What is Afghanistan famous for?

Where is Afghanistan?

Now you know where it is, but what is Afghanistan famous for?

Whenever it’s weekend, my girlfriend and I play all kinds of crazy chat quiz games during our romantic night chat sessions. So, during one of such chat sessions of ours, some weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were playing an interesting quiz game on WhatsApp, wherein we would ask each other just the same question ”What is ‘Country Name’ famous for?” And one would have to give a quick short-sentenced answer within 30 seconds to the other whoever asked that question. I mean by typing it and sending it through chat.

So, she asked me first, “Honey, what is the US famous for?”

I responded by typing just in a few seconds, “Statue of Liberty!”

Then I asked her, “Babe, what is France famous for?”

She typed in no time, “Eiffel Tower!”

Then she asked me, “What is Egypt famous for?”

I replied quickly, “Pyramids!”

Then it was my turn, “Baby, what is Australia famous for?”

Her reply was at lightning speed, “Kangaroo!”

The game went on like that for some minutes. It was almost as if we had been on a romantic world tour together.

Then I asked her with gigantic confidence to defeat her hands down then and there, “Sugar, tell me what Afghanistan is famous for?”

The clock was ticking, and it was down to the 25th second, with only five more seconds to go. And just when I thought the victory was making its way right into my pocket, her reply hit my WhatsApp, “Taliban!”

The game was still tied. The game went on for some more minutes like that, and then with a burst of romantic chats in the middle of that quiz-playing session, I don’t exactly remember who won the game eventually, and neither does she.

But the next morning when I woke up and turned the TV on, there was this breaking news of the Taliban overthrowing the existing government in Afghanistan and seizing control of the country de facto. I saw on the news chaos on the streets of Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, and also in other places of the country. There were rugged-looking men in Pathani suits (Afghanistan ethnic wear) with guns and shotguns strolling around and driving around in jeeps and trucks brandishing their weapons.

I saw on the news the people with families, the young ones, adults, babies, the elderly, the men and women walking across the streets to seek some kind of safety for themselves and their loved ones amid all that chaos. I also saw some of their leaders issuing a deadline to evacuate the US military troops and the other US citizens, who had been living in the country for decades working in the embassy and other US-led administrations in Afghanistan.

Up until that moment, I had always envisioned the Taliban as some kind of a terrorist group that tortured people and waged war against all the leading powers of the world. So, I decided to learn more about what exactly this Taliban was.  

Well, I’m not going to go into all the gory details about the Taliban, you have Wikipedia for it, you can check it out later. However, I’ll just summarize what I learned during my research on the Taliban and Afghanistan. It may be a little extensive summary because their history is vast. So, fasten your seatbelt and read on.

The Taliban is an extremist group of militants in Afghanistan. Afghanistan used to be the Kingdom of Afghanistan led by its monarch up until the early 1970s when the military coup took place in the country, thus giving rise to the Republic of Afghanistan.

Under the Republic of Afghanistan, there was a Single Party Rule where they had only one political party that dominated the entire country. The formation of no other political parties was allowed under their rule. Some of the communists didn’t approve of such rule in the country. 

So, in the late 1970s, another military coup took place. It was inspired by the group of communists, which gave rise to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) with the Soviet Union coming to their aid.

The Soviet army troops were deployed in most of the states in Afghanistan in order to help the DRA run their governmental operations smoothly in the country. This, in turn, gave rise to many new rebel groups who were in opposition to any outside intervention in the country. Those groups were collectively called ‘Afghan Mujahideen’. They waged a war against the DRA and had the support of the world leaders like the US, the UK, and China.

  

This conflict took place in the early 1980s through the late 1980s. Eventually, the Soviet troops pulled out of the country. But the war between these new groups and the DRA continued in the early 1990s resulting in an outbreak of the Afghan Civil War with the DRA still receiving the support of the Soviet Union from the outside and the Afghan Mujahideen receiving continuous support from the world leaders. In 1992, the DRA government fell to the Mujahideen groups, who formed the Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA).  

The Afghan Civil war continued as various Mujahideen groups in the country withdrew their support for the ISA and began a rebellion against them. So, now this Afghan Mujahideen organization was divided among itself. The part of Mujahideen that still supported the ISA was supported by the United Arab. 

And the other part of the Mujahideen, which was now against the ISA received support from neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran. This was a period between 1992-1996. During this period, there was an emergence of a new group of militants called ‘The Taliban’, which supported the part of Mujahideen fighting against the ISA.  

The Taliban was a group of soldiers who also had the support of another group called Al-Qaeda, which later became one of the major terrorist groups in the world, executing the mass-killing in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. So, the Taliban seized control of Kabul in the mid-1990s, establishing their own Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), the so-called Taliban government.  

The war between this newly-formed IEA and still existing ISA in some parts of the country continued up until the early 2000s, even though this period between 1996-2000 in Afghanistan was mostly dominated by the Taliban. After the deadly 9/11 attack on the US territory by the Taliban’s close ally Al-Qaeda, the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in order to subvert the existing Taliban government, which was like I mentioned, still an ally of Al-Qaeda, even after they had perpetrated heinous 9/11 attacks in the US.  

The Taliban and its IEA were eventually brought down by NATO, now giving rise to a new Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (IRA) government.  While this new IRA had control over most of the Afghan states and tried to run a government in Afghanistan from 2004 to early 2021, the Taliban was still active in some of the states in Afghanistan and was still looking for an opportunity to seize control over entire Afghanistan.  

The US-led NATO, which was still active in the country since 2001 began to pull out in early 2020 after the DOHA peace agreement between the Taliban and the US. The purpose of this agreement was to bring peace to Afghanistan. According to this agreement, the US would have to cease all of its military operations in Afghanistan, in return, the Taliban would have to stop all of the operations of Al-Qaeda in Taliban-governed territories of Afghanistan.  

As the US military began to pull out in mid-2020 through early 2021, the Taliban forces were still actively seeking control over the existing Afghan government of the IRA. As the US troops were being moved out of Afghanistan by the US government, the Taliban forces captured Afghanistan’s capital Kabul one more time after around two decades through their military operations in mid-August 2021. All of this was now being reported on various news channels.

The Taliban had given the US government a deadline to evacuate their citizens working in the US embassy and other US administrations in Afghanistan and also to evacuate the remainder of its military troops by August 31st, 2021.

The US completed the evacuation of its citizens before that deadline. But, in the midst of all this chaos, a lot of innocent people had to suffer, and some were also reported dead. Although the number of casualties during this chaos may be small, innocent lives were lost.

The newly-formed Taliban is now in full control of Afghanistan, and the whole world is now wondering about the future of this country. There were many reports published in the past disclosing the Taliban’s several illegal operations such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and terrorism.

The Taliban have been accused of oppression and maltreatment of Afghan women in terms of robbing them of their rights such as the right to wear clothes of their choice, right to education, and freedom of speech. The women who opposed the Taliban ideologies were either punished mercilessly in public or slaughtered by the Taliban forces in the past.

Although I saw some of the Taliban representatives holding a press conference after the recent chaos in the country and their victory, stating that the women will be treated equally and respectfully in the new Taliban-governed Afghanistan, I still have a lot of doubt about Afghan women’s fate in the country now.

Oh Gosh! I didn’t realize that in my research of the Taliban, I got to know so much about Afghanistan, which I never knew before. This small country has already been through hell right from its genesis. I hope and pray that finally, the citizens of Afghanistan find some peace and get to breathe free, fresh air of freedom under the rule of the new Taliban government.

So, now you know what Afghanistan is famous for. 

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