Coordinates	41°10′″N147°31′″N
Native name	د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت (}}

)جمهوری اسلامی افغانستان (}}) |conventional_long_name=Islamic Republic of Afghanistan |common_name=Afghanistan |image_flag=Flag of Afghanistan.svg |image_coat=Afghanistan COA Transparent.svg |p1 = Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan |flag p1 = Flag of Taliban.svg |year_start = 1996 |life_span = 1996-2001 |symbol_type=Emblem |image_map=Afghanistan_(orthographic_projection).svg |national_motto= |national_anthem=Afghan National Anthem |official_languages= Pashto and Dari (Persian) |GDP_PPP_rank= |GDP_PPP_per_capita=$1,000 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. The territories now comprising Afghanistan have been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration. Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation from as far back as 50,000 BCE. Urban civilization may have begun in the area as early as 3000 to 2000 BC.

The country sits at an important geostrategic location which connects the Middle East with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, which has been home to various people through the ages. The land has witnessed military conquests since antiquity, including by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and many others.

The political history of modern Afghanistan begins in the 18th century with the rise of the Pashtun tribes (known as Afghans in Persian language), when in 1709 the Hotaki dynasty rose to power in Kandahar and Ahmad Shah Durrani established the Durrani Empire in 1747. The capital of Afghanistan was shifted in 1776 from Kandahar to Kabul and part of its territory was 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 and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi, the nation regained control over its foreign policy from the British.

Since the late 1970s, Afghanistan has experienced a continuous state of war, including major foreign occupations in the forms of the 1979 Soviet invasion, Pakistani military interference in favour of the Taliban in the late 1990s and the October 2001 US-led invasion that overthrew the Taliban government. In December 2001, the United Nations Security Council authorized the creation of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help maintain security and assist the Karzai administration. The country is being rebuilt slowly with support from the international community while dealing with the Taliban insurgency and widespread political corruption.

Etymology

The name Afghānistān, Persian: افغانستان , means the "Land of Afghans", originating from the word Afghan.

Origin of the name

The first part of the name "Afghan" designates the Pashtun people since ancient times, the founders and the largest ethnic group of the country. This name is mentioned in the form of "Abgan" in the 3rd century CE and as "Avagana" in the 6th century CE.

The Encyclopædia Iranica states:

A people called "Afghans" are mentioned several times in a 10th century geography book, Hudud al-'alam. Al-Biruni referred to them in the 11th century as various tribes living on the western frontier mountains of the Indus River, which would be the Sulaiman Mountains. Ibn Battuta, a famous Moroccan travelling scholar visiting the region in 1333, writes:

Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah (Ferishta) explains extensively about Afghans in the 16th century. For example, he writes:

By the 17th century AD, it seems that some Pashtuns themselves were using the term as an ethnonym - a fact that is supported by traditional Pashto literature, for example, in the writings of the 17th-century Pashto poet Khushal Khan Khattak:

The last part of the name, -stān is a Persian suffix for "place", prominent in many languages of the region. The name "Afghanistan" is described by the 16th century Mughal Emperor Babur in his memoirs as well as by later Mughal scholar Firishta, both referring to the territories south of Kabul that were inhabited by Pashtuns (called "Afghans" by both authors). Until the 19th century the name was used for the traditional lands of the Pashtuns only, while the kingdom as a whole was known as the Kingdom of Kabul, as mentioned by the British statesman and historian Mountstuart Elphinstone. In 1857, in his review of J.W. Kaye's The Afghan War, Friedrich Engels describes "Afghanistan" as:

Other parts of the country were at certain periods recognized as independent kingdoms, such as the Kingdom of Balkh in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. With the expansion and centralization of the country, Afghan authorities adopted and extended the name "Afghanistan" to the entire kingdom, after its English translation had already appeared in various treaties between the British Raj and Qajarid Persia, referring to the lands subject to the Pashtun Barakzai dynasty of Kabul. It became the official internationally recognized name in 1919 after the Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed to regain full independence over its foreign policy from the British, and was confirmed as such in the nation's 1923 constitution.

Geography

A landlocked and mountainous country, with plains in the north and southwest, Afghanistan is variously described as being located within South Asia, Central Asia and sometimes Western Asia (or the Middle East). Its highest point is Nowshak, at 7,485 m (24,557 ft) above sea level. The climate varies by region and tends to change quite rapidly. Large parts of the country are dry, and fresh water supplies are limited. The endorheic Sistan Basin is one of the driest regions in the world.

The nation has a continental climate with very harsh winters in the central highlands, the glaciated northeast (around Nuristan) and the Wakhan Corridor, where the average temperature in January is below , and hot summers in the low-lying areas of Sistan Basin of the southwest, the Jalalabad basin of the east, and the Turkistan plains along the Amu River of the north, where temperatures average over in July. The country is frequently subject to minor earthquakes, mainly in the northeast of Hindu Kush mountain areas. Some 125 villages were damaged and 4,000 people killed by the May 31, 1998, earthquake.

At , Afghanistan is the world's 41st largest country (after Burma). It shares borders with Pakistan in the East, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far east. The country does not face any water shortage because it receives huge amounts of snow during winter. Once that melts, the water runs into rivers, lakes, and streams, but most of its national water flows to neighboring states. The state needs around $2 billion to rehabilitate its irrigation systems so that the water is properly used.

The nation's natural resources include gold, silver, copper, zinc, and iron ore in the Southeast; precious and semi-precious stones (such as lapis, emerald, and azure) in the Northeast; and potentially significant petroleum and natural gas reserves in the North. The country also has uranium, coal, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, and salt.

History

Though the modern state of Afghanistan was established in 1747, the land has an ancient history and various timelines of different civilizations. Excavation of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree, the University of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Institution and others suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the area were among the earliest in the world.

An important site of early historical activity, Afghanistan is a country at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and often fought. The region has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them Ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. In certain stages of the history, the land was conquered and incorporated within large empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire; the Macedonian Empire; the Indian Maurya Empire; the Muslim Arab Empire; the Sasanid Empire, and a number of others. Many dynasties and kingdoms have also risen to power in what is now Afghanistan, such as the Greco-Bactrians; Kushans; Indo-Sassanids; Kabul Shahis; Saffarids; Samanids;, Ghaznavids; Ghurids; Kartids; Timurids; Mughals, and finally the Hotaki and Durrani dynasties that marked the political beginning of modern Afghanistan.

Pre-Islamic period

, Aria and Bactria were the ancient satraps of the Persian Achaemenid Empire that made up most of what is now Afghanistan during 500 B.C. Some of the inhabitants of Arachosia were known as Pactyans, whose name possibly survives in today's Pakhtuns / Pashtuns.]] Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with the neighboring regions to the east, west, and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BC, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. Many of these settlers were Indo-Iranians (speakers of Indo-Iranian languages), the area was called Ariana.

The ancient Zoroastrianism religion is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 to 800 BCE, as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenid Persian Empire overthrew the Medes and incorporated the region (known as Arachosia, Aria, and Bactria in Ancient Greek) within its boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of King Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries he had conquered. . Buddhism was introduced for the first time during the Maurya Empire (322 BC–185 BC).]] In addition, Hinduism in Afghanistan has existed for almost as long as Hinduism itself, as Greater Persia overlapped with Greater India in the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountains. The religion was widespread in the region until the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.

Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived to the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier at the Battle of Gaugamela.|Strabo|64 BC–24 AD}} The Mauryans brought Buddhism from India and controlled southern Afghanistan until about 185 BCE when they were overthrown. The late Kushans were followed by the Kidarite Huns who, in turn, were replaced by the short-lived but powerful Hephthalites, as rulers of the region in the first half of the 5th century. The Hephthalites were defeated by the Sasanian king Khosrau I in CE 557, who re-established Sassanid power in Persia. However, in the 6th century CE, the successors of Kushans and Hepthalites established a small dynasty in Kabulistan called Kabul Shahi.

Islamic conquests and Mongol invasion

in 750 CE.]] From the Middle Ages to the 19th century much of today's Afghanistan was recognized as Khorasan. Two of the four main capitals of Khorasan (i.e. Balkh, Merv, Nishapur and Herat) are now located in modern Afghanistan, while Kandahar, Ghazni and Kabul formed the frontier region between Khorasan and Hindustan. The land inhabited by the Afghan tribes (i.e. ancestors of modern Pashtuns) was called Afghanistan, which loosely covered the area between the Hindu Kush and the Indus River, but principally around the Sulaiman Mountains.

Arab Muslims brought the religion of Islam to the western area of what is now Afghanistan during the 7th century and began spreading eastward from Khorasan and Sistan, some accepting it while others revolted. Prior to the introduction of Islam, Afghanistan was mostly Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Hindu, with unknown population of Jews and others. The Kabul Shahi rulers lost their capital, Kabul, in around 870 AD after it was conquered by the Saffarids of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence into the Hindu Kush area from Bukhara in the north. Afghanistan at that stage still had non-Muslims who lived side by side with Muslims.|Istahkrí|921}} By the 11th century the Ghaznavids had finally made all of the remaining non-Muslim areas become fully Islamized, with the exception of the Kafiristan region. Afghanistan at that point became the center of many important empires such as the Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, and Timurids.

