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Afghanistan,
"Terrorism" and Blowback: A Chronology
by Janette Rainwater,
Ph.D.
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1747 Ahmad
Shah Durrani becomes the chief of the Afghan Pashtun tribes. [He
freed the Pashtun areas of what is now Afghanistan from Iranian
rule, and then went on to acquire territory from the deteriorating
empires to the west and east--- the Safavi dynasty in Iran and the
Mughals in India. At the height of his conquests in 1762 his empire
included all of present-day Pakistan, parts of northern India and
the area around Meshed in Iran. The southern boundary was the Arabian
Sea and the port of Karachi. Nyrop, Richard F. and Donald M.
Seekins, Afghanistan, a country study (1986),
pp. 13-19.]
1839-1842 The
First Afghan War is one of the first acts in the "Great Game,"
so named by the British (and romanticized by Rudyard Kipling) to
describe the spy games played by the British and Russian intelligence
agencies as the spheres of influence of the two empires moved closer
and closer to an ultimate clash in Afghanistan. [Ahmad Shah's domain
had started disintegrating even before his death in 1772. The British
took advantage of the continuing wars of succession to install a
puppet government in Kabul with ex-shah Shuya replacing Dost Mohammed
(who had proved reluctant to expel the lone Russian agent from Kabul
and give up all claims to Peshawar (which the Sikhs now controlled.)
Their excuse was that India's welfare required a trustworthy and
stable ally on its border. Shuja was unable to gain the support
of the other Afghan chiefs who rose up against him and the British.
The garrison of 15,000 men was forced to make a humiliating retreat
to India from Kabul with Afghan tribesmen picking them off at every
pass. Most died, one man survived the march unscathed, and a few
were taken prisoner. Meyer, Karl E. and Shareen Blair Brysac,
Tournament of Shadows (1999), pp. 82-110; Nyrop,
pp. 22-29.]
1878-1881 The
Second Anglo-Afghan War starts when the imperious Viceroy of India,
Lord Lytton, delivers an ultimatum to Emir Sher Ali to accept a
British mission in Kabul. [The proponents of the Forward Policy
were in power in Britain with the ascension of Disraeli as Prime
Minister. They believed that Afghanistan must be taken over as a
buffer state against the encroaching Russian expansion into Central
Asia. (The Russians had taken Tashkent in 1865, Samarkand in 1868
and a year later were at the banks of the Amu Darya River, the northern
boundary of present-day Afghanistan. British Liberals, on the other
hand, felt that the natural boundary of India should be the Indus
River.) The British invaded in November, 1878 and quickly occupied
half the country. Sher Ali's regent signed the Treaty of Gandamak
to prevent British occupation of the remaining provinces. The British
agreed to pay annual subsidies, Afghanistan relinquished control
of its foreign affairs and accepted the presence of the Residency.
The British believed all was well, but in September, 1879 the bewildered
Resident refused to pay some 2000 Herati mercenaries who then stormed
the Residency, killing all the British. Lord Lytton sent an army
to avenge the massacre; hundreds of Afghans were executed on little
or no evidence. These reprisals spurred an army of 10,000 tribesmen
to march on Kabul. The British were saved by recognizing Abdul Rahman
as Emir--- a claimant who ironically had been living in Russia and
was sponsored by Russia! Back in Britain, Gladstone won the April,
1880 election by turning it into a sort of plebiscite on Disraeli's
imperial wars: "The sanctity of life in the hill villages of
Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eyes
of Almighty God as can be your own." This sentiment didn't
appeal to Her Majesty, but middle-class Britons approved. Britain's
gains from the war (and the expenditure of £12 million) were
the Khyber Pass, the Kurram Valley, and the control of Afghanistan's
foreign relations. Meyer and Brysac, pp. 177-201.
1893 Abdul
Rahman Khan is forced by the British Indian government to agree
to the "Durrand Line" as the boundary between Afghanistan
and India. [This placed more than half of the Pashtuns in India,
a decision that was protested then and by succeeding generations.]
1907 The
"Great Game" ends with the Anglo-Russian Convention. [The
former competitors, now united against the rising influence of Germany,
divided Iran into two spheres of influence. Russia could occupy
the north and Britain the south and east should Iran be threatened
by a third party. Both countries pledged not to occupy Iran nor
interfere with its internal affairs.]
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