X-Nico

13 unusual facts about Afghanistan


Central Pashto

However, Pashto is widely written in Latin script outside Afghanistan by the 2nd and 3rd generation of Pashtun refugees many of whom never learned how to read and write the Perso-Arabic based Pashto alphabet.

Euthydemus I

Little is known of his reign until 208 BC when he was attacked by Antiochus III the Great, whom he tried in vain to resist on the shores of the river Arius (Battle of the Arius), the modern Herirud.

FV430 series

Introduced in December 2006, the Bulldog was designed to meet an urgent operational requirement for extra armoured vehicles for use in counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hezbollah foreign relations

United States intelligence officials speculate there has been contact between Hezbollah and low-level al-Qaeda figures who fled Afghanistan for Lebanon.

Marja

Marja, Afghanistan, an unincorporated agricultural district in Nad Ali District, Helmand Province

Navy Ten Nautical Miler

In April 2010, race coordinators were contacted by Navy personnel serving in Farah, Afghanistan interested in running a satellite version of the race there.

Qala i Naw

Qala i Naw, Afghanistan, provincial capital of Badghis Province in northwest Afghanistan

Strategy for Operation Herrick

Political Settlement. It is the UK's position that the realisation of a long term stability in Afghanistan is achieved through a political settlement that enables the population to 'feel that it’s their government, their country and that they have a role to play'.

It is the UK Governments position that the UK cannot disengage from Afghanistan and retains an active military presence (particularly Helmand province) because of the continued terrorist threat facing Britain and the world.

If the Taliban are allowed to undermine legitimate government in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, that would enable Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to have greater freedom and a sanctuary from which to train, plan and launch terrorist attacks across the world - and would have longer term implications for the credibility of NATO and the international community - and for the stability of both this crucial region and globally.

Operation Herrick is the codename for the British part of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) campaign in Afghanistan.

Syed Ahmad Barelvi

Syed Ahmad was influenced by Shah Abdul Aziz, son of Shah Waliullah and toured Afghanistan and the areas occupied by the Sikhs raising the banner of jihad and rallying the Pashtun tribes to his banner.

Tashkurgan

Kholm, Afghanistan, formerly called Tashkurgan, a town in northern Afghanistan


1979 in Afghanistan

Taraki leaves for Havana, Cuba, to represent Afghanistan at the sixth summit conference of nonaligned nations, leaving the government in the hands of Amin.

Abba Yahiyya

Abba Yahiyya or Abu Yahiyya, was the leader of a sect of Afghani Alenzar (Nizariun Hagarenes) who followed an independent Ishmaili Sufi Herat tradition, introduced to the west by Omar Michael Burke in his 1976 book Among the Dervishes.

Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal

Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal (born 1952) is Afghanistan's Minister of Economy, and the Head of Hizb-i Islami Afghanistan.

Afghanistani

Coined recently, the word Afghanistani is a wide-range title that reflects all citizens of Afghanistan with different races and backgrounds, rather than only referring to Pashtun people.

Aksu River

Aksu, the name of the Bartang River in its upper reaches in Afghanistan and Tajikistan

Ansarlu

The Ansarlu or Ansaroğlu are Oghuz Turks adherent of Twelver Shī‘ism.This tribe belongs to a branch of the Oghuz Turks, belonging to the Qizilbash people of Afghanistan.

Arron Perry

This record was, in its turn, broken when, using an Accuracy International L115A3, British Corporal Craig Harrison killed two Taliban with consecutive shots at a distance of 2.47 kilometres (8120 ft) in Helmand Province, Afghanistan in November 2009.

Aryana Sayeed

It wasn't long before Aryana Sayeed was signed on by one of the leading entertainment channels inside of Afghanistan, 1TV.

Ashley Theophane

The fight in Burghausen represented a first contest of 12 rounds for Theophane and returned a majority decision for the Londoner against Harasch Hotaki from Afghanistan for the IBO international welterweight title.