The region was overrun in 1219 by Genghis Khan and his Mongol barbarians, who devastated much of the land. His troops are said to have annihilated the ancient Khorasan cities of Herat and Balkh. The destruction caused by the Mongols depopulated major cities and caused much of the locals to revert to an agrarian rural society. Their rule continued with the Ilkhanate, and was extended further following the invasion of Timur who established the Timurid dynasty. The periods of the Ghaznavids, Ghurids, and Timurids are considered some of the most brilliant eras of Afghanistan's history as they produced fine Islamic architectural monuments The Persians refused to recognize the Afghan ruler, and after the massacre of thousands of Persian religious scholars, nobles, and members of the Safavid family, the Hotaki dynasty was eventually ousted from Persia during the Battle of Damghan.

In 1738, Nader Shah and his army, which included Ahmad Khan and four thousand of his Abdali Pashtuns, captured Kandahar from the last Hotak ruler; in the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore. In June 1747, Nadir Shah was assassinated by one of his officers and his kingdom fell apart. Ahmad Shah Abdali called for a loya jirga ("grand assembly") to select a leader among his people, and in October 1747 the Pashtuns gathered near Kandahar and chose him as their new head of state. Ahmad Shah Durrani is often regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan. After the inauguration, Ahmad Shah adopted the title padshah durr-i dawran ('King, "pearl of the age") and the Abdali tribe became known as the Durrani tribe there after. By 1751, Ahmad Shah Durrani and his Afghan army conquered the entire present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, along with Delhi in India. He defeated the Sikhs of the Maratha Empire in the Punjab region nine times; one of the biggest battles was the 1761 Battle of Panipat. In October 1772, Ahmad Shah retired to his home in Kandahar where he died peacefully and was buried at a site now adjacent to the Mosque of the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed. He was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah Durrani, who transferred the capital of their Afghan Empire from Kandahar to Kabul. Timur died in 1793 and was finally succeeded by his son Zaman Shah Durrani.

Zaman Shah and his brothers had a weak hold on the legacy left to them by their famous ancestor. They sorted out their differences through "round robin of expulsions, blindings and executions", which resulted in the deterioration of the Afghan hold over far-flung territories, such as Attock and Kashmir. Durrani's other grandson, Shuja Shah Durrani, fled the wrath of his brother and sought refuge with the Sikhs.

After Durrani Vizier Fateh Khan was defeated at the Battle of Attock, he fought off an attempt by Ali Shah, the ruler of Persia, to capture the Durrani province of Herat. He was joined by his brother, Dost Mohammad Khan, and rogue Sikh Sardar Jai Singh Attarwalia. Once they had captured the city, Fateh Khan attempted to remove the ruler Mahmud Shah – a relation of his superior – and rule in his stead. In the attempt to take the city from its Durrani ruler, Dost Mohammad Khan's men forcibly took jewels from a princess and Kamran Durrani, Mahmud Shah's son, used this as a pretext to remove Fateh Khan from power, and had him tortured and executed. While in power, however, Fateh Khan had installed 21 of his brothers in positions of power throughout the Durrani Empire. After his death, they rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period, Kabul had many temporary rulers until Fateh Khan's brother, Dost Mohammad Khan, captured Kabul in 1826.

The Sikhs, under Ranjit Singh, rebelled in 1809 and eventually wrested from the Afghans a large part of the Kingdom of Kabul (present day Pakistan, but not including Sindh). Hari Singh Nalwa, the Commander-in-Chief of the Sikh Empire along its Afghan frontier, invaded the Afghan territory as far as the city of Jalalabad. In 1837, the Afghan Army descended through the Khyber Pass on Sikh forces at Jamrud. Hari Singh Nalwa's forces held off the Afghan offensive for over a week – the time it took reinforcements to reach Jamrud from Lahore.

Barakzai dynasty and European influence

(1839–42). William Brydon was the sole survivor of a group of 3,600 soldiers of the British 44th Regiment of Foot and 12,400 camp followers, who were attacked between Kabul and Jalalabad while heading to what is now Pakistan.]] at Berlin in February 1928. His 1927-28 European tour initiated an alliance between Afghanistan and Germany.]] and wife with US President John F. Kennedy and sister Eunice in the United States]] During the 19th century, following the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the ascension of the Barakzai dynasty, Afghanistan saw much of its territory and autonomy ceded to British India. Ethnic Pashtun territories were divided by the 1893 Durand Line, an action which would lead to strained relations between Afghanistan and British India (later the new state of Pakistan). The United Kingdom exercised a great deal of influence, and it was not until the reign of King Amanullah Khan in 1919 that Afghanistan re-gained independence over its foreign affairs after the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi.

King Amanullah moved to end his country's traditional isolation in the years following the Third Anglo-Afghan War. He established diplomatic relations with major states and, following a 1927-28 tour of Europe and Turkey, introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's first constitution (declared through a Loya Jirga), which made elementary education compulsory. Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional Muslim veil for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah Khan was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to rebel forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed Habibullah Kalakani in October 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernisation. In 1933, however, he was assassinated in a revenge killing by a Kabul student.

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. In 1953, he was replaced by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was not a participant in World War II, nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports and other vital infrastructure. By the late 1960s many western travelers were using these as part of the hippie trail. In 1973, Zahir Shah's brother-in-law, Daoud Khan, launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan while Zahir Shah was on an official overseas visit. Daoud Khan tried to implement some much needed reforms especially in the economic sector.

Saur revolution and Soviet war

, the day after Saur Revolution on April 28, 1978.]] In 1978, a prominent member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), Mir Akbar Khyber, was allegedly killed by the Daoud government. Leaders of the PDPA feared that Daoud was planning to dismantle them because many were being arrested. Hafizullah Amin along with other PDPA members managed to remain at large and organised an uprising. The PDPA, led by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Babrak Karmal and Hafizullah Amin, overthrew the regime of Mohammad Daoud, who was assassinated along with his family during the April 1978 Saur Revolution. Taraki was declared President, Prime Minister and General Secretary of the PDPA. Once in power, the PDPA implemented a socialist agenda. It moved to carry out an ill-conceived land reform, which was misunderstood by virtually all Afghans. They also imprisoned, tortured or murdered thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment, and the intelligentsia. and made a number of statements on women's rights, by declaring equality of the sexes but more recent reports state that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia provided as much as up to $40 billion in cash and weapons, which included over two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, for building up Islamic groups against the Soviet Union. The U.S. handled most of its support through Pakistan's ISI. Saudi Arabia was also providing financial support. Leaders such as Ahmad Shah Massoud received only minor aid compared to Hekmatyar and some of the other parties, although Massoud was named the "Afghan who won the cold war" by the Wall Street Journal.

The 10-year Soviet occupation resulted in the killings of between 600,000 and two million Afghans, mostly civilians. About 6million fled as Afghan refugees to Pakistan and Iran, and from there over 38,000 made it to the United States and many more to the European Union. Faced with mounting international pressure and great number of casualties on both sides, the Soviets withdrew in 1989. Their withdrawal from Afghanistan was seen as an ideological victory in America, which had backed some Mujahideen factions through three U.S. presidential administrations to counter Soviet influence in the vicinity of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The USSR continued to support President Mohammad Najibullah (former head of the Afghan secret service, KHAD) until 1992.

Foreign interference and civil war

1992-1996 After the fall of the communist Najibullah-regime in 1992, the Afghan political parties agreed on a peace and power-sharing agreement (the Peshawar Accords). The Peshawar Accords created the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government for a transitional period. According to Human Rights Watch: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from Pakistan. Afghanistan expert Amin Saikal concludes in Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival: In addition, Saudi Arabia and Iran - as competitors for regional hegemony - supported Afghan militias hostile towards each other. According to Human Rights Watch, Iran was assisting the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat forces of Abdul Ali Mazari, as Iran was attempting to maximize Wahdat's military power and influence. Saudi Arabia supported the Wahhabite Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction.}}

Due to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly-created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different armed factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos as described in reports by Human Rights Watch and the Afghanistan Justice Project. Because of the chaos, some leaders increasingly had only nominal control over their (sub-)commanders. For civilians there was little security from murder, rape and extortion. Mullah Omar started his movement with fewer than 50 armed madrassah students in his hometown of Kandahar. Massoud tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections, also inviting the Taliban to join the process. The Taliban declined. Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests which the Taliban decline. The Taliban seized Kabul on September 27, 1996, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their political and judicial interpretation of Islam issuing edicts forbidding women to work outside the home, attend school, or to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male relative. The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) analyze: After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on September 27, 1996, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum, two former archnemesis, created the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban that were preparing offensives against the remaining areas under the control of Massoud and those under the control of Dostum. see video The United Front included beside the dominantly Tajik forces of Massoud and the Uzbek forces of Dostum, Hazara factions and Pashtun forces under the leadership of commanders such as Abdul Haq, Haji Abdul Qadir, Qari Baba or diplomat Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai.

