Afghanistan: Current Issues and U.S. Policy
Abstract
The United States and its allies are helping Afghanistan emerge from more than 22 years of warfare, although substantial risk to Afghan stability remains. Before the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban movement began on October 7, 2001, Afghanistan had been mired in conflict since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until its collapse in December 2001 at the hands of the U.S. and Afghan opposition military campaign. As U.S.-led combat against remaining Al Qaeda and Taliban elements winds down, the United States is shifting its military focus toward stabilizing and extending the writ of the central government, including training a new Afghan national army, supporting an international security force (ISAF), and setting up regional enclaves to protect aid and reconstruction workers. To help foster development, the United Nations and the Bush Administration have lifted most sanctions imposed on Afghanistan since the Soviet occupation. The United States gave Afghanistan a total of over $531 million in humanitarian and reconstruction aid during FY2002. There are some indications that ethnic tensions that have been so closely associated with Afghan politics is fading. Although the minority coalition Northern Alliance emerged from the war as the dominant force in the country, the United States and United Nations mediators persuaded the Alliance to share power with Pashtun representatives in a broad-based interim government. On December 5, 2001, major Afghan factions, meeting under U.N. auspices in Bonn, signed an agreement to form an interim government that ran Afghanistan until a traditional national assembly ("loya jirga") was held June 11-19, 2002. The loya jirga delegates selected a new government to run Afghanistan for the next 18 months and approved Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, to continue as leader for that time, but the assembly adjourned without establishing a new parliament.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 28, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA472768
Entities
People
- Kenneth Katzman
Organizations
- Library of Congress