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Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan
Lance Cpl. Daniel Franke, a dog handler attached to Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 2, lays in the prone on an overlooking hill with his dog in Towrah Ghundey, Afghanistan on June 11, 2010. UPI/Daniel Blatter/U.S. Marines
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The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south-central Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast. In addition; India claims a border with Afghanistan at the Wakhan corridor as part of its claim on the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Kashmir currently controlled by Pakistan.

The territories now comprising Afghanistan have been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration. The land is at an important geostrategic location, connecting East, South, West and Central Asia, and has been home to various peoples through the ages. The region has been a target of various invaders since antiquity, including by Alexander the Great, the Mauryan Empire, Muslim armies, and Genghis Khan, and has served as a source from which many kingdoms, such as the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Timurids, and many others have risen to form empires of their own.

The political history of Afghanistan begins in the 18th century with the rise of the Pashtun tribes (known as Afghans in Persian), when in 1709 the Hotaki dynasty established its rule in Kandahar and, more specifically, when Ahmad Shah Durrani created the Durrani Empire in 1747 which became the forerunner of modern Afghanistan. Its capital was shifted in 1776 from Kandahar to Kabul and most of its territories ceded to neighboring empires by 1893. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in "The Great Game" between the British and Russian empires. On August 19, 1919, following the third Anglo-Afghan war, the country regained independence from the United Kingdom over its foreign affairs.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "War in Afghanistan."
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