Corporate DispatchPro Cover Story
Where is Afghanistan? Google searches for Afghanistan exploded by ten times in August as foreign affairs made a rare foray into mainstream news across the globe. The Taliban stunned the world with its rapid takeover of the South Asian country, the second time in 25 years. The intelligence community was aware of the risks but expected the US-trained and equipped Afghan forces to hold down the Taliban for at least 18 months. Instead, the army capitulated without a fight and the Islamist group captured Kabul in less than three months. The turn of events left the US and its allies to coordinate a complicated exit in a hostile environment and against a nearimpossible deadline. Tens of thousands of foreign nationals and Afghan citizens are scrambling to flee the country before the door shuts on them on August 31. To the Afghan people, this is the fifth major shift in five decades. The country was declared a republic when a non-violent coup abolished the monarchy in 1973, but unrest soon gripped the country and another coup – a bloody one this time – installed a new MarxistLeninist administration by 1978. The new revolutionary agenda clashed with traditional Islamic values that had flourished for centuries and the discontent spread to almost all provinces. The tension led Soviet Russia to cross the border and invade its southern neighbour in 1979, at the height of the Cold War. Wary of the threat posed by the Red Army in the region, the United States threw its support behind some factions of the Mujahideen openly fighting the new occupiers. The situation led to untold 3
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