Autonomous Government of Khorasan

Therefore, on August 11, 1921 the first battle took place between a detachment of Gendarmes in a village near Kariz on Afghanistan border and forces of Hazara chief Shuja al-Mulk.

Battle of Mir Ali

The Battle of Mir Ali was a bloody military engagement occurred between 7 October and 10 October 2007 and involved Taliban militants and Pakistani soldiers around the town of Mir Ali, Pakistan (North Waziristan), the second biggest town in the semi-autonomous region on the border with Afghanistan.

CIA activities in Afghanistan

While the actual document has not been declassified, National Security Decision Directive 166 of 27 March 1985, "US Policy, Programs and Strategy in Afghanistan" defined a US policy of using established the US goal of driving Soviet forces from Afghanistan "by all means available", including the provision of Stinger missiles.

Citizens for America

Citizens for America staged an unprecedented meeting of anti-Communist rebel leaders called the "Democratic International", including Nicaraguan, Laotian, Angolan and Afghan (Mujahideen) rebels in June 1985 in Jamba, Angola.

Danfung Dennis

He photographed and directed his first feature length documentary on the war in Afghanistan, Hell and Back Again.

Elbruz

Elbruz, garbling of Elburz, also called Alborz, primarily northern-Iranian mountain range neighboring Armenia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan

Foreign relations of Afghanistan

By 2000, only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Forward Operating Base Salerno

Located in the southeastern province of Khost, Afghanistan, near the city of Khost, FOB Salerno was nicknamed "Rocket City" for the numerous rocket and mortar indirect fire attacks targeting the base over the ten years that US forces occupied to post.

Fred Kaplan

In late 2012, Kaplan published The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, a nonfiction work which examines how General David Petraeus attempted to implement new thinking in Afghanistan and Iraq regarding the traditional clear and hold counter-insurgency strategy, and the shortcomings of this strategy, its intellectual underpinnings, and the individuals who defined it.

Gender segregation and Islam

In 1998 activists from the National Organization for Women picketed Unocal's Sugar Land, Texas office, arguing that its proposed pipeline through Afghanistan was collaborating with "gender apartheid".

Habis Abdulla al Saoub

According to the indictment, on October 17, 2001, Battle and al Saoub flew out of Portland International Airport en route to Afghanistan.

Hedera nepalensis

Hedera nepalensis (Himalayan ivy, Himalaya-Efeu, chang chun teng) is a species of perennial Ivy (genus Hedera) native to Nepal and Bhutan, as well as Afghanistan, India, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, at altitudes of about 1000–3000 m.

Hill Pigeon

In Pakistan it occurs in northern Chitral particularly in the western part bordering Nuristan in Afghanistan, further east in valleys of Gilgit in Yasin and Hunza and Karakoram ranges in Baltistan from about 2000 meters in winter up to 5500 meters during summer months.

HMLA-773

The squadron activated in October 2003 and deployed to Bagram, Afghanistan, for further deployment along the international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ismail Qasim Yar

Ismail Qasemyar was the chairman of the Emergency Loya Jirga (Grand Council) of 2002 in Afghanistan.

Jawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda

Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander (2005) is an autobiographical book by CIA agent Gary Berntsen describing the time he spent in Afghanistan at the beginning of the American campaign against the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Jesse Samek

He is most notable as having had a U.S. Air Force camp named after him at the Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Kharoti

The Nasher Clan of the Kharoti tribe is based in the Konduz Province in Northern Afghanistan, where they were exiled by the ruling Abdali/Durrani tribes.

Kunduz airstrike

In February 2010 German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle announced the Afghanistan deployment was being reclassified as an "armed conflict within the parameters of international law", which would allow German soldiers based in Afghanistan to act without the risk of being prosecuted under German law.

Kunduz Province

Between one hundred and two-hundred thousand Tajiks and Uzbeks fled the conquest of their homeland by Russian Red Army and settled in northern Afghanistan.

Landstuhl Regional Medical Center

It is located near Landstuhl, Germany, and serves as the nearest treatment center for wounded soldiers coming from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maidan Wardak Province

Maidan Wardak province is located in the Central (or Central East) region of Afghanistan; bordering Parwan to the Northeast, Kabul and Logar to the east, Ghazni to the south and Bamyan to the west.