According to Human Rights Watch, in late May 1997, some 3,000 captive Taliban soldiers were summarily executed in and around Mazar-i-Sharif by Dostum's Junbish forces and members of the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat faction. The Taliban defeated Dostum's Junbish forces militarily by seizing Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998. Dostum went into exile. According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians. U.N. officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001. The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings. The report by the United Nations quotes eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people. In total there were believed to be 28,000 Pakistani nationals fighting inside Afghanistan. The estimated 25,000 Taliban regular force thus comprised more than 8,000 Pakistani nationals. A 1998 document by the U.S. State Department confirms that "20-40 percent of [regular] Taliban soldiers are Pakistani." From 1996 to 2001 the Al Qaeda of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a state within the Taliban state. Bin Laden sent Arab recruits to join the fight against the United Front. Of roughly 45,000 Pakistani, Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers fighting against the forces of Massoud only 14,000 were Afghan.

Ahmad Shah Massoud remained the only leader of the United Front in Afghanistan. In the areas under his control Massoud set up democratic institutions and signed the Women's Rights Declaration. Human Rights Watch cites no human rights crimes for the forces under direct control of Massoud for the period from October 1996 until the assassination of Massoud in September 2001. In total, estimates range up to one million people fleeing the Taliban. National Geographic concluded in its documentary "Inside the Taliban": : In early 2001 Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan.

Recent history (2001–present)

of Ahmad Shah Massoud is a national visiting site located in the Panjshir Valley, north of the capital Kabul.]] Chinook helicopters on their way to Bagram Air Base]] , including the ANA Commando Battalion standing in the front.]] On September 9, 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud died in a suicide attack by two Arab suicide bombers in the Afghan province of Takhar. Two days later 3,000 people died on U.S. soil in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks the U.S. government identified Osama Bin Laden alongside Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the faces behind the attacks. When the Taliban refused to hand over Osama Bin laden to U.S. authorities and refused to disband Al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, the U.S. and British air forces began bombing al-Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. On the ground, American and British special forces along with CIA Special Activities Division units worked with commanders of the United Front (Northern Alliance) to launch a military offensive against the Taliban forces. These attacks led to the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul in November 2001, as the Taliban and al-Qaida retreated toward the mountainous Durand Line border with Pakistan. In December 2001, after the Taliban government was toppled and the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai was formed, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security to the Afghan people.

From 2002 onward, the Taliban began regrouping while more coalition troops entered the escalating US-led war with insurgents. Meanwhile, NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003 and the rebuilding of Afghanistan began, which is funded by the international community especially by USAID and other U.S. agencies. The European Union, Canada and India also play a major role in reconstruction. The Afghan nation was able to build democratic structures and to make some progress in key areas such as health, economy, educational, transport, agriculture and construction sector. It has also modernized in the field of technology and banking. NATO, mainly the United States armed forces through its Army Corps of Engineers, is rebuilding and modernizing the nation's military as well its police force. Between 2002 and 2010, over five million Afghan expatriates returned with new skills and capital. Still, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries due to the results of 30 years of war, corruption among high level politicians and the ongoing Taliban insurgency backed by Pakistan. U.S. officials have also accused Iran of providing limited support to the Taliban, but stated it was "at a small level" since it is "not in their interests to see the Taliban, a Sunni ultra-conservative, extremist element, return to take control of Afghanistan". Iran has historically been an enemy of the Taliban.

NATO and Afghan troops in recent years led many offensives against the Taliban, but proved unable to completely dislodge their presence. By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form complete with their own version of mediation court. In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama deployed an additional 30,000 soldiers over a period of six months and proposed that he will begin troop withdrawals by 2012. At the 2010 International Conference on Afghanistan in London, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he intends to reach out to the Taliban leadership (including Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar). Supported by senior U.S. officials Karzai called on the group's leadership to take part in a loya jirga meeting to initiate peace talks. According to the Wall Street Journal, these steps have been reciprocated so far with an intensification of bombings, assassinations and ambushes. Many Afghan groups (including the former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh and opposition leader Dr. Abdullah Abdullah) believe that Karzai's plan aims to appease the insurgents' senior leadership at the cost of the democratic constitution, the democratic process and progess in the field of human rights especially women's rights. Dr. Abdullah stated: :"I should say that Taliban are not fighting in order to be accommodated. They are fighting in order to bring the state down. So it's a futile exercise, and it's just misleading. ... There are groups that will fight to the death. Whether we like to talk to them or we don't like to talk to them, they will continue to fight. So, for them, I don't think that we have a way forward with talks or negotiations or contacts or anything as such. Then we have to be prepared to tackle and deal with them militarily. In terms of the Taliban on the ground, there are lots of possibilities and opportunities that with the help of the people in different parts of the country, we can attract them to the peace process; provided, we create a favorable environment on this side of the line. At the moment, the people are leaving support for the government because of corruption. So that expectation is also not realistic at this stage." According to a report by the United Nations, the Taliban were responsible for 76 % of civilian casualties in 2009. Afghanistan is currently struggling to rebuild itself while dealing with the above mentioned problems and challenges.

Government and politics

standing next to Faisal Ahmad Shinwari and others after winning the 2004 presidential election. The last king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah is sitting at the right.]]

Politics in Afghanistan has historically consisted of power struggles, bloody coups and unstable transfers of power. With the exception of a military junta, the nation has been governed by nearly every system of government over the past centuries, including a monarchy, republic, and theocracy. The constitution ratified by the 2003 Loya jirga restructured the government as an Islamic republic consisting of three branches, executive, legislative and judicial.

The nation is currently led by the Karzai administration with Hamid Karzai as the President and leader since December 2001. The current parliament was elected in September 2010, and among the elected officials are former mujahideen, Islamic fundamentalists, warlords, communists, reformists, and several Taliban associates. In 2005, 28% of the delegates elected were women, three points more than the 25% minimum guaranteed under the constitution. This made Afghanistan, long known under the Taliban for its oppression of women, 30th amongst nations in terms of female representation. Construction for a new parliament building began on August 29, 2005.

The Supreme Court of Afghanistan is currently led by Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi, a former university professor who had been legal advisor to the president. The previous court, appointed during the time of the interim government, had been dominated by fundamentalist religious figures, including Chief Justice Faisal Ahmad Shinwari. The court issued several rulings, such as banning cable television, seeking to ban a candidate in the 2004 presidential election and limiting the rights of women, as well as overstepping its constitutional authority by issuing rulings on subjects not yet brought before the court. The current court is seen as more moderate and led by more technocrats than the previous court.

Elections and parties

in 2006]] The 2004 Afghan presidential election, in which Hamid Karzai won in the first round with 55.4% of the votes, went relatively smoothly. However, the 2009 presidential election was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and widespread electoral fraud. The vote, along with elections for 420 provincial council seats, took place in August 2009, but remained unresolved during a lengthy period of vote counting and fraud investigation.

Two months later, under U.S. and ally pressure, a second round run-off vote between Karzai and remaining challenger Abdullah was announced for November 7, 2009, but on the 1st of November Abdullah announced that he would no longer be participating in the run-off because his demands for changes in the electoral commission had not been met, and claimed a transparent election would not be possible. A day later, officials of the election commission cancelled the run-off and declared Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan for another 5-year term. A number of government ministries are believed to be rife with corruption, including the Interior, Education and Health. President Karzai vowed to tackle the problem in November 2009, when he stated that "individuals who are involved in corruption will have no place in the government." A January 2010 report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime revealed that bribery consumes an amount equal to 23 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation. Citizens are forced by corrupt government culture to pay more than a third of their income in bribes.

Political divisions

Afghanistan is administratively divided into 34 provinces (wilayats), with each province having a capital and a governor in office. The provinces are further divided into about 398 smaller provincial districts, each of which normally covers a city or a number of villages. Each provincial district is represented by a sub-governor, usually called a district governor.

The provincial governors as well as the district governors are voted into office during the nation's presidential election, which takes place every five years. The provincial governors are representatives of the central government in Kabul and are responsible for all administrative and formal issues within their provinces. The provincial Chief of Police is appointed by the Ministry of Interior in Kabul and works together with the provincial governor on law enforcement for all the districts within the province.

There is an exception in the capital city of Kabul where the Mayor is selected directly by the President, and is completely independent from the Governor of Kabul.

The following is a list of all the 34 provinces of Afghanistan in alphabetical order and on the right is a map showing where each province is located: and every province is further divided into a number of districts]]

Badakhshan Badghis Baghlan Balkh Bamyan Daykundi Farah Faryab Ghazni Ghor Helmand Herat Jowzjan Kabul Kandahar Kapisa Khost

Konar Kunduz Laghman Logar Nangarhar Nimruz Nurestan Oruzgan Paktia Paktika Panjshir Parvan Samangan Sare Pol Takhar Wardak Zabol

Foreign relations and military

The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responsible for managing the foreign relations of Afghanistan. The nation has maintained good relations with the United States and other members of NATO since at least the 1920s. Afghanistan joined the United Nations on November 19, 1946, and has been a member since. In 2002, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan was established to help rebuild the country. Today, more than 22 NATO nations deploy over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan as a part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Apart from close military links, Afghanistan also enjoys strong economic relations with NATO members and other allies. The United States is the largest donor to Afghanistan, followed by Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, India and others. . Afghanistan-United States relations go back to at least the early 1920s.]]

