In October 1747 a loya jirga ( grand council ) concluded near the city of Kandahar with Ahmad Shah Durrani being selected as the new leader of the Afghans, thus the Durrani dynasty was founded.

Ahmad Shah invaded the remnants of the Mughal Empire a third time, and then a fourth, consolidating control over the Kashmir and Punjab regions, with Lahore being governed by Afghans.

In return, the British government intimated that it would ask Ranjit Singh to reconcile with the Afghans.

The pre-2003 smuggling trade provided undocumented jobs to tens of thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis, but also helped fuel the black economy, often intertwined with the drug cartels, of both countries.

The capital of Kabul symbolizes the spirits of all Afghans and international cooperation, sets at the heart of this highly resourceful region, with great potential to turn into a business hub.

They were also overwhelmingly Pashtun and were accused of not sharing power with the approximately 60 % of Afghans who belonged to other ethnic groups.

The Afghan capital Kabul, symbolizing the spirits of all Afghans and international cooperation, sets at the heart of this highly resourceful region, with great potential to turn into a business hub for all.

When the Afghans took the power they tried to legitimize their power with such a Jirga.

The Afghans then engaged in many wars with the Punjabi Sikh Empire of Ranjit Singh, which included the Battle of Jamrud in which Hari Singh Nalwa was killed by Akbar Khan.

The 2004 presidential election was held on October 9, with over 10 million Afghans being registered to vote.

" These Arabs, together with their foreign supporters and the Taliban, destroyed miles and miles of homes and orchards and vineyards ," he told BBC, " They have killed Afghans.

His unpopularity and the likelihood of his victory formed an atmosphere with a kind of national demoralization, which could discourage many Afghans from voting and dash hopes for substantial progress after the election.

British influence in Afghanistan waned, but relations between Afghanistan and the Russians remained equivocal, with many Afghans desiring to regain control of Merv and Panjdeh.

On the day of Eid ul-Fitr, Afghans will first offer their Eid prayers and then gather in their homes with their families, greeting one another by saying " Eid Mubarak " and usually adding " Eidet Mobarak Roza wa Namazet Qabool Dakhel Hajiha wa Ghaziha ," which means " Happy Eid to you ; may your fasting and prayers be accepted by God, and may you be counted among those who will go to the Hajj-pilgrimage.

While confronting the most trying and challenging circumstances in the middle eighteenth century, Baba Ala Singh, unlike many of his contemporaries, displayed tremendous courage and shrewdness in dealing with the Mughals, Afghans and Marathas, and successfully established and maintained a state which he had started building up bit by bit from its nucleus Barnala.

In 1885 he was appointed professor in the Collège de France, and was sent to India in 1886 on a mission to collect the popular songs of the Afghans, a translation of which, with a valuable essay on the Afghan language and literature, he published on his return.

The national unity government would share power with the Pakistan-based government-in-exile, guerrilla commanders, Afghans living in exile, and the deposed king, Zahir Shah.

* January 5-In Patras, Greece, while attempted to board a ship bound for Italy, more than 20 Iraqi Kurds clashed with 15 Afghans.

* To date, Afghans made up the single biggest refugee group in the world with more than 2. 6 million in exile, mainly in Pakistan and Iran.

Ghezali stated that: " I lived a simple life, playing with the children and seeing how Afghans lived.

" I lived a simple life, playing with the children and seeing how Afghans lived.

The commission wanted more time to consult with Afghans.

A slight collision takes place between the forces of the Khan of Nawagai, whose territory was threatened by the Afghans at Mittai, and the Khan of Pashat, and the Afghan force moves down the Kunar River about fifteen miles ( 24 km ) from Asmar to protect their communications with Jalalabad, but nothing more serious happens, and the final solution of the frontier question is in a fair way of settlement.

In his proclamation of 15 March 1842, as in his memorandum for the queen, dated the 18th, he stated with characteristic clearness and eloquence the duty of first inflicting some signal and decisive blow on the Afghans, and then leaving them to govern themselves under the sovereign of their own choice.

The 10-year Soviet occupation resulted in the killings of between 600, 000 and two million Afghans, mostly civilians.

* The United Nations World Food Programme warned that an estimated 3. 8 million Afghans, completely dependent on outside aid, had only enough food stocks for two to three weeks.

According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, 20 Afghans, seven Pakistanis, three Yemenis, two Egyptians, one Saudi and one Turk were killed.

At one time the town was divided in two, with Europeans on one side and Afghans and Aboriginals on the other.

The British also made some political gains, most notably the reaffirmation of the Durand Line – which had long been a contentious issue between the two nations – as the political boundary separating Afghanistan from the North-West Frontier, and the undertaking that the Afghans made to stop interference on the British side of the line.

The Afghans were divided into two main tribes: the Ghilzais and the Abdalis.

In An Inquiry into the Algerian Massacres ( a book arguing that the GIA had become a tool of the state ) two survivors are quoted as reporting that the killers were dressed like " Afghans ", with turbans, covered faces, beards ( some false ), and uniforms, that the attackers were also cursing God throughout, and that among them were a few women, wearing hijab over a uniform.

In 1880 he was sent, once again on another mission to Kabul, and in the same year he delivered two lectures before the United Services Institute at Simla: " A New Afghan Question, or " Are the Afghans Israelites?

As a result two Afghans were killed.

Under the leadership of Ayub Khan, the Afghans defeated two brigades of British and Indian troops under Brigadier-General George Burrows, though at a high price: between 2, 050 and 2, 750 Afghan warriors were killed, and probably about 1, 500 wounded ,.

E / B RHA kept firing until the last moment, two sections ( four guns ) limbering up when the Afghans were 15 yards away, but the third section ( Lt Maclaine ) was overrun.

Had he remained in India he would undoubtedly have been caught up in Roberts ’ s War against the Afghans, a bloody adventure which lasted two years and achieved nothing, neither in a military nor a political sense.

The Afghans captured Isfahan ( Safavid capital ) and Mahmud became the new Persian Shah, known after that as Shah Mahmud.

In the fighting in Kafiristan, the Afghans have captured twenty-five forts at an admitted loss of 1, 500 killed and wounded.

Soon afterwards Nader waged a war against the Afghans and captured Kandahar.

Afghans that deserted often took artillery with them, supplying the mujahideen.

Upon reaching the escarpment they found that the Afghans had left the battlefield, leaving most of their equipment, artillery and a number of standards.

The British began the battle with an artillery barrage that the Afghans responded to via their own artillery at about 11: 20am ; the Grenadiers were on the left flank of the British-Indian force and were in an exposed position that saw them take the brunt of the Afghan barrage, sustaining significant casualties.

The Afghans, who numbered 25, 000 including Afghan regular troops and five batteries of artillery including some very modern Armstrong guns.