Margaret Heffernan

Examining examples of willful blindness in the Catholic Church, the SEC, Nazi Germany, Bernard Madoff’s investors, BP’s safety record, the military in Afghanistan and the dog-eat-dog world of subprime mortgage lenders, the book demonstrates how failing to see—or admit to ourselves or our colleagues—the issues and problems in plain sight can ruin private lives and bring down corporations.

Mohammed al Janahi

The film, which stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman, tells the story of a Texas congressman (Hanks) who works to help the Mujahideen defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan using an unlikely alliance of lawmakers, Israelis, Pakistanis, arms dealers and Egyptians.

Naseem Rana

In 2005, Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, one of Pakistan's top military scientist, wrote and published a book, titled "The Military Economy" providing the accounts of his military involvements in Afghanistan.

Pashtunistan

This includes non-Pashtun leaders such as Ahmad Shah Massoud, Ahmad Zia Massoud, Ismail Khan, Mohammed Fahim, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, Atta Muhammad Nur, Abdul Ali Mazari, Karim Khalili, Husn Banu Ghazanfar, Muhammad Yunus Nawandish, Abdul Karim Brahui, Jamaluddin Badr as well as most other ministers, governors and officials.

Project Thread

The men were initially asked to give Canadian interrogators the location of Osama bin Laden, despite the fact they protested that they had never had any contact with militants or been to Afghanistan.

Registan

He captured Khiva in 1506 and in 1507 he swooped down on Merv (Turkmenistan), eastern Persia, and western Afghanistan.

Relief International UK

Relief International runs a ‘Livestock for Life’ project in five districts of Peshawar, Afghanistan to prevent Zoonotic diseases.

Rita Meyer

Her final overseas assignment was as Mission Support Group Commander at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.

Salma Sultan

Salma and Maimoona were great-great-granddaughter of Shah Shuja of Afghanistan.Salma did her schooling from Sultanpur, Madhya Pradesh.

Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County

Tashkurgan County is located in the eastern part of the Pamir Plateau, where the Kunlun, Kara Kunlun, Hindukush and Tian Shan mountains come together, at the borders with Afghanistan (Wakhan Corridor), Tajikistan (Gorno-Badakhshan Province) and Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan).

Tera Pass

The Tera Pass is the primary route connecting Logar and Paktia provinces in Afghanistan.

The Last Man on Planet Earth

During a war with Afghanistan, an incurable biological weapon called the "Y-bomb", which targets only the male Y-chromosome, is used and results in the eventual deaths of 97% of the world's men.

The Places in Between

Set at the same time as the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan after the events set in motion by 9/11, Stewart made the walk in the middle of winter, adding additional hardship as he passed through the mountainous Ghor and Koh-i-Baba regions and its many snow-bound passes and villages.

United States vice-presidential debate, 2008

Pundits criticized Biden's omission of the general's name; he referred to him several times only as the "commanding general in Afghanistan," until it was discovered the General's name is in fact David D. McKiernan.

Vital Voices

In 2002 Vital Voices was asked by First Lady Laura Bush to drive the effort to supply school uniforms to the many girls returning to school for the first time following the U.S. led overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Wadh

The Highway is 813 km long and stretches from Karachi-Lasbela-Khuzdar-Wadh-Kalat-Mastung-Quetta-Chaman and further onto Iran and Afghanistan.

Yoon Jang-ho

Yoon Jang-ho (Hangul: 윤장호; Hanja: 尹章豪; September 21, 1980 – February 27, 2007) was a staff sergeant (posthumous) serving as an English translator in Afghanistan as a member of the Task Force Dasan, a dispatched engineering unit of the Republic of Korea Army.

Ziad Jarrah

Khalid al-Masri and Mohamedou Ould Slahi convinced them at the last minute to travel instead to Afghanistan to meet with Osama bin Laden and train for terrorist attacks.