Once home to thriving Hindu, Sikh, and Jewish communities as recently as the mid-twentieth century, Afghanistan today is overwhelmingly Muslim. Religious diversity further complicated internal Afghan politics and relations with neighbors. Such clan, subtribal, and tribal divisions contribute already intense rivalries and divisions.
These, in turn, are divided into numerous clans.(5) Zahir Shah, ruler of Afghanistan between 19, belongs to the Muhammadzai clan of the Barakzai subtribe of the Durrani tribe. For example, the Durrani are divided into seven sub-groups: the Popalzai, Barakzai, Alizai, Nurzai, Ishakzai, Achakzai, and Alikozai. In turn, each of these tribes is divided into subtribes. The Pushtuns are divided among the Durrani, Ghilzai, Waziri, Khattak, Afridi, Mohmand, Yusufzai, Shinwari, and numerous smaller tribes. Tribal divisions further compound the Afghan vortex. Several dozen more regional languages exist.(4) In addition to Dari (the Afghan dialect of Persian that is the lingua franca of half the population) and the Pushtun's own Pashtu, approximately ten percent of the population speaks Turkic languages like Uzbek or Turkmen. Linguistic divisions parallel, and in some cases, overlap ethnic divisions. Other groups - such as the Aimaks, Turkmen, Baluch, Uzbek, and others comprise the rest.(3) The Hazaras, who generally inhabit the center of the country, represent another 19 percent. Ethnic Tajiks comprise one-quarter of the population. An almost equal number of Pushtuns live across the border in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province. Today, Pushtuns are the largest ethnic group within the country, but they represent only 38 percent of the population. The resulting Kingdom of Afghanistan was and remains ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse. The 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention that formally ended this "Great Game" finalized Afghanistan's role as a buffer between the Russian Empire's holdings in Central Asia, and the British Empire's holdings in India. Afghanistan in its modern form was shaped by the nineteenth-century competition between the British, Russian, and Persian empires for supremacy in the region. THE CURSE OF AFGHAN DIVERSITYĪfghanistan's shifting alliances and factions are intertwined with its diversity, though ethnic, linguistic, or tribal variation alone does not entirely explain these internecine struggles. The roots of the Afghan civil war and the country's subsequent transformation into a safe-haven for the world's most destructive terror network is a far more complex story, one that begins in the decades prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In fact, neither bin Ladin nor Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Umar were direct products of the CIA. officials applauded when the world looked a little different."(2) bin Ladin's fellow guerrillas."(1) Associated Press writer Mort Rosenblum declared that "Usama bin Ladin was the type of Soviet-hating freedom fighter that U.S. Robert Fisk, widely-read Middle East correspondent for The Independent, wrote of "CIA camps in which the Americans once trained Mr. For example, Jeffrey Sommers, a professor in Georgia, has repeatedly claimed that the Taliban had turned on "their previous benefactor." David Gibbs, a political science professor at the University of Arizona, made similar claims. A pervasive myth exists that the United States was complicit for allegedly training Usama bin Ladin and the Taliban. The roots of the Afghan civil war and the country's subsequent transformation into a safe-haven for the world's most destructive terror network began in the decades prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.Īs the United States prepared for war against Afghanistan, some academics or journalists argued that Usama bin Ladin's al-Qa'ida group and Afghanistan's Taliban government were really creations of American policy run amok.
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