Kandahar

Kandahar

Subject – IR

Context – Thousands of Taliban supporters on Tuesday poured on to the streets of Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the Islamist movement, waving flags and shouting “God is greatest”, celebrating the momentous U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

Concept –

• Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of 1,010 m (3,310 ft).
• It is Afghanistan’s second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118.
• It is the capital of Kandahar Province as well as the de facto capital of the Taliban, formally known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
• In 1709, MirwaisHotak made the region an independent kingdom and turned Kandahar into the capital of the Hotak dynasty.
• In 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani dynasty, made Kandahar the capital of the Afghan Empire.
• Kandahar is one of the most culturally significant cities of the Pashtuns and has been their traditional seat of power for more than 300 years.
• The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements. A major fortified city existed at the site of Kandahar, probably as early as c. 1000–750 BC, and it became an important outpost of the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire in the 6th century BC. Alexander the Great had laid-out the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar in the 4th century BC.