Relations between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan often fluctuate and tensions between the two countries have existed since 1947. During the Taliban 1996 to 2001 rule, Pakistan was supporting the Taliban leaders against the Iranian-backed Northern Alliance. Though Pakistan maintains strong security and economic links with Afghanistan, dispute between the two countries remain due to Pakistani concerns over growing influence of rival India in Afghanistan and the continuing border dispute over the poorly marked Durand Line. Relations between the two strained further after the 2007 border skirmishes when Afghan officials alleged that Pakistani intelligence agencies were involved in some terrorist attacks on Afghanistan. Pakistan is a participant in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, pledging $250 million in various projects across the country.

Afghanistan has close historical, linguistic and cultural ties with neighboring Iran as both countries were part of Greater Persia before 1747. Afghanistan-Iran relations formally initiated after 1935 between Zahir Shah and Reza Shah, which soured after the rise of radical Sunni Taliban regime in 1997 but rebounded after the establishment of Karzai government. Iran has also actively participated in the Afghan reconstruction efforts but is accused at the same time by American and British politicians of secretly funding the Taliban against NATO-Afghan officials. Afghanistan also enjoys good relations with neighboring Central Asian nations, especially Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Relations between Afghanistan and India also go a long away back. India is often regarded as one of Afghanistan's most influential allies. Since 2002, India has extended more than $1.2 billion in military and other aid to Afghanistan. There are military ties between the two nations, some Afghan security forces are getting counter-insurgency training in India. India is also considering the deployment of some troops in Afghanistan.

The military of Afghanistan is under the Ministry of Defense, which includes the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Army Air Force. It currently has about 134,000 members and is expected to reach 260,000 in the coming years. They are trained and equipped by NATO countries, mainly by the United States armed forces. The ANA is divided into 7 major Corps, with the 201st Selab ("Flood") in Kabul being the main one. The ANA also has a special commando brigade which was started in 2007. The National Military Academy of Afghanistan serves as the main education institute for the militarymen of the country. A new $200 million Afghan Defense University (ADU) is under construction near the capital.

Economy

weavers in Herat Province]] Afghanistan is a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). It is an impoverished and least developed country, one of the world's poorest. As of 2009, the nation's GDP exchange rate stands at $14 billion and the GDP per capita is $1,000. Its unemployment rate is 35% and roughly 36% of its citizens live below the poverty line. About 42 percent of the population live on less than $1 a day, according to USAID. The economy has suffered greatly from the 1978 to the present conflict, while severe drought added to the nation's difficulties in 1998–2001. However, due to the infusion of multi-billion dollars in international assistance and investments, as well as remittances from expats, the economy has steadily improved, growing at approximately 12 percent per year during the past six years. It is also due to improvements in agricultural production, which is the backbone of the nation's economy since over 75% of its citizens are involved in this line of work.

Afghanistan is known for producing some of the finest pomegranates, grapes, apricots, melons, and several other fresh and dry fruits, including nuts. According to the World Bank, "economic growth has been strong and has generated better livelihoods" since late 2001. As much as one-third of the nations's GDP came from growing illicit drugs during the mid 2000s. Opium production in Afghanistan has soared to a record in 2007 with some 3.3 million Afghans reported to be involved in the business but then declined significantly in the years following. The Afghan government began programs to reduce the cultivation of poppy and by 2010 it was reported that 24 out of the 34 provinces are free from poppy cultivation.

One of the main drivers for the current economic recovery is the return of over 5 million Afghan expatriates, who brought with them fresh energy, entrepreneurship and wealth-creating skills as well as much needed funds to start up businesses. The Afghan rugs have become a popular product again and this gives the large number of rug weavers in the country a chance to earn more income. While the country's current account deficit is largely financed with the donor money, only a small portion is provided directly to the government budget. The rest is provided to non-budgetary expenditure and donor-designated projects through the United Nations system and non-governmental organizations.

The Afghan Ministry of Finance is focusing on improved revenue collection and public sector expenditure discipline. Since 2003, over sixteen new banks have opened in the country, including Afghanistan International Bank, Kabul Bank, Azizi Bank, Pashtany Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, First Micro Finance Bank, and others. Da Afghanistan Bank serves as the central bank of the nation and the "Afghani" (AFN) is the national currency, with an exchange rate of 50 Afghanis to 1 US dollar.

Energy and mining

According to recent U.S. Geological Surveys that were funded by the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Industry, Afghanistan may be possessing up to of natural gas, of petroleum and up to of natural gas liquids. Other recent reports show that the country has huge amounts of gold, copper, coal, iron ore and other minerals. In 2010, U.S. Pentagon officials along with American geologists revealed the discovery of nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan. Some have stated, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, that the untapped minerals could be as high as $3 trillion. The government of Afghanistan is preparing deals to extract its copper and iron reserves, which will earn billions of dollars in royalties and taxes every year for the next 100 years. These untapped resources could mark the turning point in Afghanistan's reconstruction efforts. Energy and mineral exports could generate the revenue that Afghan officials need to modernize the country's infrastructure, and expand economic opportunities for the beleaguered and fractious. If the Aghan state could generate even $10 billion per year from its mineral deposits, the country's gross national product would double and provide long-term funding for Afghan security forces and other critical needs.

Transport and communications

Ariana Afghan Airlines is the national airlines carrier, with domestic flights between Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-e Sharif. International flights include to Dubai, Frankfurt, Istanbul and a number of other Asian destinations. There are also limited domestic and international flight services available from the locally owned Kam Air, Pamir Airways and Safi Airways.

The country has limited rail service with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the north. There are two other railway projects currently in progress with neighboring nations, one is between Herat and Iran while another is to connect with Pakistan Railways.

Most citizens who travel far distances use long traveling bus services. Newer automobiles have recently become more widely available after the rebuilding of roads and highways. Vehicles are imported from the United Arab Emirates through Pakistan and Iran. Postal and package delivery services such as FedEx, DHL and others exist in major cities and towns.

Telecommunication services in the country are provided by Afghan Wireless, Etisalat, Roshan, MTN Group and Afghan Telecom. In 2006, the Afghan Ministry of Communications signed a 64.5 million agreement with ZTE for the establishment of a countrywide optical fiber cable network. As of 2008, the country has 460,000 telephone lines, 8.45 million mobile phone users and around 500,000 people (1.5% of the population) have internet access.

Demographics

As of July 2010, the population of Afghanistan is around 28,395,716, but it is unknown if the 3 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and Iran are included or not. A 2009 UN estimate shows that the Afghan population was 28,150,000 and a 2009–2010 nationwide statistical survey conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of Afghanistan has put it at 26 million but not counting some parts of the country due to insecurity.

A partial census conducted in 1979 showed roughly 15.5 million people living in the country. The Statistical Yearbook published in 1983 by the Babrak Karmal government claimed a total population of 15.96 million for 1981-82. Between 600,000 to 2 million Afghans were killed during the various 1979-2001 wars, majority of them during the Soviet war in the 1980s.

The only city in Afghanistan with over two million residents is its capital, Kabul. The other major cities in the country are, in order of population size, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, Jalalabad, Ghazni, Kunduz, Farah. Urban areas are experiencing rapid population growth following the return the return of over 5 million Afghan expats from Pakistan and Iran.

Ethnic groups

groups of Afghanistan]] Afghanistan is a multiethnic society. The population of the country is divided into a wide variety of ethnolinguistic groups. Because a systematic census has not been held in the nation in decades, exact figures about the size and composition of the various ethnic groups are unvailable. In this regard, the Encyclopædia Britannica states:}} An approximate distribution of the nation's total ethnic groups is shown in the line chart below: {| class="wikitable sortable" style="width:70%; float:left;" |+Ethnic groups in Afghanistan |- ! style="background:#ddf; width:15%;"|Ethnic group ! style="background:#ddf; width:20%;"| ! style="background:#ddf; width:20%;"| |- | Pashtun | align=center|42% | align=center|38-44 percent |- | Tajik | align=center|27% | align=center|25-26.3% (of this 1% are Qizilbash) |- | Hazara | align=center|9% | align=center|10-19 percent |- | Uzbek | align=center|9% | align=center|6-8% percent |- | Aimak | align=center|4% | align=center|500,000 to 800,000 |- | Turkmen | align=center|3% | align=center|2.5 percent |- | Baloch | align=center|2% | align=center|100,000 |- | Others (Pashai, Nuristani, Arab, Brahui, Pamiri, Gujjar, etc.) | align=center|4% | align=center|6.9 percent |}

The percentage numbers in the chart at the bottom are from recent national opinion polls aimed at knowing how Afghan citizens feel about the 2001–present US-led war, the current political situation, as well as the economic and social issues affecting their daily lives. One was conducted in 2006 by the Asia Foundation (with technical assistance by the Indian Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and the Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research) and the other between 2004 to 2009 by a combined effort of the broadcasting companies NBC News, BBC, and ARD.

The 2006 Asia Foundation survey involved 6,226 randomly selected Afghan citizens from 32 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. However, Uruzgan Province (representing 1.1 percent) and Zabul Province (representing 1.2 percent) were excluded from the survey because of security concerns. The margin of sampling error in that survey is 2.5 percent.

