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In 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, the founder of what is known today as Afghanistan, established his rule. Durrani was elected king by a tribal council after the assassination of the Persian ruler Nadir Shah at Khabushan in the same year.
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The beginning of modern Aghanistan can be dated to 1747, when the Afghans in Nadir Shah's army return home after his death. Their leader, Ahmad Khan Abdali, enters Kandahar and is elected king of the Afghans in a tribal assembly.
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The first Durrani ruler, Ahmad Shah, known as the founder of the Afghan nation, united the Pashtun tribes and by 1760 built an empire extending to Delhi and the Arabian Sea. The empire fragmented after Ahmad Shah’s death in 1772,
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Since the time of Peter the Great, in the early 18th century, Russia has been interested in developing a direct trading link with India.
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Afghanistan remains with Ahmad Shah's tribe, though much disputed between his descendants, until they are ousted from Kabul in 1818.
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Dost Mohammed receives the greatest share, in a stretch from Ghazni to Jalalabad which includes Kabul. He soon becomes accepted as the leader of the nation, taking the formal title of amir from 1837.
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Dost Mohammed finds himself courted by both sides. A British mission is in Kabul in 1837.
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A very advantageous treaty is agreed in May 1879 with Yakub Khan (the son of Sher Ali, who has died in February).
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In November 1878 three British armies push through the mountain passes into Afghanistan. They take Jalalabad and Kandahar by the end of the year, and soon seem to have achieved everything they might wish for.
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In 1880 Abdur Rahman, a Durrani, began a 21-year reign that saw the balancing of British and Russian interests, the consolidation of the Afghan tribes, and the reorganization of civil administration into what is considered the modern Afghan state
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During the 19th century, collision between the expanding British Empire in the subcontinent and czarist Russia significantly influenced Afghanistan in what was termed "The Great Game."
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In 1919 Afghanistan signed the Treaty of Rawalpindi, which ended the Third Anglo- Afghan War and marks Afghanistan’s official date of independence.
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Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to forces led by Bacha-i-Saqao, a Tajik brigand.
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King Amanullah (1919-29) moved to end his country's traditional isolation. He established diplomatic relations with most major countries and introduced several reforms intended to modernize Afghanistan.
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However, in 1963 Zahir Shah dismissed Daoud because his anti-Pakistani policy had damaged Afghanistan’s economy.
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By the summer of 1978, a revolt began in the Nuristan region of eastern Afghanistan and quickly spread into a countrywide insurgency.
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In December 1978, Moscow signed a new bilateral treaty of friendship and cooperation with Afghanistan, and the Soviet military assistance program increased significantly.
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In September 1979, Hafizullah Amin, who had earlier been Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, seized power from Taraki. Over the next 2 months, instability plagued Amin's regime as he moved against perceived enemies in the PDPA.
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By October 1979, however, relations between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union were tense as Hafizullah Amin refused to take Soviet advice on how to stabilize and consolidate his government.
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Faced with a deteriorating security situation, on December 24, 1979, large numbers of Soviet airborne forces began to land in Kabul. They killed Hafizullah Amin and installed Babrak Karmal, exiled leader of the Parcham faction, as Prime Minister.
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In May 1985, the seven principal Peshawar-based guerrilla organizations formed an alliance to coordinate their political and military operations against the Soviet occupation.
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the mujahideen were party neither to the negotiations nor to the 1988 agreement and, consequently, refused to accept the terms of the accords. As a result, the civil war continued after the Soviet withdrawal, which was completed in February 1989.
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The Taliban granted the Arab terrorist organization al Qaeda the right to use Afghanistan as a base. As al Qaeda committed a series of international terrorist acts culminating in attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the Taliban rejected international pressure to surrender al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
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President Hamid Karzai became the first democratically elected President of Afghanistan on December 7, 2004.
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The agreement’s successor, the Afghanistan Compact, went into effect in January 2006 to set goals for international assistance in economic development, protection of human rights, and the fight against corruption and drug trafficking through 2010.