Definitions of terrorism

•terror - panic: an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety

•terror - a person who inspires fear or dread; "he was the terror of the
neighborhood"
•terror - a very troublesome child
•terror - the use of extreme fear in order to coerce people (especially
for political reasons); "he used terror to make them confess"

• the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against

civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or
ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or
coercion or instilling fear.

• the unofficial or unuthorizeed use of violence and intimidation in

the pursuit of politicalaims

Social Problems in afghanistan.

Civil war has brought a variety of social ills in Afghanistan, such as

poverty, interethnic strife, inequality of women, and widespread
thievery, kidnapping, and banditry. Blood feuds handed down through
generations are legendary, and revenge is regarded as a necessary
redress of wrongs. The civil war has strengthened these tendencies.
The ongoing civil war had continued to kill, wound, and displace
hundreds of thousands of civilians. Kabul has been largely without
electricity since 1994. Water, phones, and sewage systems have
been destroyed. Years of war have separated and impoverished
extended families that traditionally cared for widows and fatherless
children. Now many are left to fend for themselves. Some provinces
began experiencing famine in the 1990s and diseases of malnutrition
are being reported for the first time in decades.
 history of terrorism in afghanistan
The history of terrorism in Afghanistan, including the development of
the Afghan mujahideen, and the beginnings of Al Qaeda during the
Afghan Soviet war.

war in afghanistan

War in Afghanistan - - the History behind the

U.S. War in Afghanistan

1979: Soviet Forces Enter Afghanistan

Many would argue that the story of how 9/11 came about goes back,
at least, to 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, with
which it shares a border.

Afghanistan had experienced several coups since 1973, when the

Afghan monarchy was overthrown by Daud Khan, who was
sympathetic to Soviet overtures.

Subsequent coups reflected struggles within Afghanistan among

factions with different ideas about how Afghanistan should be
governed and whether it should be communist, and with degrees
warmth toward the Soviet Union. The Soviets intervened following the
overthrow of a pro-communist leader. In late December 1979, after
several months of evident military preparation, they invaded
Afganistan.

At that time, the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in
the Cold War, a global competition for the fealty of other nations. The
United States was, thus, deeply interested in whether the Soviet
Union would succeed in establishing a communist government loyal
to Moscow in Afghanistan. In order to forestall that possibility, the
United States began funding insurgent forces to oppose the Soviets.

1979-1989: Afghan Mujahideen Battle the

Soviets
The U.S.-funded Afghan insurgents were called mujahideen, an
Arabic word that means "strugglers" or "strivers." The word has its
orgins in Islam, and is related to the word jihad, but in the context of
the Afghan war, it may be best understood as referring to
"resistance."

The mujahideen were organized into different political parties, and

armed and supported by different countries, including Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan, as well as the United States, and they gained
significantly in power and money during the course of the Afghan-
Soviet war.

The legendary fierceness of the mujahideen fighters, their stringent,

extreme version of Islam and their cause—expelling the Soviet
foreigners—drew interest and support from Arab Muslims seeking an
opportunity to experience, and experiment with, waging jihad.

Among those drawn to Afghanistan were a wealthy, ambitious, and

pious young Saudi named Osama bin Laden and the head of the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization, Ayman Al Zawahiri.

1980s: Osama bin Laden Recruits

Arabs for Jihad in Afghanistan
The idea that the 9/11 attacks have their roots in the Soviet-Afghan
war comes from bin Laden's role in it. During much of the war he, and
Ayman Al Zawahiri, the Egyptian head of Islamic Jihad, an Egyptian
group, lived in neighboring Pakistan. There, they cultivated Arab
recruits to fight with the Afghan mujahideen. This, loosely, was the
beginning of the network of roving jihadists that would become Al
Qaeda later.
It was also in this period that bin Laden's ideology, goals and the role
of jihad within them developed.

1996: Taliban Take Over Kabul, and

End Mujahideen Rule
By 1989, the mujahideen had driven the Soviets from Afghanistan,
and three years later, in 1992, they managed to wrest control of the
government in Kabul from the Marxist president, Muhammad
Najibullah.

Severe infighting among the mujahideen factions continued, however,

under the presidency of mujahid leader Burhanuddin Rabbani. Their
war against each other devastated Kabul: tens of thousands of
civilians lost their lives, and infrastructure was destroyed by rocket
fire.

This chaos, and the exhaustion of the Afghans, permitted the Taliban
to gain power. Cultivated by Pakistan, the Taliban emerged first in
Kandahar, gained control of Kabul in 1996 and controlled most of the
entire country by 1998. Their extremely severe laws based on
retrograde interpretations of the Quran, and absolute disregard for
human rights, were repugnant to the world community.

2001: U.S. Airstrikes Topple Taliban

Government, But Not Taliban Insurgency
On October 7, 2001, military strikes against Afghanistan were
launched by the United States and an international coalition that
included Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany and France. The
attack was military retaliation for the September 11, 2001 attacks by
Al Qaeda on American targets. It was called Operation Enduring
Freedom-Afghanistan. The attack followed several weeks of
diplomatic effort to have al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, handed
over by the Taliban government.

At 1pm on the afternoon of the 7th, President Bush addressed the

United States, and the world:
Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun
strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military
installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully
targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a
terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the
Taliban regime. . . .
The Taliban were toppled shortly thereafter, and a government
headed by Hamid Karzai installed. There were initial claims that the
brief war had been successful. But the insurgent Taliban emerged in
2006 in force, and begun using suicide tactics copied from jihadist
groups elsewhere in the region.

2008: Bombing of India

Embassy in Kabul
The Indian Embassy in Kabul was attacked by suicide bombing in the
summer of 2008. The attack killed 60 people. The attack was notable
for accusations that followed immediately that Pakistan's intelligence
agency, the Interservices Intelligence, had a hand in the attack.

Where:

Indian Embassy, Kabul, Afghanistan

When:

July 7, 2008
The Full Story:

Business as usual at the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan was

interrupted on Monday, July 7, 2008, when around 8:30 in the
morning,an attacker drove a Toyota into a car parked outside the
embassy. He then exploded an IED inside his own car, destroying
both cars and the wall of the embassy compound. An Indian defense
attaché and a diplomat were among the 60 killed, but the majority of
casualties were Afghan citizens in line for visas. One local resident
described the attack: "We heard an explosion, then the dust and
glass hit our faces….After that we saw that people were dead and
lying everywhere."

There was widespread suspicion following the attack that Pakistan, or

Pakistan's intelligence service, was behind the attack. India and
Pakistan, who are rivals and have gone to war three times in the past
half-century. India has drawn closer to Afghanistan in recent years,
both by participating in reconstruction projects and through military
cooperation; the Indian army has offered some counterinsurgency
training to Afghan military.

The private intelligence service Stratfor made the case that the
Taliban were the likely culprits, partly because a non-Afghan in Kabul
would be noticed and because suicide operations tend to be the work
of either the Taliban or Al Qaeda.