Afghanistan

Afghanistan (Persian and Pashto: ) or the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت, De Afġānistān Islāmī Jomhoriyat) is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It is bordered by Iran in the west, Pakistan in the south and east, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the easternmost part of the country.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda
Osama bin Laden was the founder and the head of a secret network of irregular combatants, or "terrorists," known by its Arabic name of Al-Qaeda (literally, "The Base"). He was trained specifically during his involvement with the combatants Mujahideen of Afghanistan that managed to repel a Soviet military lacking guerrilla training for 10 years (1979-1989). Through tribal lines Tajiks (from Tajikistan), Uzbeks (from Uzbekistan) and Pashtuns (from Eastern Iran) formed a government called the Northern Alliance being focused in Mazar-i Sharif (north-west) while the Taliban, a mostly Pashtun Sunni Islamist political movement based on Shari'a Law was based in Kabul with its capture in 1996. Later recruiting and more financing by Bin Laden developed Al-Qaeda, in which found safe haven in Afghanistan, enabling it to perpetrate a number of acts of sabotage and mass-murder in the last decade of the twentieth century.