To questions about their ethnicity at the end of the questionnaires, the results of the total 7,760 Afghan citizens came as: {| class="wikitable sortable" style="width:55%; float:left;" |- ! style="background:#ddf; width:15%;"|Ethnic group ! style="background:#ddf; width:10%;"| Persian has always been the prestige language and as the main means of inter-ethnic communication it has maintained its status of lingua franca. Persian is the native tongue of various Afghan ethnic groups including the Tajiks, Afghanistan's second largest ethnic group, the Hazara, Aimak and Kizilbash. Pashto is the native tongue of the Pashtuns, the single largest ethno-linguistic group within Afghanistan. Other languages, such as Uzbek, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashayi and Nuristani languages (Ashkunu, Kamkata-viri, Vasi-vari, Tregami and Kalasha-ala), are used as native tongue by minority groups across the country and have official status in the regions where they are widely spoken. Minor languages also include Pamiri (Shughni, Munji, Ishkashimi and Wakhi), Brahui, Hindko, Kyrgyz, etc. A fair number of Afghans can also speak and understand Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi and English. Until the 1890s, the region around Nuristan was known as Kafiristan (land of the kafirs) because of its inhabitants: the Nuristani, an ethnically distinctive people who practiced animism, polytheism and shamanism.

Up until the mid-1980s, there were possibly about 50,000 Hindus and Sikhs living in different cities, mostly in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, and Ghazni.

There was also a small Jewish community in Afghanistan who emigrated to Israel and the United States by the end of the last century, and only one individual, Zablon Simintov, remains today.

Health and education

According to the Human Development Index, Afghanistan is the second least developed country in the world. Every half hour, an average of one woman dies from pregnancy-related complications, another dies of tuberculosis and 14 children die, largely from preventable causes. Before the start of the wars in 1978, the nation had an improving health system and a semi-modernized health care system in cities like Kabul. Ibn Sina Hospital and Ali Abad Hospital in Kabul were two of the leading health care institutions in Central Asia at the time. Following the Soviet invasion and the civil war that followed, the health care system was limited only to urban areas and was eventually destroyed. The Taliban government made some improvements in the late 1990s, but health care was not available for women during their six year rule. An estimated 80,000 citizens of the country have lost limbs, mainly as a result of landmines.

The nation's health care system began to improve dramatically since 2002, which is due to international support on the vaccination of children, training of medical staff. According to USAID, infant mortality rate has dropped by 33 percent and approximately 64 percent of the total population now has access to some form of health care. Most Afghans live within one hour travel to a health facility. Many hospitals and clincs have been built in the country over the last decade, with the most advanced treatments being available in Kabul. The French Medical Institute for Children and Indira Gandhi Childrens Hospital in Kabul are the leading children's hospitals in Afghanistan. The Jinnah Hospital in Kabul is also under construction at the moment, which is funded by the Government of Pakistan. There are also a number of well-equipped regional hospitals across the country that were built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and are run by the Afghan National Army.

Non-governmental charities such as Mahboba's promise assist orphans in association with governmental structures. According to Reuters, "Afghanistan's healthcare system is widely believed to be one of the country's success stories since reconstruction began." The nation has the highest infant mortality rate in the world – 257 deaths per 1,000 live births – and 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water. The Afghan Ministry of Public Health has ambitious plans to cut the infant mortality rate to 400 from 1,600 for every 100,000 live births by 2020.

One of the oldest schools in the country is the Habibia High School in Kabul. It was established by King Habibullah Khan in 1903 and helped educate students from the nation's elite class. In the 1920s, the German-funded Amani High School opened in Kabul, and about a decade later two French lycées (secondary schools) began, the AEFE and the Lycée Esteqlal. During the same period the Kabul University opened its doors for classes. Education was improving in the country by the late 1950s, during the rule of King Zahir Shah. However, after the Saur Revolution in 1978 until recent years, the education system of Afghanistan fell apart due to the wars. It was revived in the early months of 2002 after the US removed the Taliban and the Karzai administration came to power.

As of 2009 more than five million male and female students were enrolled in schools throughout the country. However, there are still significant obstacles to education in Afghanistan, stemming from lack of funding, unsafe school buildings and cultural norms. Furthermore, there is a great lack of qualified teachers, especially in rural areas. A lack of women teachers is another issue that concerns some Afghan parents, especially in more conservative areas. Some parents will not allow their daughters to be taught by men.

UNICEF estimates that more than 80 percent of females and around 50 percent of males lack access to education centers. According to the United Nations, 700 schools have been closed in the country because of poor security. Literacy of the entire population is estimated at 34%. Female literacy is 10%.

Approximately 17 percent of them test positive for illegal drugs. In some areas of the country, crimes have gone uninvestigated because of insufficient police or lack of equipment. In 2009, President Karzai created two anti-corruption units within the nation's Interior Ministry. Former Interior Minister Hanif Atmar told reporters that security officials from the U.S. (FBI), Britain (Scotland Yard) and the European Union will train prosecutors in the unit.

Helmand, Kandahar, and Oruzgan are the most dangerous provinces in Afghanistan due to its distance from Kabul as well as the drug trade that flourishes there. The Afghan Border Police are responsible for protecting the nation's borders, especially the Durand Line border, which is often used by criminals and terrorists. Every year many Afghan police officers are killed in the line of duty.

Culture

Afghans display pride in their religion, country, ancestry, and above all, their independence. Like other highlanders, Afghans are regarded with mingled apprehension and condescension, for their high regard for personal honor, for their clan loyalty and for their readiness to carry and use arms to settle disputes. As clan warfare and internecine feuding has been one of their chief occupations since time immemorial, this individualistic trait has made it difficult for foreign invaders to hold the region.

Afghanistan has a complex history that has survived either in its current cultures or in the form of various languages and monuments. However, many of the country's historic monuments have been damaged in recent wars. The two famous statues of Buddha in Bamyan Province were destroyed by the Taliban, who regarded them as idolatrous. Other famous sites include the cities of Kandahar, Herat, Ghazni and Balkh. The Minaret of Jam, in the Hari River valley, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. A cloak reputedly worn by Muhammad is stored inside the famous Mosque of the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed in Kandahar City.

Buzkashi is a national sport in Afghanistan. It is similar to polo and played by horsemen in two teams, each trying to grab and hold a goat carcass. Afghan hounds (a type of running dog) also originated in Afghanistan.

Although literacy levels are very low, classic Persian poetry plays a very important role in the Afghan culture. Poetry has always been one of the major educational pillars in Iran and Afghanistan, to the level that it has integrated itself into culture. Persian culture has, and continues to, exert a great influence over Afghan culture. Private poetry competition events known as "musha’era" are quite common even among ordinary people. Almost every homeowner owns one or more poetry collections of some sort, even if they are not read often.

Many of the famous Persian poets of the 10th to 15th centuries stem from what is now known as Afghanistan (then known as Khorasan), such as Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi (also known as Rumi or Mawlānā), Rābi'a Balkhi (the first poetess in the history of Persian literature), Khwaja Abdullah Ansari (from Herat), Nasir Khusraw (born near Balkh, died in Badakhshan), Jāmī of Herāt, Alī Sher Navā'ī, Sanā'ī Ghaznawi, Daqiqi Balkhi, Farrukhi Sistani, Unsuri Balkhi, Anvari, and many others. Moreover, some of the contemporary Persian language poets and writers, who are relatively well-known in Persian-speaking world, include Khalilullah Khalili, Sufi Ashqari, Sarwar Joya, Qahar Asey, Parwin Pazwak and others.

In addition to poets and authors, numerous Persian scientists and philosophers were born or worked in the region of present-day Afghanistan. Most notable was Avicenna (Abu Alī Hussein ibn Sīnā) whose paternal family hailed from Balkh. Ibn Sīnā, who travelled to Isfahan later in life to establish a medical school there, is known by some scholars as "the father of modern medicine". George Sarton called ibn Sīnā "the most famous scientist of Islam and one of the most famous of all races, places, and times." His most famous works are The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, also known as the Qanun. Ibn Sīnā's story even found way to the contemporary English literature through Noah Gordon's The Physician, now published in many languages.

Al-Farabi was another well-known philosopher and scientist of the 9th and 10th centuries, who, according to Ibn al-Nadim, was from the Faryab Province in Afghanistan. Other notable scientists and philosophers are Abu Rayhan Biruni (a notable astronomer, anthropologist, geographer, and mathematician of the Ghaznavid period who lived and died in Ghazni), Abu Zayd Balkhi (a polymath and a student of al-Kindi), Abu Ma'shar Balkhi (known as Albumasar or Albuxar in the west), and Abu Sa'id Sijzi (from Sistan).

Before the Taliban gained power, the city of Kabul was home to many musicians who were masters of both traditional and modern Afghan music, especially during the Nauroz-celebration. Kabul in the middle part of the 20th century has been likened to Vienna during the 18th and 19th centuries.

There are an estimated 60 major Pashtun tribes. The tribal system, which orders the life of most people outside metropolitan areas, is potent in political terms. Men feel a fierce loyalty to their own tribe, such that, if called upon, they would assemble in arms under the tribal chiefs and local clan leaders. In theory, under Islamic law, every believer has an obligation to bear arms at the ruler's call.

Heathcote considers the tribal system to be the best way of organizing large groups of people in a country that is geographically difficult, and in a society that, from a materialistic point of view, has an uncomplicated lifestyle. Nomads contribute importantly to the national economy in terms of meat, skins and wool.

