The Iranian revolution of 1979 launched a radical Shia Islamist agenda that laid down a theological and ideological challenge to conservative Sunni regimes, particularly in the Gulf. In countries with large Shia communities, Shias often make up the poorest sections of society and see themselves as oppressed and discriminated against. In many countries the two communities live separate lives. However, in Iraq intermarriage between Sunnis and Shia was common until recently. In Lebanon, Shias have gained widespread respect and a strong political voice due to the political and military activities of Hezbollah. Some conservative Sunni doctrines preach hatred of Shias. Pakistan has a history of Shia-Sunni bloodshed dating back to the 1980s.
Sunni Muslims regard themselves as the orthodox and traditionalist branch of Islam. The word Sunni comes from "Ahl al-Sunna", the people of the tradition. The tradition in this case refers to practices based on precedent or reports of the actions of the Prophet Muhammad and those close to him. Sunnis venerate all the prophets mentioned in the Koran, but particularly Muhammad as the final prophet. All subsequent Muslim leaders are seen as temporal figures. In contrast to Shias, Sunni religious teachers and leaders have historically come under state control. The Sunni tradition also emphasizes a codified system of Islamic law and adherence to four schools of law. Who are the Shias? In early Islamic history the Shia were a political faction—literally "Shiat Ali" or the party of Ali. The Shia claimed the right of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, and his descendants to lead the Islamic community. Ali was killed in a power struggle over who should be caliph, leader of the Muslims. His sons —Hussein and Hassan—also struggled to capture the caliphate. Hussein died on the battlefield opposing a subsequent caliph and Hassan is believed to have been poisoned. These events gave rise to the Shia cult of martyrdom and the rituals of grieving. There is a distinctive messianic element to the faith and Shias have a hierarchy of clerics who practice independent and ongoing interpretation of Islamic texts. Estimates of the number of Shia range from 120 to 170 million, roughly one-tenth of all Muslims. Shia Muslims are in the majority in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and, according to some estimates, Yemen. There are large Shia communities in Afghanistan, India, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 
Ahmed Shah Massoud 1953 – 2001 “The Lion of Panjshir” Tajik guerilla commander, leads anti-Soviet resistance in northern Afghanistan, later forms Northern Alliance, leads opposition to Taliban A In 1973, instead of joining the army, Massoud began attending the Kabul Polytechnic Institute for Engineering and Architecture. At this time, Hekmatyar was a leading member of the Jamaat-e Islami (headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani), which Massoud, at the age of 21, was also a member of. Hekmatyar believed that the Communist movement had to be stopped by any means and was an advocate of terrorist acts. Massoud, however, was opposed to terrorism and Islamic extremism and instead advocated a modern, moderate Islam.20 In 1975, Hekmatyar began organizing a coup against President Daoud and asked Massoud to lead a rebellion in his home valley of Panjshir. Massoud was successful in Panjshir but the coup was an overall failure and the two men were forced to retreat and hole up in Pakistan.21 At this point, the Islamic Society split into two groups; some, Massoud stayed with Rabbani and the rest went with Hekmatyar.22 In Pakistan, Massoud was trained in guerilla warfare by ISI23 and in 1979 he went back into Afghanistan to lead a group of men against the communist Afghan government and then against the Soviets the next year in Panjshir. In the early 1980s, Massoud and his men established themselves in the war and many adopted their guerilla tactics after seeing how successful they were in the North. By 1992, he and his forces held most of the Northeast of Afghanistan 24 and, in the same year, a mujahedin government was created after Najibullah and his government was ousted, and Massoud became the Minister of Defense under Rabbani.25 Between 1992 and 1996, however, Hekmatyar and his followers continually attacked the new government and much of Kabul. The Taliban emerged in these years, and Massoud was eventually forced out of Kabul in 1996 with the Taliban claiming that “Massoud and his colleagues had murdered thousands and destroyed the Shi'ite quarter of Kabul”.26 Ousted, Massoud returned to the northeast of Afghanistan and tried to raise funds for his effort against the Taliban regime, but they eventually overpowered his forces in Takhar. In the late 1990s and 2000-2001, Massoud traveled abroad to inform Western leaders about the growing power of Al Qaeda and the Taliban and urged them to get Pakistan to stop helping the Taliban with arms and other supplies.27 He also asked for greater humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan. On September 9th, 2001, Massoud was killed while giving a speech by two suicide bombers disguised as reporters who had a bomb in their camera. 