Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked sovereign state forming part of South Asia, Central Asia, and to some extent Western Asia. It has a population of around 30 million inhabiting an area of approximately 647,500 km², making it the 42nd ... Explore this topic

The Taliban, alternative spelling Taleban, is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan. It spread into Afghanistan and formed a government, ruling as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from September 1996 until December 2001, with Kandahar as the capital. Ho... Explore this topic

Kandahar or Qandahar, known in older literature as Candahar, is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at an altitude of 1,010 m above sea level. The Arg... Explore this topic

A suicide attack is an attack upon a target, in which an attacker intends to kill others and/or cause great damage, knowing that he or she will either certainly or most likely die in the process. Between 1981 and 2006, 1200 suicide attacks occurred around the world, constituti... Explore this topic

Assassination is the murder of a prominent person or political figure by a surprise attack, usually for payment or political reasons. A person who commits such an act is called an assassin. An assassination may be prompted by religious, ideological, political, or military moti... Explore this topic

Former mayor of Kandahar, assassinated by a suicide bomber on July 27, 2011. He grew up in Kandahar province before leaving during the Soviet occupation, moving first to Pakistan and then to the U.S. where he lived for 20 years. He returned to Afghanistan in 2007 to become Kan... Explore this topic

Ahmed Wali Karzai was a prominent politician in Afghanistan and the younger paternal half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and son of Abdul Ahad Karzai. As an elder of the Popalzai Pashtun tribe, he was elected to the Kandahar Provincial Council in 2005 and served as i... Explore this topic

Hamid Karzai GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 22 December 2001. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001. During the December 2001 International Conference on Afghanistan in Germany, Karza... Explore this topic

Afghanistan has only been a republic between 1973 and 1992 and from 2001 onwards. Before 1973, it was a monarchy that was governed by a variety of kings, emirs or shahs. From 1992 to 2001, during the civil war, the country was recognized as the Islamic State of Afghanistan and... Explore this topic

A power vacuum is, in its broadest sense, an expression for a condition that exists when someone has lost control of something and no one has replaced them. It is usually used to refer to a political situation that can occur when a government has no identifiable central author... Explore this topic