더 타임즈 기사

BY MICHAEL BINYON

AFGHANISTAN has been the graveyard of invading armies. No country has proved so difficult to conquer, so deadly in its terrain and so vengeful in its retribution. The Moguls, Mongols, British and Russians have all tried to subdue the warrior tribes, and all have perished. Perhaps only Alexander the Great had any success in maintaining a brief hold over the country ?and that was more than 2,000 years ago.

Because of its high mountains, impassable ranges and bitter climate, Afghanistan has formed a natural buffer in the centre of Asia. For this very reason it has also been bitterly fought over by outside imperial powers. For whoever controlled the buffer would control access to the other side, it was believed.

But whoever attempted to do so soon learnt the folly of such a strategy.

Darius the Great expanded the Persian empire into Afghanistan in 500BC, taking in most of the country including the ancient cities of Herat, Merv, Kabul and Jalabad. But the Persian empire was plagued by constant bitter and bloody tribal revolts from Afghans living in Arachosia (modern Kandahar and Quetta).

Alexander the Great reached northern Afghanistan in 329BC, but stayed only three years. The Persians returned 800 years later, but were no more able to assert control over the tribes than Darius had been.

Even after Islam reached the Afghan mountains, the tribes were not amenable to outside rule. Tamerlane tried to impose his authority in AD1370-1404 but was unable to quell the countryside.

The Persian returned, time and again, but always without decisive or lasting victory. In 1834 the Sikhs, moving up from the south in one of the few invasions from India, captured Peshawar. But they were soon defeated and their general was killed.

The most famous duel for Afghanistan took place throughout the 19th century, fought largely by the British attempting to consolidate their hold in India and the Russians pushing south the boundaries of their Central Asia empire.

The first Anglo-Afghan war took place in 1839. Amir Dost Muhammad Khan surrendered to the British and was deported to India and Shah Shuja was installed as a puppet king. But three years later he was killed by Afghans, who then launched a full-scale assault against the British in January 1842. It was one of the most devastating defeats that Queen Victoria's army ever suffered: of the 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 dependants, only one survivor from the mixed Indian-British garrison reached the fort in Jalabad on a stumbling pony.

After the annihilation of the British army Afghanistan again became independent, and the exiled Amir, Dost Muhammad Khan, returned and occupied the throne until 1863.

But then it was the turn of the Russians to intervene from the north. In 1865 they captured Bukhara, Tashkent and Samarkand in Central Asia and in 1873 established a fixed boundary with Afghanistan.

Five years later Britain launched a second war, to avenge the defeat of 1842. The Afghans put up strong resistance, and the British were forced to withdraw in 1880 although they insisted on the right to manage Afghanistan foreign relations. In 1885 the Russians again swept south, reaching Merv and Herat and capturing an oasis north of the Oxus river.

The reat Game? as the Anglo-Russian duel for control was called, did not really end until the turn of the century. In 1893 the Durrand Line fixed the border of Afghanistan with British India at the North West Frontier. Two years later Afghanistan northern frontier was guaranteed by Russia. And in 1907, at the Convention of St Petersburg signed by Russia and Britain, Afghanistan was declared outside Russia influence.

It remained unchallenged by either side for the next 70 years, despite repeated coups and assassinations within Afghanistan, as one ruler succeeded another.

The most important occurred in 1973, when King Zahir Shah was overthrown while on holiday in Europe. Daoud Khan was installed as President, but was then himself overthrown by a communist coup in 1978 that brought Nur Muhammad Taraki to power. He signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union.

When he was killed in 1979, Hafizullah Amin took over, and was himself executed in December. The new Government of Babrak Kamal called in the Soviet Union, and another bloody fight for control of the country began.

It was to last until 1988 when peace accords were signed in Geneva. But the Russians had lost a total of 50,000 lives during the conflict. They found, as did the British, their graves in the high mountains of Asia most savage country.