28 Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 1947 - Radical Afghan Islamist guerilla leader Founder and Leader of Hezb-i-Islam (Islamic Party) Prime Minister of Afghanistan, 1993-94, 1996 Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was born in the Northern Afghan city of Kunduz in 1947 or 1948 and is part of the Kharotai tribe, a sub-branch of a large Pashtun tribe. He attended a military academy in Kabul and very early on, he became a part of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA).29 In 1968, Hekmatyar went to the Kabul University but never graduated because of his heightened involvement in the Islamic youth movement. In 1972, Hekmatyar was put in prison for two years for killing a Maoist student, after which he fled to Pakistan, developed ties with the ISI and possibly became a major part in their plans to overthrow President Dauod.30 In 1977, after the failed coup, Hekmatyar founded Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (or Islamic Party of Gulbuddin/HIG) when he and his followers split from Rabbani and the Islamic Society, Jamaat-e Islami. This Islamic Party focused on the “establishment of a pure Islamic state”.31 Throughout the 1980s, Hekmatyar received aid from the U.S. and Pakistan as he fought the Soviets and Afghan communist party. Malinowski, a 1980s US state department official in Pakistan tasked with keeping liaison with the jihadi leaders between 1987 and 1989, met about ten times with Hekmatyar. The rest of the jihadi leaders, he says, had some "redeeming qualities," but Hekmatyar was solely driven by his ambition. "He was an unpleasant character and ridiculous at times. He would say things like ‘my party has never received any aid from the U.S.' You almost wanted to laugh at his face. It was insulting for somebody like me.”32 In 1989 when the Soviets were successfully defeated, Hekmatyar expected to become the head of Afghanistan but many other mujahedin leaders did as well, leading to extensive fighting in and around Kabul.33 When Najibullah’s government was ousted in 1992 and Rabbani took power, Hekmatyar was asked to serve as prime minister, but he refused.34 He stated that the new government was un-Islamic and began using left over American weapons to try and take Kabul by force.35 In this same year, he joined forces with a former Afghan communist party and the Unity Party (Hezb-i Wahdat), both of which were former enemies, in order to make a common front against the new mujahedin government.36 Hekmatyar agreed to become prime minister in 1994, but the alliance lasted only a few months before he went back to launching rocket attacks on Kabul. During this time, however, Pakistan withdrew its support of Hekmatyar and his troops because no progress was being made at toppling Rabbani and instead began putting their money behind the Taliban.37 When the Taliban overran Kabul in 1996, Rabbani and Hekmatyar both fled, the latter to Iran, and most of Hekmatyar’s men joined the Taliban or fled to Pakistan.38 When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban government in 2001, Hekmatyar was not asked to be a part of the new government and he declared jihad against foreign forces in 2002.39 His vocal opposition both to the Americans and to the new regime of President Hamid Karzai was an embarrassment to the Iranian government, which threw its official weight behind Mr. Karzai. In February 2002, the Iranian authorities expelled Mr. Hekmatyar and closed down the offices of his Hezb-i-Islami in Tehran.40 At this point, Hekmatyar returned to Afghanistan and joined the fight against new president Hamid Karzai and his government. Karzai urged Gulbuddin to join the government in the late 2000s but met with little success. In 2008, Hekmatyar urged Obama to not send any more troops into Afghanistan and said he would help expel al-Qaeda if foreign troops left completely.41 Hekmatyar is currently in a tenuous alliance with the Taliban, although both sides remain suspicious of each other. In 2003, the U.S. state department designated him as a terrorist, accusing him of taking part in and supporting attacks by al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Since then, Mr. Hekmatyar has slowly and steadily rebuilt his power base, especially in eastern Afghanistan.42 Today, it remains unclear how much of the insurgency in Afghanistan is made up from Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami, partially because, despite his public animosity with the Taliban, the lines between his followers and those of the Taliban remain blurred. His ways of operating have remained similar to the 1980s. In letters to his fighters, which still seems to be his preferred medium of communication—as he has reportedly written more than 6,000 in the past nine years—he heavily relies on anecdotes of success from the Soviet Jihad. In one of the letters, he describes the U.S.-led coalition as "unkind, beast-like followers of the Cross". In recent years, as Karzai has repeatedly reached out to the Taliban in the hopes of finding a political solution to the decade-long war, the Taliban have mainly ignored his olive branch - until, reportedly, a couple of months ago. Hekmatyar, however, has repeatedly expressed his desire for peace. Qutbuddin Helal, one of his aides, has reportedly travelled to Kabul 16 times, but without much progress in talks. Hekmatyar's whereabouts remain unclear. Some believe he is in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan.43 Najibullah 1947 - 1996 Dr. Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai Nicknamed “Najib the Bull” Soviet-backed communist leader Head of KhAD, 1980-1985; President of Afghanistan, 1986-1992 