Media

The Afghan media began in the early 20th century, with the first newspaper being published in 1906. By the 1920s, Radio Kabul was broadcasting local radio services. Afghanistan National Television was launched in 1974 but was closed in 1996 when the media was tightly controlled by the Taliban. Since 2002, press restrictions were gradually relaxed and private media diversified. Freedom of expression and the press is promoted in the 2004 constitution and censorship is banned, though defaming individuals or producing material contrary to the principles of Islam is prohibited. In 2008, Reporters Without Borders listed the media environment as 156 out of 173, with 1st being most free. 400 publications are now registered, at least 15 local Afghan television channels and 60 radio stations. Foreign radio stations, such as Voice of America and BBC World Service, also broadcast into the country.

Notes

{| |- |valign="top"|a. |valign="top"|Other terms that can be used as demonyms are Afghani and Afghanistani. |- |valign="top"|b. |valign="top"|The Government of India also considers Afghanistan to be a bordering country. This is because it considers the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir to be a part of India including the portion bordering Afghanistan. A ceasefire sponsored by the United Nations in 1948 froze the positions of Indian and Pakistani-held territory. As a consequence, the region bordering Afghanistan is in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. |}

See also

Afghanistanism

Bibliography of Afghanistan

International rankings of Afghanistan

List of Afghanistan-related topics

References

Bibliography

External links

Category:Central Asian countries Category:Iranian Plateau Category:Islamic republics Category:Landlocked countries Category:Least Developed Countries Category:Organisation of the Islamic Conference members Category:Middle Eastern countries Category:Persian-speaking countries and territories Category:South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation member states Category:South Asian countries Category:Southwest Asian countries Category:States and territories established in 1919 Category:Territories under military occupation

Coordinates	41°10′″N147°31′″N
Name	Angelina Jolie
Caption	Jolie at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010
Birth name	Angelina Jolie Voight
Birth date	June 04, 1975
Birth place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, humanitarian
Years active	1982; 1993–present
Spouse	Jonny Lee Miller (1996–1999)
Partner	Brad Pitt (2005–present)
Parents	Jon VoightMarcheline Bertrand (deceased)
Children	3 sons, 3 daughters
Height	5' 8" (1.73 m)

Angelina Jolie ( ; born June 4, 1975), née Angelina Jolie Voight, is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. Jolie promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She has been cited as one of the world's most attractive people, as well as the world's "most beautiful" woman, titles for which she has received substantial media attention.

Though she made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in the 1982 film Lookin' to Get Out, Jolie's acting career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999). Jolie achieved wider fame after her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft in (2001), and since then has established herself as one of the best-known and highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. She has had her biggest commercial successes with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and the animated film Kung Fu Panda (2008).

Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie currently lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship that has attracted worldwide media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, as well as three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne.

Early life and family

Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is the niece of singer-songwriter Chip Taylor, sister of James Haven and the goddaughter of actors Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. On her father's side, Jolie is of Czechoslovak and German descent, and on her mother's side she is French Canadian and is said to be of Iroquois ancestry. However, Voight has claimed Bertrand was "not seriously Iroquois", and they merely said it to enhance her exotic background.

After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother were raised by their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions and moved with them to Palisades, New York. As a child, Jolie regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been influenced by her father. When she was eleven years old, the family moved back to Los Angeles and Jolie decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions.

At the age of 14, she dropped out of her acting classes and dreamed of becoming a funeral director. During this period, she wore black clothing, dyed her hair purple and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend.

She later recalled her time as a student at Beverly Hills High School (and later Moreno High School), and her feeling of isolation among the children of some of the area's more affluent families. Jolie's mother survived on a more modest income, and Jolie often wore second-hand clothes. She was teased by other students who also targeted her for her distinctive features, for being extremely thin, and for wearing glasses and braces.

Jolie was estranged from her father for many years. The two tried to reconcile and he appeared with her in (2001). In August of the same year, Voight claimed that his daughter had "serious mental problems" on Access Hollywood. Jolie later indicated that she no longer wished to pursue a relationship with her father, and said, "My father and I don't speak. I don't hold any anger toward him. I don't believe that somebody's family becomes their blood. Because my son's adopted, and families are earned." She stated that she did not want to publicize her reasons for her estrangement from her father, but because she had adopted her son, she did not think it was healthy for her to associate with Voight. In February 2010, Jolie publicly reunited with her father when he visited her while filming The Tourist in Venice.

Career

Early work: 1993–1997

Jolie began working as a fashion model when she was 14 years old, modeling mainly in Los Angeles, New York and London. During that time she appeared in several music videos, namely those by Lenny Kravitz ("Stand by My Woman"; 1991), Antonello Venditti ("Alta Marea"; 1991), Jeff Healey ("Lost in Your Eyes"; 1992), The Lemonheads ("It's About Time"; 1993), and Meat Loaf ("Rock & Roll Dreams Come Through"; 1993). At the age of 16, Jolie returned to theatre and played her first role as a German dominatrix. She began to learn from her father, as she noticed his method of observing people to become like them. Their relationship during this time was less strained, with Jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens". The movie failed to make a profit at the box-office, but developed a cult following after its video release.

She appeared as Gina Malacici in the 1996 comedy Love Is All There Is, a modern-day loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among two rival Italian family restaurant owners in the Bronx, New York. In the road movie Mojave Moon (1996) she was a youngster, named Eleanor Rigby, who falls for Danny Aiello's character, while he takes a shine to her mother, played by Anne Archer. In 1996, Jolie also portrayed Margret "Legs" Sadovsky, one of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond in the film Foxfire after they beat up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. The Los Angeles Times wrote about her performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype. Though the story is narrated by Maddy, Legs is the subject and the catalyst."

In 1997, Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the thriller Playing God, set in the Los Angeles underworld. The movie was not received well by critics and Roger Ebert noted that "Angelina Jolie finds a certain warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too nice to be [a criminal's] girlfriend, and maybe she is." She then appeared in the television movie True Women, a historical romantic drama set in the American West, and based on the book by Janice Woods Windle. That year she also appeared in the music video for "Anybody Seen My Baby?" by the Rolling Stones.

Breakthrough: 1997–2000

Jolie's career prospects began to improve after her performance as Cornelia Wallace in the 1997 biographical film George Wallace for which she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Gary Sinise starred as Alabama Governor George Wallace. The film, directed by John Frankenheimer, was praised by critics and, among other awards, received the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries/Motion Picture made for TV. She played the second wife of the former segregationist governor who was shot and paralyzed while running in 1972 for U.S. President.

In 1998, Jolie starred in HBO's Gia, portraying supermodel Gia Carangi. The film depicted a world of sex, drugs and emotional drama, and chronicled the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a result of her drug addiction, and her decline and death from AIDS. Vanessa Vance from Reel.com noted, "Angelina Jolie gained wide recognition for her role as the titular Gia, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is fierce in her portrayal—filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation—and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed." For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award. In accordance with Lee Strasberg's method acting, Jolie reportedly preferred to stay in character in between scenes during many of her early films, and as a result had gained a reputation for being difficult to deal with. While shooting Gia, she told her then-husband Jonny Lee Miller that she would not be able to phone him: "I'd tell him: 'I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you for weeks.'"

Following Gia, Jolie moved to New York and stopped acting for a short time, because she felt that she had "nothing else to give". She enrolled at New York University to study filmmaking and attended writing classes. She described it as "just good for me to collect myself" on Inside the Actors Studio.

Jolie returned to film as Gloria McNeary in the 1998 gangster movie Hell's Kitchen, and later that year appeared in Playing by Heart, part of an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe and Jon Stewart. The film received predominantly positive reviews and Jolie was praised in particular. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble." Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award by the National Board of Review.

In 1999, she starred in Mike Newell's comedy-drama Pushing Tin, co-starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Jolie played Thornton's seductive wife. The film received a mixed reception from critics and Jolie's character was particularly criticized. The Washington Post wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie), a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of turquoise rings and gets real lonely when Russell spends entire nights away from home." She then worked with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector (1999), an adapted crime novel written by Jeffery Deaver. Jolie played Amelia Donaghy, a police officer haunted by her cop father's suicide, who reluctantly helps Washington track down a serial killer. The movie grossed $151 million worldwide,

Jolie next took the supporting role of the sociopathic Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted (1999), a film that tells the story of mental patient Susanna Kaysen, and which was adapted from Kaysen's original memoir of the same name. While Winona Ryder played the main character in what was hoped to be a comeback for her, the film instead marked Jolie's final breakthrough in Hollywood. She won her third Golden Globe Award, her second Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Variety noted, "Jolie is excellent as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to be far more instrumental than the doctors in Susanna's rehabilitation".

In 2000, Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster, Gone In 60 Seconds, in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, ex-girlfriend of car-thief Nicolas Cage. The role was small, and the Washington Post criticized that "all she does in this movie is stand around, cooling down, modeling those fleshy, pulsating muscle-tubes that nest so provocatively around her teeth." She later explained that the film was a welcome relief after the heavy role of Lisa Rowe, and it became her highest grossing movie up until then, earning $237 million internationally. The movie was an international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide, In 2002, she played Lanie Kerrigan in Life or Something Like It, a film about an ambitious TV reporter who is told that she will die in a week. The film was poorly received by critics, though Jolie's performance received positive reviews. CNN's Paul Clinton wrote, "Jolie is excellent in her role. Despite some of the ludicrous plot points in the middle of the film, this Academy Award–winning actress is exceedingly believable in her journey towards self-discovery and the true meaning of fulfilling life."

