WHAT’S THE STORY?

WITH the Taliban having taken control of the country, Afghanistan is once again at a crossroads, and it could be argued that this nation of 31 million people has always been at a crossroads because of its location and strategic importance.

Covering some 250,000 sq miles (650,000 sq kms), Afghanistan was first occupied by humans in the Stone Age. Mountainous and with few lakes and plains only in the north and south-west, it is also landlocked and surrounded on all sides by Iran to the west, Pakistan to the east and south, and former states of the Soviet Union to the north, namely Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan to the north. The shortest border is with China to the north-east. It is these surroundings which have made Afghanistan a battleground since antiquity. Sitting astride the Silk Road from China to the Middle East, the land has been fought over for centuries by would-be conquerors including Alexander the Great, the Moghul lords of the Asian sub-continent, the British Empire and the Soviet Union.

READ MORE: Women and girls condemned once again to a nightmare by Taliban in Afghanistan

HAS IT EVER BEEN CONQUERED?

JUST like Scotland which was conquered twice in its history – by Edward I of England in 1296 and by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army in 1650 – there is a myth that Afghanistan has never been conquered. That may be true of its most recent incarnations, but the country that is now Afghanistan was first occupied by the Persian empire in the shape of the Medians who ruled over the territory until Alexander the Great emerged from Macedonia and with his Greek army toppled the Persians in 330BC.

His troops fought several battles in the territory and occupied the land that became known as Bactria. Even Alexander’s battle-hardened warriors left the mountains alone, but they did settle on the plains an built several cities named after their leader – second largest city Kandahar is one of them, its name derived from Iskandaher, the Arabic form of Alexander. After his death the land was split between the Seleucids based in Babylon and the Greeks who stayed in the Bactrian territory where they remained for three centuries.

The Kushan empire invaded and defeated the Greco-Bactrians and imposed Buddhism on the people, who were mainly Zoroastrians, but they were in turn ousted from power by the Sassanids in the third century. They built an empire based in Afghanistan but Muslim invaders from the west conquered them and extended Islam across the whole country by the 12th century.

In 1219, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the entire region and ruled it until Timur, or Tamerlane, invaded in 1370 and set up his own Timurid empire.

Babur, a name which means Tiger, was a descendant of both Genghis Khan and Timur and he captured Kabul before the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara, Iranian Safavids, and Indian Mughals ruled parts of the territory right up until the start of the 18th century.

HOW OLD IS MODERN AFGHANISTAN?

THE nation of Afghanistan is usually dated to the 18th century, when after a brief invasion of Persia, a warrior called Ahmad Shah Durrani led his Afghan army on several campaigns which solidified borders and led to him being hailed as president in 1747.

The tribes, mostly of the Pashtun peoples, continued to fight among each other and it was not until 1837 that they united to defeat a common enemy, the Sikhs. The following year saw the British invade and replace the Afghan ruler Dost Mohammad with their choice Shan Shuja Durrani as Emir.

It was at this point that an unfortunate Scotsman got involved. Major General William Elphinstone was put in charge of the Kabul garrison and during a native uprising in January 1842, he led the disastrous retreat which saw his entire command massacred and himself die in captivity.

EXPLAIN TRIBALISM, PLEASE.

WINSTON Churchill went to Afghanistan during another British expedition in 1897.

His description is still relevant today: “Tribe wars with tribe. Every man’s hand is against the other and all are against the stranger … the state of continual tumult has produced a habit of mind which holds life cheap and embarks on war with careless levity.

“Such a disposition, combined with an absolute lack of reverence for all forms of law and authority, is the cause of their frequent quarrels with the British power.”

The country remains tribal even under the Taliban.

READ MORE: Afghanistan: Urgent four-nations UK summit needed on refugees, say SNP

CAN YOU GIVE US SOME MORE RECENT HISTORY?

AFTER Britain stopped fighting them in 1919, the Afghans enjoyed relative peace until a coup in 1978 overthrew the government of the day which was replaced by a socialist state which the Soviet Union invaded in 1980 to “protect”. The Mujahideen fought off the Soviets, and then came the Taliban...