2. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Great Britain fought three wars with Afghanistan, all in an attempt to consolidate its Indian empire and prevent Russia from moving south.

3. A contemporary cartoon depicts the combatants . . .

4. . . . who are more realistically captured by these photographs of British (left) and Afghan (right) troops.

5. Disputes over Afghanistan’s eastern border with British India (part of which became the independent state of Pakistan) persisted until the 1970s.

6. During that period, Afghanistan had a cosmopolitan young king named Zahir Shah.

7. He tried to modernize the Afghan economy . . .

8. . . . and to allow women greater opportunities than they had traditionally enjoyed in Afghanistan’s deeply Islamic society.

9. But, especially outside the capital, Kabul, most Afghans led highly traditional lives.

10. Then, in 1978, Communists unhappy with the pace and scope of the king’s reforms seized power in Afghanistan.

11. Islamic leaders called on Afghan citizens to oppose the country’s new communist government.

12. Late in 1979, the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan to prevent the collapse of Communism.

13. The Soviet troops met fierce resistance from Afghan guerrillas, or mujahideen (Islamic warriors).

14. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans died at the hands of Soviet troops, and millions more fled to Pakistan and Iran.

15. However, during the Soviet occupation, Afghan women continued to enjoy rights comparable to men’s.

16. The United States supported the anti-communist mujahideen, who were now recruiting Muslim fighters from all over the world.

17. The mujahideen made life very difficult for the Soviet troops, who eventually withdrew in 1988–89.

18. But, after the Soviets left, Afghans could not agree on how to share power. A highly destructive civil war raged throughout most of the 1990s.

19. The Afghan people, including hundreds of thousands of refugees who had returned from Pakistan and Iran, continued to suffer.

20. Support rose for a new group of mujahideen who seemed capable of restoring order to such a troubled situation.

21. This group, consisting mostly of militant Islamists, was the Taliban
This group, consisting mostly of militant Islamists, was the Taliban. Taliban fighters won a series of battles in the mid 1990s, putting them in control of most of Afghanistan.

22. Taliban ministers restored order by enforcing their radical and extremely brutal interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia.

23. They imposed dramatic restrictions on women’s behavior, forcing them to wear the all-covering burqa.

24. Meanwhile, the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, befriended and offered his government’s protection to Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden.

25. Bin Laden, a veteran of the campaign against the Soviets, set up terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and organized a series of attacks against U.S. interests.

26. The most destructive of these occurred on September 11, 2001.

27. After the Taliban ignored requests to hand over bin Laden, the United States led an international military coalition against Afghanistan.

28. The multi-national coalition helped the Northern Alliance, a group of Afghan fighters opposed to the Taliban, recapture Kabul and all of Afghanistan’s other major cities.

29. But bin Laden and several senior Taliban ministers escaped via the Tora Bora caves in eastern Afghanistan.

30. Even so, at the end of 2001, new Afghan president Hamid Karzai said he could see “the sun rising” on his country.

31. Restrictions on women’s behavior were eased,

32. multi-national forces trained new recruits to the Afghan national army,

33. and millions of Afghans voted in democratic elections.

34. But not all Afghans supported the reforms or accepted the continued presence of foreign troops.

35. Taliban militants and their sympathizers launched a series of attacks, including suicide bombings, against international troops and the Afghan government.

36. Much of the militants’ funding comes from poppies, which are used to manufacture heroin.

37. International troops remain in Afghanistan, trying to eradicate the drug trade and help the Afghan national army defeat resurgent Taliban forces.

38. However, with much of Afghanistan still in ruins from years of war and with few farmers willing to stop growing poppies, the troops face a monumentally difficult task.