Najibullah (meaning "Honored of God") was born in August 1947 to a moderately prosperous family belonging to the Pashtun Ahmadzai sub-tribe of the Ghilzai. Though his ancestral village was located between the towns of Said Karam and Gardez, capital of Pakhtia Province, Najibullah was born in Afghanistan's capital city, Kabul. He was educated at Habibia High School and Kabul University, where he graduated with a degree in Medicine in 1975.44 He qualified, but never practiced, as a doctor. He joined the Parcham faction of the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in 1965. He was jailed twice for his political activities and his stance on abolition of feudal power in the countryside relaxed form of religion. He was for equal rights for women and various ethnic minorities and the release of more than 13,000 political prisoners. Najibullah became ambassador to Iran, but absconded to Eastern Europe, only to resurface again in Afghanistan in 1979 - when he returned to Kabul with Babrak Karmal, the new president, leading a government supported by Moscow and dominated by the Parcham faction.45 In 1980, he was appointed the head of KhAD, the secret police. KhAD is an abbreviation for Khedamat-e Etelea'at-e Dawlati, the Afghanistan Marxist regime's secret police, also known as the State Information Agency. Set up in 1980 and controlled by the KGB, this was a brutal agency specifically created for the suppression of Afghanistan Marxist regime's internal opponents. Under Najibullah's control, it is claimed that KhAD arrested, tortured and executed tens of thousands of Afghans.46 Najibullah’s enemies nicknamed him “Najib-e Gaw” or “Najib the Bull” because of his weight lifter’s physique.47 In his time at KhAD, Najibullah would earn another moniker: kashok - " the spoon" - in reference to his alleged fondness for gouging out eyes with the aid of the utensil.48 
When the last Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan in February 1989, there was an almost unanimous prediction that Najibullah would soon fall. Diplomats predicted that the mujahedin, who had fought against the now- departed Red Army, would topple Najibullah within a matter of months. But he managed to cling on, not least because of the almost total inability of the diverse mujahedin factions to fight together against their infidel foe. Najibullah, who had espoused Communism during the Soviet period, also changed his ideological spots to suit the times, in an attempt to broaden his appeal to Afghans tired of nearly a decade of a very bloody civil war. A highly intelligent man, he was reputed to understand his countrymen better than almost any other Afghan leader, before or since. Many governments eventually came to feel that Najibullah had a firm pair of hands that might well have held Afghanistan together.49 Eventually divisions within his own ranks, including the defection of General Abdul Rashid Dostam fatally weakened the government's resolve. Najibullah had been working on a compromise settlement to end the civil war with Ahmad Shah Massoud, brokered by the United Nations. But talks broke down and the government fell. Mujahedin forces entered Kabul in 1992.50 A convoy of UN cars was sent to pick up Najibullah after midnight to take him to the airport on April 16, 1992. But he was turned back from the airport by troops once loyal to him. He then took refuge in a UN compound until his death. 51 On September 27, 1996 Taliban militiamen burst into the compound and dragged Najibullah to the presidential palace,52 after which they tortured and castrated Najibullah, then dragged him from the back of a vehicle. Symbolizing his corruption, decadence, and allegiance to a foreign power, "a wad of Soviet currency and cigarettes were stuffed into Najib's mouth and nostrils."53 Discussion Questions About the play
About the production
References and Further Reading Books
Websites
Videos
1 “Afghan National Sport: Buzkashi.” Afghanistan Online. 2 Keller, Bill. “U.S. Aid to Rebels in 9 Countries Suggested by Conservative Group. New York Times. 20 Nov. 1984. 3 Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. 4 Nutistanis. 5 Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. New York: Harper Collins, 2010. 6 Pear, Robert. “Mines Put Afghans in Peril on Return.” New York Times 14 Aug 1988. 7 Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. 8 Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. New York: Harper Collins, 2010. 9 Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. 10 Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars. New York: Penguin Books, 2004 11 “A Guide to Urdu.” BBC Languages. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/urdu/guide/facts.shtml> “Urdu.” BBC Voices. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilingual/urdu.shtml#A> 12 “Afghanistan’s Turbulent History.” BBC News. 13 Bajoria, Jayshee. “The Troubled Afghan-Pakistani Border.” Council on Foreign Relations. 20 March 2009. Web. 7 March 2013.<http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/troubled-afghan-pakistani-border/p14905> 14 “Glasnost, Perestroika and Leadership.” Academy of Achievement. 15 Edidin, Peter. “1979: Iranian Revolution.” New York Times: Upfront. 16 “Quick guide: Sunnis and Shias.” From BBC News 17 Khaama Press, “Ahmad Shah Masoud,” Khaama Press, September 11, 2010. 18 Khaama Press, 2010. 19 Abdullah Qazi, “Ahmad Shah Masood”, Afghanistan Online, 2001. 20 Khaama Press, 2010.