Jolie reprised her role as Lara Croft in in 2003. The sequel, while not as lucrative as the original, earned $156 million at the international box-office.

at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007]]

In 2004, Jolie starred alongside Ethan Hawke in the thriller Taking Lives. She portrayed Illeana Scott, an FBI profiler summoned to help Montreal law enforcement hunt down a serial killer. The movie received mixed reviews and The Hollywood Reporter concluded, "Angelina Jolie plays a role that definitely feels like something she has already done, but she does add an unmistakable dash of excitement and glamour." She also provided the voice of Lola, an angelfish in the animated DreamWorks movie Shark Tale (2004) and she had a brief appearance in Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), a science fiction adventure film shot with actors entirely in front of a bluescreen. Also in 2004, Jolie played Olympias in Alexander, Oliver Stone's biographical film about the life of Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, with Stone attributing its poor reception to disapproval of the depiction of Alexander's bisexuality, but it succeeded internationally, with revenue of $139 million outside the United States. The movie earned $478 million worldwide, one of the biggest hits of 2005.

, November 2007]]

In 2007, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary A Place in Time, which captures the life in 27 locations around the globe during a single week. The film was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and is intended to be distributed through the National Education Association, mainly in high schools. Jolie starred as Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's documentary-style drama A Mighty Heart (2007), about the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. The film is based on Mariane Pearl's memoirs of the same name and had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter described Jolie's performance as "well-measured and moving", played "with respect and a firm grasp on a difficult accent." The film earned her a fourth Golden Globe Award and a third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Jolie also played Grendel's mother in Robert Zemeckis' animated epic Beowulf (2007) which was created through the motion capture technique.

Jolie co-starred alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in the 2008 action movie Wanted, an adaptation of a graphic novel by Mark Millar. The film received predominately favorable reviews and proved to be an international success, earning $342 million worldwide. It is based on the true story of a woman in 1928 Los Angeles who is reunited with her kidnapped son — only to realize he is an impostor. The Chicago Tribune noted, "Jolie really shines in the calm before the storm, the scenes [...] when one patronizing male authority figure after another belittles her at their peril." Jolie received her second Academy Award nomination, and also was nominated for a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award.

It was confirmed that Jolie would star as Cleopatra in the remake of Queen of the Nile, Cleopatra: A Life, based on the book by Stacy Schiff.

Humanitarian work

Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia. She eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots. In the coming months she returned to Cambodia for two weeks and later met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan where she donated $1 million for Afghan refugees in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal. She insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits. Jolie was named a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador on August 27, 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.

Jolie has been on field missions around the world and met with refugees and internally displaced persons in more than 20 countries. Asked what she hoped to accomplish, she stated, "Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon." In 2002, Jolie visited the Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian refugees in Ecuador. Jolie later went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan. She also met with Angolan refugees while filming Beyond Borders in Namibia.

In 2003, Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where she traveled to western border camps hosting Congolese refugees, and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka, meeting Tamil refugee orphans in Jaffna. She later concluded a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus. Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions (2001–2002). During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003 she asked to visit Iraqi refugees in Jordan's eastern desert and later that month she went to Egypt to meet Sudanese refugees.

On her first U.N. trip within the United States, Jolie went to Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix. She flew to Chad in June 2004, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four months later she returned to the region, this time going directly into West Darfur. Also in 2004, Jolie met with Afghan refugees in Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays, she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut, as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.

In 2005, Jolie visited Pakistani camps containing Afghani refugees, and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; she returned to Pakistan with Brad Pitt during the Thanksgiving weekend in November to see the impact of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. In 2006, Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. While filming A Mighty Heart in India, Jolie met with Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi. She spent Christmas Day 2006 with Colombian refugees in San José, Costa Rica where she handed out presents. In 2007, Jolie returned to Chad for a two-day mission to assess the deteriorating security situation for refugees from Darfur; Jolie and Pitt subsequently donated $1 million to three relief organizations in Chad and Darfur. Jolie also made her first visit to Syria and twice went to Iraq, where she met with Iraqi refugees as well as multi-national forces and U.S. troops.

at World Refugee Day, June 2005]]

Over time, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. She has regularly attended World Refugee Day in Washington, D.C., and she was an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005 and 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital, where she met with members of Congress at least 20 times from 2003. Jolie also pushed for several bills to aid refugees and vulnerable children in the Third World. Jolie also co-chairs the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, founded at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006, which helps fund education programs for children affected by conflict.

Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In 2003, she was the first recipient of the newly created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2005, she was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA. Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there. In 2007, Jolie became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she received the Freedom Award by the International Rescue Committee.

After she and Pitt donated $1 million to relief efforts in Haiti following a devastating 2010 earthquake, Jolie visited Haiti and the Dominican Republic to discuss the future of relief efforts. She also donated $100,000 to the United Nations for the 2010 August flood relief operations in Pakistan.

Relationships

On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film Hackers (1995). She attended her wedding in black rubber pants and a white shirt, upon which she had written the groom's name in her blood. Jolie and Miller separated the following year and subsequently divorced on February 3, 1999. They remained on good terms and Jolie later explained, "It comes down to timing. I think he's the greatest husband a girl could ask for. I'll always love him, we were simply too young." Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27, 2003. Asked about the sudden dissolution of their marriage, Jolie stated, "It took me by surprise, too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it's scary but... I think it can happen when you get involved and you don't know yourself yet."

at the Deauville American Film Festival in 2007]]

Jolie has said in interviews that she is bisexual and has long acknowledged that she had a sexual relationship with her Foxfire (1996) co-star Jenny Shimizu, "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her." In 2003, asked if she was bisexual, Jolie responded, "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!"

In early 2005, Jolie was involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the reason for the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an affair during filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). She denied this on several occasions, but admitted that they "fell in love" on the set. In an interview in 2005, she explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife." In September 2010, Jolie said in an interview with Sanjay Gupta on CNN that Brad Pitt was the only one she could really talk to.

Children

On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, seven-month-old Maddox Chivan.

Jolie adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia, Zahara Marley, on July 6, 2005. Zahara was born on January 8, 2005. She was originally named Yemsrach by her mother, and was later given the legal name Tena Adam at an orphanage. Jolie adopted her from Wide Horizons For Children orphanage in Addis Ababa. Shortly after they returned to the United States, Zahara was hospitalized for dehydration and malnutrition. In 2007, media outlets reported Zahara's biological mother, Mentewabe Dawit, was still alive and wanted her daughter back, but she later denied these reports, saying she thought Zahara was "very fortunate" to be adopted by Jolie. On January 19, 2006 a judge in California approved Pitt's request to legally adopt Jolie's two children. Their surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".

Jolie gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel, in Swakopmund, Namibia, by a scheduled caesarean section, on May 27, 2006. Pitt confirmed that their newly born daughter would have a Namibian passport, and Jolie decided to sell the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these valuable photographs. People paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million. All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Jolie and Pitt. Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it was the first infant re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds.

On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a three-year-old boy from Vietnam, Pax Thien, who was born on November 29, 2003 and abandoned at birth at a local hospital, where he was initially named Pham Quang Sang. Jolie adopted the boy from the Tam Binh orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City. She revealed that his first name, Pax, was suggested by her mother before her death.

Following months of tabloid speculation, Jolie confirmed, at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, that she was expecting twins. She gave birth to a boy, Knox Léon, and a girl, Vivienne Marcheline, by caesarean section at the Lenval hospital in Nice, France, on July 12, 2008. The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to People and Hello! for $14 million—the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The money went to the Jolie/Pitt Foundation.

Jolie consciously furthers her children understanding not only what is going on in their home countries, but also the nature of the states their siblings come from. and plans to familiarize them with all faiths (in particular Christendom, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism) so that they would be able to decide themselves which religion they want to choose. She is also engaged on familiarizing all of her children with the French language.

In the media

Jolie appeared in the media from an early age due to her famous father Jon Voight. At seven she had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out, a movie co-written by and starring her father, and in 1986 and 1988 she attended the Academy Awards with him. However, when she started her acting career, Jolie decided not to use "Voight" as a stage name, because she wished to establish her own identity as an actress. She quickly became a tabloid's favorite, since she presented herself as very outspoken in interviews, discussing her love life and her interest in BDSM openly, it was also noted that her association with Brad Pitt had "accentuated" the frequency of requests for Jolie's looks. The media speculated that Jolie is a Buddhist, but she said that she teaches Buddhism to her son Maddox because she considers it part of his culture. When asked in 2000 if there was a God, she said, "For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn't need to be a God for me."

in February 2009]]

Starting in 2005, her relationship with Brad Pitt became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After Jolie confirmed her pregnancy in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity" as Reuters described it in their story "The Brangelina fever". Trying to avoid the media attention, the couple went to Namibia for the birth of Shiloh, "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ", as it had been described. Two years later, Jolie's second pregnancy again fueled a media frenzy. For the two weeks she spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.

