ABSTRACT
Afghanistan has been in the limelight since the Soviet invasion in December 1979 when it became a geopolitical issue in the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the USA. Both superpowers fought their proxy war at costly expense to the Afghans. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union (1991), the US abandoned Afghanistan. Neighbouring powers like Iran and Pakistan, who had their own axes to grind, stepped in to fill the vacuum by supporting their favourite warlords. The ten-year war and national uprising against the Soviet and local communist forces thus turned into an on-going twelve-year civil war fought on ethnic, linguistic and religious grounds. After the rise of the Taleban in 1994, other regional powers, such as the Russian Federation and the newly independent countries of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, also joined in. India, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Western intelligence followed them, aiding the opposition warlords against the Taleban with arms, international publicity, food and medicine.