22 Khaama Press, 2010. 23 Gall, The Guardian, 2001. 24 Gall, The Guardian, 2001. 25 “Ahmad Shah Massoud,” The Telegraph, September 17, 2001. 26 The Telegraph, 2001. 27 The Telegraph, 2001. 28 Khaama Press, 2010. 29 “Hizb-I-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG),” Institute for the Study of War, 2013. 30 Michael Crowley, “Our Man in Kabul?,” New Republic, March 9, 2010. 31 Institute for the Study of War, 2013. 32 Mujib Mashal, “Hekmatyar's never-ending Afghan war,” Aljazeera, January 28, 2012. 33 Crowley, New Republic, 2010. 34 Institute for the Study of War, 2013. 35 “Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,” Afghanistan Online, 1997. 36 Afghanistan Online, 1997. 37 Institute for the Study of War, 2013. 38 Ibid. 39 “Profile: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,” BBC News, March 23, 2010. 40 Ibid. 41 Institute for the Study of War, 2013 42 BBC News, March 23, 2010. 43 Mujib Mashal, Aljazeera, 2012. 44 Wahid Momand, “Dr. Najibullah Ahmadzai,” Afghanland, 2000. 45 William Reeves. “Obituary: Dr. Najibullah,” The Independent, September 28, 1996. 46 Momand, Afghanland, 2000. 47 Matt Weems, “Dr. Najibullah Ahmadzai,” Warlords of Afghanistan, 2012. 48 Ali M. Latifi, “Executed Afghan president stages 'comeback',” Aljazeera, June 22, 2012. 49 Reeves. The Independent, 1996. 50 Momand, Afghanland, 2000. 51 Reeves. The Independent, 1996. 52 Ibid. 53 Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, “Learning From the Soviets: How to Withdraw From Afghanistan,” The Atlantic, January 9, 2013. Yüklə 200,25 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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ee Enflield .303 Rifles
PG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers were easy to carry and could stop a Soviet tank. 
fter the partition of Pakistan in 1947, Urdu became the official language of Pakistan (English is now the other official language). More than 100 million people speak Urdu worldwide. Urdu and Hindi, one of the official languages of India, are both derived from Hindustani. While very similar at the spoken level, in terms of literary and formal vocabulary, Urdu draws heavily on Persian and Arabic, while Hindi takes from Sanskrit.11 
he U.S. & The Shah
n Jan. 16, 1979, a teary Shah—with a box of Iranian soil in his pocket—flew to Rome and began his troubled exile. On January 31, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from Paris to Tehran, where he was greeted by a crowd of 3 million people.
hmad Shah Massoud, later known as “The Lion of Panjshir”, was born in the Jangalak district of Panjshir in 1953 to a well-off family. He attended school in Bazarak and, after a brief move to Herat, Massoud and his family settled in Kabul where he attended middle and senior grades at the Isteqlaal School. In his early years, Massoud showed a talent for languages and would eventually become fluent in French, Pashto, Urdu, Persian and become proficient in Arabic.17 The Communist movement arose when Massoud was in the 8th and 9th grade18, and it was around this time that he became involved with Afghan Islamic youth organizations, especially the student version of the Jamaat-e Islami (or “Islamic Society”).19