Today, Jolie is one of the best known celebrities around the world. According to the Q Score, in 2000, subsequent to her Oscar win, 31% of respondents in the United States said Jolie was familiar to them, by 2006 she was familiar to 81% of Americans. Jolie was among the Time 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2006 and 2008. She was described as the world's most beautiful woman in the 2006 "100 Most Beautiful" issue of People, voted the greatest sex symbol of all time in the British Channel 4 television show The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols in 2007, She also topped Forbes' annual Celebrity 100 list in 2009; she had previously been ranked No. 14 in 2007, and No. 3 in 2008. Jolie was named one of the 50 People Who Matter 2010 by New Statesman Magazine.

Tattoos

visible, June 2007]]

Jolie's numerous tattoos have been the subject of much media attention and have often been addressed by interviewers. Jolie stated that, while she is not opposed to film nudity, the large number of tattoos on her body have forced filmmakers to become more creative when planning nude or love scenes. Make-up has been used to cover up the tattoos in many of her productions. Jolie has thirteen known tattoos, among them the Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages", which she got together with her mother, the Arabic language phrase "العزيمة" (strength of will), the Latin proverb "quod me nutrit me destruit" (what nourishes me destroys me), and a Yantra prayer written in the ancient Khmer script for her son Maddox. She also has six sets of geographical coordinates on her upper left arm indicating the birthplaces of her children. Over time she covered or lasered several of her tattoos, including "Billy Bob", the name of her former husband Billy Bob Thornton, a Chinese character for death (死), and a window on her lower back; she explained that she removed the window, because, while she used to spend all of her time looking out through windows wishing to be outside, she now lives there all of the time.

Filmography

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" |- ! scope="col" | Title ! scope="col" | Year ! scope="col" | Role ! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes |- ! scope="row" | Lookin' to Get Out | 1982 | Tosh | |- ! scope="row" | | 1993 | Angela | 2 minute short film |- ! scope="row" | | 1993 | Alice | 2 minute short film |- ! scope="row" | Cyborg 2 | 1993 | Casella "Cash" Reese | |- ! scope="row" | Without Evidence | 1995 | Jodie Swearingen | |- ! scope="row" | Hackers | 1995 | Kate "Acid Burn" Libby | |- ! scope="row" | Love Is All There Is | 1996 | Gina Malacici | |- ! scope="row" | Mojave Moon | 1996 | Eleanor "Elie" Rigby | |- ! scope="row" | Foxfire | 1996 | Margret "Legs" Sadovsky | |- ! scope="row" | True Women (TV) | 1997 | Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods | Television |- ! scope="row" | George Wallace (TV) | 1997 | Cornelia Wallace | Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TelevisionNominated—Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie |- ! scope="row" | Playing God | 1997 | Claire | |- ! scope="row" | Gia (TV) | 1998 | Gia Marie Carangi | Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for TelevisionScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television MovieNominated—Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie |- ! scope="row" | Hell's Kitchen | 1998 | Gloria McNeary | |- ! scope="row" | Playing by Heart | 1998 | Joan | National Board of Review Award – Breakthrough Performance |- ! scope="row" | Pushing Tin | 1998 | Mary Bell | |- ! scope="row" | | 1999 | Amelia Donaghy | |- ! scope="row" | Girl, Interrupted | 1999 | Lisa Rowe | Academy Award for Best Supporting ActressBroadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role – Motion PictureNominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress |- ! scope="row" | Gone in 60 Seconds | 2000 | Sara "Sway" Wayland | |- ! scope="row" | | 2001 | Lara Croft | Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Performance – FemaleNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Fight |- ! scope="row" | Original Sin | 2001 | Julia Russell | |- ! scope="row" | Life or Something Like It | 2002 | Lanie Kerrigan | |- ! scope="row" | | 2003 | Lara Croft | |- ! scope="row" | Beyond Borders | 2003 | Sarah Jordan | |- ! scope="row" | Taking Lives | 2004 | Illeana Scott | |- ! scope="row" | Shark Tale | 2004 | Lola | Voice |- ! scope="row" | Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow | 2004 | Francesca "Franky" Cook | People's Choice Award – Favorite Female Action Star |- ! scope="row" | (TV) | 2004 | Revolutionary | Cameo |- ! scope="row" | Alexander | 2004 | Olympias | |- ! scope="row" | Mr. & Mrs. Smith | 2005 | Jane Smith | MTV Movie Award for Best FightNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best KissNominated—People's Choice Award – Favorite Female Movie StarNominated—People's Choice Award – Favorite Female Action StarNominated—People's Choice Award – Favorite On-Screen Match-Up (with Brad Pitt) |- ! scope="row" | | 2006 | Margaret Russell | |- ! scope="row" | | 2007 | Mariane Pearl | Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated—Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead FemaleNominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated—Online Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role – Motion Picture |- ! scope="row" | Beowulf | 2007 | Grendel's mother | Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Villain |- ! scope="row" | Kung Fu Panda | 2008 | Master Tigress | Voice |- ! scope="row" | Wanted | 2008 | Fox | People's Choice Award – Favorite Female Action StarNominated—People's Choice Award – Favorite Female Movie StarNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Performance – FemaleNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best KissNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best WTF Moment |- ! scope="row" | Changeling | 2008 | Christine Collins | Saturn Award for Best ActressNominated—Academy Award for Best ActressNominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleNominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role – Motion Picture |- ! scope="row" | Salt | 2010 | Evelyn Salt | |- ! scope="row" | | 2010 | Elise Ward | Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |- ! scope="row" | | 2011 | Master Tigress | Voice (post-production) |}

Awards

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" ! scope="col" | Year ! scope="col" | Award ! scope="col" | Category ! scope="col" | Film ! scope="col" | Result |- ! scope="row" | 1998 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie | George Wallace | |- ! scope="row" | 1998 | Golden Globe Award | Best Supporting Actress – Series/Miniseries/TV Movie | George Wallace | |- ! scope="row" | 1998 | National Board of Review Award | Breakthrough Performance – Female | Playing by Heart | |- ! scope="row" | 1998 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie | Gia | |- ! scope="row" | 1999 | Golden Globe Award | Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV | Gia | |- ! scope="row" | 1999 | Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries | Gia | |- ! scope="row" | 2000 | Golden Globe Award | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Girl, Interrupted | |- ! scope="row" | 2000 | Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role | Girl, Interrupted | |- ! scope="row" | 2000 | Academy Award | Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role | Girl, Interrupted | |- ! scope="row" | 2004 | People's Choice Award | Favourite Female Action Star | Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow | |- ! scope="row" | 2008 | Golden Globe Award | Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | | |- ! scope="row" | 2008 | Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | | |- ! scope="row" | 2009 | Golden Globe Award | Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Changeling | |- ! scope="row" | 2009 | Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | Changeling | |- ! scope="row" | 2009 | BAFTA Award | Best Actress in a Leading Role | Changeling | |- ! scope="row" | 2009 | Academy Award | Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role | Changeling | |- ! scope="row" | 2011 | Golden Globe Award | Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy | The Tourist | |}

References

Notes

Further reading

McFay, Edgar. Angelina Jolie: Angel in Disguise. Icon Press, 2005. ISBN 1-894864-25-5

Jolie, Angelina. Notes from My Travels. Pocket Books, 2003. ISBN 0-7434-7023-0.

Wills, Dominic. Angelina Jolie biography. Tiscali.co.uk. Accessed September 8, 2008.

UNHCR. Angelina Jolie UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Fact Sheet. UNHCR.org. Accessed September 8, 2008.

UNHCR. Field Missions. UNHCR.org. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Bandon, Alexandra. Following, Ambivalently, in Mom or Dad's Footsteps. The New York Times. August 25, 1996. Accessed February 25, 2009.

Rochlin, Margy. Angelina Jolie: For a Fighting Machine, a 'Bad Girl' Image Is Good. The New York Times. June 17, 2001. Accessed January 16, 2009.

Heath, Chris. Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic. Rolling Stone. July 2001. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Van Meter, Jonathan. Body Beautiful. Vogue. April 2002. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Van Meter, Jonathan. Learning to Fly. Vogue. March 2004. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Schruers, Fred. Angelina Jolie. Premiere Magazine. October 2004. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Sessums, Kevin. Wild at heart. Allure. November 2004. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Swibel, Matthew. Bad Girl Interrupted. Forbes. June 12, 2006. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Van Meter, Jonathan. The Bold and the Beautiful. Vogue. January 2007. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Palmer, Martin. Angelina Almighty. The Times. September 8, 2007. Accessed September 8, 2008.

Harris, Mark. The Mommy Track. The New York Times. October 15, 2008. Accessed January 16, 2009.

Barnes, Brooks. Angelina Jolie’s Carefully Orchestrated Image. The New York Times. November 20, 2008. Accessed November 24, 2008.

External links

UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie, official homepage at UNHCR.org

Angelina Jolie's Refugee Journals, Jolie's journals (2002–2005) at UNHCR.org

Journey Through Eastern Congo, multimedia journal, narrated by Jolie

Interviews of Angelina Jolie by Charlie Rose

Category:United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassadors Category:Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actress Golden Globe winners Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Female aviators Category:American aviators Category:Bisexual actors Category:LGBT people from the United States Category:American film producers Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:American female models Category:American writers Category:Armenian philanthropists Category:American humanitarians Category:Actors from Los Angeles, California Category:American actors of German descent Category:American people of Slovak descent Category:American people of French-Canadian descent Category:People of Iroquois descent Category:Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute alumni Category:1975 births Category:Living people Category:American actors of French descent