Everything about Kandahar Province totally explained
Kandahar or
Qandahar (
Pashto:
کندھار,
Persian:
قندهار) is one of the largest of the thirty-four
provinces of Afghanistan. It is located in southern
Afghanistan, between
Helmand,
Oruzgan and
Zabul provinces. Its capital is the city of
Kandahar, which is located on the
Arghandab River. The province has a population of nearly 890,000, with over 300,000 living in its capital city. The main inhabitants of Kandahar province are the
Pashtuns.
Name
There is speculation about the origin of the name
"Kandahar". It is believed that
"Kandahar" may derive its name from
Gandhara, an ancient kingdom along the modern
Kashmir and Afghanistan border, and former
satrapy of the
Persian Empire. It is suggested that people of Gandhara migrated south to
Arachosia and transferred the name with them. Alternatively, it's also believed that
Kandahar bears
Alexander's name from the
Arabic and Persian rendering of "Alexander", which derives from
Iskandariya for
Alexandria. A temple to the deified Alexander as well as an inscription in
Greek and
Aramaic by the emperor
Ashoka, who lived a few decades later, have been discovered in the old citadel.
History
For a more comprehensive history of the Kandahar Province, see the Kandahar City.
Kandahar, the
city and
province, dates back to the time of the
Mahabharata, which dates back to 3,120BC
Indo-Aryan era. Kandahar City was founded in the 4th century BC by Alexander of Macedon, near the ancient city of Mundigak. The city has been a frequent target for conquest because of its strategic location in
Asia, which connects
Southern,
Central and
Southwest Asia. It was part of the
Persian Achaemenid empire before the Greek invasion in 330 B.C. It came under the influence of the
Indian emperor
Ashoka who erected a pillar there with a bilingual inscription in
Greek and
Aramaic.
Under the
Abbasids and later
Turkic invaders, Kandahar converted to
Islam. Kandahar would go on to be conquered by the
Arabs in the 7th century, Turkic
Ghaznavids in the
10th century, and
Genghis Khan in the 13th century.
Ahmad Shah Durrani, the founder of Afghanistan, gained control of the city and province in
1747 and made it the capital of his new Afghan Kingdom. In the 1770s, the capital was transferred to Kabul. Ahmad Shah Durrani's
mausoleum is located somewhere in the center of the city.
British-Indians forces occupied the province during the
First Anglo-Afghan War from 1832 to 1842. They also occupied the city during the
Second Anglo-Afghan War from 1878 to 1880. It remained peaceful for about 100 years until the late 1970s.
During the
Soviet occupation of 1979 to 1989, Kandahar province witnessed many fighting between Soviet and local
Mujahideen rebels. After the Soviet withdrawal the city fell to
Gul Agha Sherzai, who became a powerful warlord and controlled the province.
At the end of 1994, the
Taliban emerged from the area and set out to conquer the rest of the country. Since the removal of the Taliban in late 2001, Kandahar again came under the control of Gul Agha Sherzai. He was replaced in 2003 by Yousef Pashtun followed by
Asadullah Khalid taking the post in 2005. The province is currently occupied by
NATO forces, mostly by
Canadians.
Government and administration
Gul Agha Sherzai was
Governor of the province before and after the
Taliban regime, until early 2004, when mounting criticism of his efforts led President
Hamid Karzai to remove him from the post. For the last 250 years, mostly Pashtuns have been ruling Afghanistan. History shows that many Afghan rulers were from Kandahar, such as
Ahmad Shah Durrani,
Abdur Rahman Khan,
Nadir Khan,
Zahir Shah, Hamid Karzai, etc. Kandahar province is made up of 17 districts, and each district has its own Chief. The current
Governor of the Kandahar Province is
Asadullah Khalid.
The following is a list of the Districts of Kandahar Province:
Economy
Kandahar had well-irrigated gardens and orchards and was famous for its grapes, melons, and pomegranates, but these were made inaccessible by land mines or destroyed outright in the conflict between the Soviets and the mujahideen, Islamic guerrilla fighters during the Soviet occupation. The city is of significant strategic importance in the region due to the major airport built in the early 1970s with development funding from the United States. The main source of trade is to Pakistan, Iran, and the United States. Kandahar is an agricultural state.
Transportation
Kandahar International Airport serves the population of southern Afghanistan, especially the Kandahar region, as a method of traveling to other domestic cities by air or to a number of nearby countries. The airport was built in the 1960s with US financial and technical assistance under the
United States Agency for International Development program. Kandahar International Airport has been used by the
NATO forces to deliver troops and humanitarian supplies since late 2001. The airport was severely damaged during the Soviet attacks on the city during 1979-89 and again during the US raids in late 2001. Repairs and upgrades also occurred during that period; the airport re-opened for civilian use in late 2006.
Kandahar province has bus services to major towns or village headquarters. It's capital, Kandahar, has a public bus system that take commuters on daily routes to many destinations throughout the city. Besides the buses, there are yellow and white taxicabs that provides transportation service inside the city as well as throughout the province. Other traditional methods of ground transportation are also used. Private vehicles are on the rise in Kandahar, with large show rooms selling new or second hand vehicles imported from the
United Arab Emirate. More people are buying new cars as the roads and highways are being improved.
Education
Efforts to improve education in Afghanistan are severely hampered without books, which are in short supply. Lack of funding and political will has led to only small gains since the fall of the Taliban. Education has moved somewhat upward in the rest of the country, but southern states, like Kandahar, have seen slow to no progress because of the continued fighting and instability of the region. In 2006 alone, almost 150 educational institutes have closed in Kandahar province alone, according to the education ministry. Regionally more than 50 schools have been attacked this year. Over 60,000 students can't attend school because of the risk of attack.
Kandahar University is the largest college or university in the province. In partnership with the
Asia Foundation, the Kandahar University conducted a pilot project that provided female high school graduates with a four-month refresher course to prepare for the college entrance examination. Kandahar University, for example, currently has an enrollment of six women and 1,094 men. All of the 24 women who sat for the exam passed and have been admitted to universities to study medicine, engineering, economics, law, and agriculture. The university is only one of two universities in Kandahar that serve all of southern Afghanistan. The conditions in the university are extremely poor, with no water, limited power, and a closed library. The structures of the University are very weak and unsafe. The university is far behind the universities of the North because of the violence, the two universities in southern Afghanistan also receive very limited funding.
Further Information
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