Invasions of Afghanistan
These ancient satrapies included: Aria (Herat); Arachosia (Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, Bamiyan and Quetta); Bactriana (Balkh); and Gandhara (Kabul and Peshawar).
Renamed Bactria, and settled with his Ionian veterans, Alexander began his invasion of India from what is now Jalalabad, attacking the Indus River basin through the Khyber Pass.
Seleucus was defeated by Mauryan king Chandragupta Maurya who annexed modern-day Kandhara and other parts of lower Afghanistan into his empire.
The Greek soldiers in Bactria, based on the remoteness of their territory, declared independence, defeated Seleucid armies sent to reconquer them, and founded the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, which lasted for more than three centuries in Afghanistan.
Bactrian King Menander I converted to Buddhism after staging multiple theological and philosophical debates between his Greek priests and Indian Buddhist monks.
In the seventh to ninth centuries, following the disintegration of the Sasanian and Roman Empires, leaders in the world theater for the last four centuries and arch-rivals, the area was again invaded from the west, this time by Umar, second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, in the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan, eventually resulting in the willing conversion of most of its inhabitants to Islam.
Allied with the Uzbeks, Hazaras, and other Turkic communities in the north his dominance over Afghanistan was long-lasting, allowing him for his future successful conquests in Central Anatolia against the Ottomans.
It lasted for three months, from May to August, and ended in a compromise that saw Afghanistan reassert its independence and control over its relations with other countries while agreeing to a border with British India known as the Durand Line.
[5] The oppressive nature of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, which executed political prisoners and purged the government of any opposition, was also seen unfavorably by the Afghan population.
In a phone call to the Kremlin in March 1979, Afghan Prime Minister Nur Muhammad Taraki requested military assistance.
[6] After Taraki was murdered the new Afghan Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin repeated requests for Soviet military support, at least to protect his residence.
As the Kremlin foresaw, this intervention would cause problems around the world for the USSR, with the policy of détente and, not least, at the forthcoming Olympic Games due to take place in summer 1980 in Moscow.
The local mujahideen, along with fighters from several different Arab nations (Pathan tribes from across the border also participated in the war; they were supported by the Pakistani ISI), fought the Soviet forces to a standstill.
On 24 January 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev's Politburo took the decision to withdraw most of the Soviet forces,[9] while continuing to provide military assistance to the Afghan government.
The Taliban leadership persisted by hiding throughout Afghanistan, largely in the southeast, and launched guerrilla attacks against forces of the United States, its allies, and the government of President Ashraf Ghani.
At the cost of a few dozen of their own soldiers, the British, American, and Canadian forces managed to kill over 1,000 alleged Taliban insurgents and sent thousands more into retreat.
