History of the Afghan Armed Forces (2002–2021)After the formation of the Karzai administration in late 2001, the Afghan Armed Forces were gradually reestablished by the United States and its allies. Initially, a new land force, the Afghan National Army (ANA), was created, whose planned size grew from 70,000 in 2002 to, eventually, a target of 194,000 set in mid-2011. The army's air arm, the Afghan National Army Air Corps, later split off to become an independent branch, the Afghan Air Force (AAF). The Afghan Army and Air Force were supervised by the Afghan Ministry of Defence.
ZamindawarZamindawar is a historical region of Afghanistan. It is a very large and fertile valley the main sources for irrigation is the Helmand River. Zamindawar is located in the greater territory of northern Helmand and encompasses the approximate area of modern-day Baghran, Musa Qala, Naw Zad, Kajaki and Sangin districts. It was a district of hills, and of wide, well populated, and fertile valleys watered by important tributaries of the Helmand. The principal town was Musa Qala, which stands on the banks of a river of the same name, about 60 km north of the city of Grishk.
MundigakMundigak (منډیګک) is an archaeological site in Kandahar province in Afghanistan. During the Bronze Age, it was a center of the Helmand culture. It is situated approximately northwest of Kandahar near Shāh Maqsūd, on the upper drainage of the Kushk-i Nakhud River. Mundigak was a large prehistoric town with an important cultural sequence from the 5th–2nd millennia BCE. It was excavated by the French scholar Jean Marie Casal in the 1950s The mound was nine meters tall at the time of excavation.
Nimruz ProvinceNimruz or Nimroz (Balochi: ; Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southwestern part of the country. It lies to the east of the Sistan and Baluchestan Province of Iran and north of Balochistan, Pakistan, also bordering the Afghan provinces of Farah and Helmand. It has a population of about 186,963 people. The province is divided into five districts, encompassing about 649 villages. The city of Zaranj serves as the provincial capital and Zaranj Airport, which is located in that city, serves as a domestic airport for the province.
Kajaki DamThe Kajaki Dam is "an earth and rockfill embankment type dam" located on the Helmand River in the Kajaki District of Helmand Province in Afghanistan, about northwest of Kandahar. It has a hydroelectric power station, which is operated by the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority through the Ministry of Energy and Water. Kajaki Dam has a dual function, to provide electricity and to irrigate some or of an otherwise arid land. Water discharging from the dam traverses some 300 miles (500 km) of downstream irrigation canals feeding farmland.
SabuktiginAbu Mansur Nasir al-Din Sabuktigin (ابو منصور سبکتگین) ( 942 – August 997), also spelled as Sabuktagin, Sabuktakin, Sebüktegin and Sebük Tigin, was the founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty, ruling from 367 A.H/977 A.D to 387 A.H/997 A.D. In Turkic the name means beloved prince. Sabuktigin lived as a slave during his youth and later married the daughter of his master Alptigin, the man who seized the region of Ghazna (modern Ghazni Province in Afghanistan).
PopalzaiPopalzai or Popalzay (پوپلزی), also known as Popal, are Durrani (formerly called Abdali or Bor Tareen) Pashtuns of Afghanistan. The Popalzai are part of the Zirak confederation of Pashtun tribes. The origin of the Abdali forefathers of the Sadozai tribe is probably the Hephthalites. The forefathers of Ahmad Shāh Durrānī, the founder of the Durrani Empire, were from the Sadozai tribe which is a subtribe of the Popalzai. According to Mohan Lal, the Zirak line begins with Sulaiman Zirak Khan, who was the father of Popalzai, Barakzai, and Alakozai.
BarakzaiBārakzai (بارکزی, Bārakzay; plur. بارکزي, Bārakzī) is the name of a Pashtun tribe from present-day, Kandahar, Afghanistan. '"Barakzai" is a common name among the Pashtuns and it means "son of Barak" in Pashto. According to the Encyclopædia Iranica, "In the detailed Pashtun genealogies there are no fewer than seven instances of the ethnic name Bārakzī, at very different levels of tribal segmentation. Six of them designate simple lineages within six different tribes located in the Solaymān mountains or adjacent lands.
Saffarid dynastyThe Saffarid dynasty (safaryan) was a Persianate dynasty of eastern Iranian origin that ruled over parts of Persia, Greater Khorasan, and eastern Makran from 861 to 1003. One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to emerge after the Islamic conquest, the Saffarid dynasty was part of the Iranian Intermezzo. The dynasty's founder was Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar, who was born in 840 in a small town called Karnin (Qarnin), which was located east of Zaranj and west of Bost, in what is now Afghanistan.
Hotak dynastyThe Hotak dynasty ( ) was an Afghan monarchy founded by Ghilji Pashtuns that briefly ruled portions of Iran and Afghanistan during the 1720s. It was established in April 1709 by Mirwais Hotak, who led a successful revolution against the declining Persian Safavid empire in the region of Loy Kandahar ("Greater Kandahar") in what is now southern Afghanistan. In 1715, Mirwais died of natural causes and his brother Abdul Aziz succeeded him. He did not reign long as he was killed by his nephew Mahmud, who deposed the Safavid shah and proclaimed his own rule over Iran.
