Amtliche Kurzform: Afghanistan
Name in Landessprache: افغانستان 
Kurzform: Afghanestan  
Vollform: Dowlat-e Eslami-ye Afghanestan
 
Name in Englisch: Afghanistan
Ehemaliger Name: Republik Afghanistan, zeitweilig Demokratische Republik Afghanistan, davor Königreich Afghanistan

Staatsgebiet: Afghanistan grenzt im Westen an den Iran, im Norden an die zentralasiatischen Republiken Turkmenistan, Usbekistan und Tadschikistan. Die längste Grenze gibt es im Osten und Süden an Pakistan, die kürzeste im Osten zu China.
 

CIA Background-Info Ahmad Shah DURRANI unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747. The country served as a buffer between the British and Russian empires until it won independence from notional British control in 1919. A brief experiment in democracy ended in a 1973 coup and a 1978 Communist counter-coup. The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the tottering Afghan Communist regime, touching off a long and destructive war. The USSR withdrew in 1989 under relentless pressure by internationally supported anti-Communist mujahedin rebels. Subsequently, a series of civil wars saw Kabul finally fall in 1996 to the Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored movement that emerged in 1994 to end the country's civil war and anarchy. Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, a US, Allied, and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance military action toppled the Taliban for sheltering Osama BIN LADIN. The UN-sponsored Bonn Conference in 2001 established a process for political reconstruction that included the adoption of a new constitution and a presidential election in 2004, and National Assembly elections in 2005. On 7 December 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan. The National Assembly was inaugurated on 19 December 2005.