see also: United Nations member states - Jordan,
Egypt, Libya, Syria, Lebanon,
Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman,
Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan

After gaining independence from European colonial rule the Arab states looked to the USSR and Pan-Arabism as alternative paths to nation-building. However, î authoritarian rulers soon established themselves in the region. Since the 1970s a growing educated population lacking employment opportunities has begun to undermine many regimes, and this frustration has been exploited by politically radicalized Islamic groups. Ironically, the only freely elected Arab government in the region is that of the Palestinians, who do not have their own state.

Afghanistan to the Civil War
 

Effective central government in  Afghanistan has long been hindered by the powerful tribal culture. The monarchy was overthrown in 1973. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded in support of an embattled left-wing regime, which led to a bloody occupation and civil war.

2 Mohammad Zahir Shah ruled in 1 Afghanistan, a country of traditional and autonomous tribal structures, from 1933, although the actual power rested with his three uncles, brothers of Nadir Shah who was murdered in 1933.

Their efforts to 3 centralize power failed due to the resistance of the tribes.

2 King Mohammad Zahir Shah of Afghanistan on a vist to the US in 1973

1 Two Afghan women carrying wood back to their village, ca. 1965

3 Training teachers in Afghanistan: prospective teachers taking classes, 1963

From 1953, however, Prime Minister 4 Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan, brother-in-law of the king, succeeded in introducing several social reforms with assistance from the Soviet Union.


4 The Afghan prime minister Prince
Sadar Mohammad on a state visit to the Federal
Republic of Germany, July 3, 1961

When Daud was ousted in 1963, moderate political forces introduced a constitutional monarchy in 1964 and in 1965 free parliamentary elections were held for the first time.

Daud deposed the king in a coup on July 17,1973, and proclaimed a republic. As prime minister, he began a cautious program of land reform and the nationalization of banks. He secured the support of the Arab world and in February 1977 established an authoritarian presidential regime. Then in April 1978, the Communist-oriented People's Democratic party organized a coup with the help of the army, murdered Daud, and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan under Prime Minister Nur Mohammad Taraki. The new republic had close ties to the Soviet Union. The government's left-wing secularist course led to a 1979 revolt among many of the
tribes and parts of the army, causing anarchy in many regions of the country.

Increasingly under pressure, the new prime minister, 5 Hafizullah Amin, called on the Soviet Union for aid.

Soviet troops 6 entered Afghanistan on December 27,1979, and helped to install the loyal exiled politician Babrak Karmal as head of state and government.

Although the new government generally respected Islam and Afghan traditions, a number of Islamic and nationalist groups were immediately formed to resist the Soviet occupation.

Collectively known as the mujahideen, they began a 7 guerrilla war against the regime in Kabul and the Soviet troops.

The guerrillas were supported financially and militarily by the United States and many Arab countries.

Afghanistan from 1979 to the Present
 

After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops following heavy losses, the Islamic groups fought among themselves. First the mujahideen dominated the country and then the Taliban. The latter were driven from power in 2001-2002.

The Afghan tribal council increasingly proved to be as powerless as the government, and the mountain regions in particular became centers of a radical Islamic resistance that had extensive ties to Pakistan and to underground fundamentalist groups. By 1983, 20 percent of the population had fled to neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan; several UN peace initiatives failed to end the conflict. Atrocities committed on both sides further damaged the prospects of a peace accord. In response to Soviet pressure. Karmal was replaced by Sayid Mohammad Najibullah as secretary-general of the People's Democratic party in 1986, and in 1987 Najibullah became president. He championed a policy of national reconfiliation.

With the radical Islamic mujahideen increasingly winning ground, the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev, having suffered heavy losses, 9 withdrew its troops in 1988-1989 following a peace treaty negotiated in Geneva.


9 Mujahideen pose before a Soviet tank
abandoned during the Red Army's withdrawal,
1988

With the Soviet troops gone, Najibul-Iah's power base collapsed. Following an attempted coup in 1990, he was finally driven out of Kabul in April 1992 by the mujahideen. The new mujahideen government, with Scbghatullah Mujaddedi as head of state and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as prime minister, failed to gain recognition from the other resistance groups in much of the rest of the country, and the civil war thus continued.

In September 1996, the Islamist Taliban militia conquered Kabul and established an oppressive regime that enforced à 8, 11 fundamentalist form of Islam through coercion, while also allowing 10 Afghan opium cultivation to reach 75 percent of the world's total production.

8 Colossal 170 ft-high statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan, dynamited by the Taliban in 2001

11 A Taliban militia forcibly shaves the head of a passenger in a bus

10 Poppy farming in Afghanistan, April 2005

The warlords in the north, who became known as the Northern Alliance, resisted Taliban attempts to conquer the remainder of the country.
In 1997-1998, the Taliban, led by Mullah Omar, began to expel Western aid organizations and demonstrated their open support of Islamist terrorists, particularly Osama bin Laden.

In August 1998, following an attack on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the United States launched 12 missile strikes against terrorist training
camps in Afghanistan.

After September 11, 2001, when the Taliban refused to comply with the US demand for bin Laden's extradition, coordinated 13 offensives were launched by US and British troops and the Northern Alliance, led by the Uzbek general Abdul Rashid Dostum.

Kabul was retaken on November 13 and the Taliban were soon driven toward the border with Pakistan.
NATO troops remain in the country to support the government of President Hamid Karzai.

see also: United Nations member states - Jordan,
Egypt, Libya, Syria, Lebanon,
Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman,
Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan