1.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
2.
Pakistan
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Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a federal parliamentary republic in South Asia on the crossroads of Central Asia and Western Asia. It is the sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 200 million people, in terms of area, it is the 33rd-largest country in the world with an area covering 881,913 square kilometres. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistans narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, Pakistan is unique among Muslim countries in that it is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and it is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with a similarly diverse geography and wildlife. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic, an ethnic civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh. The new constitution stipulated that all laws were to conform to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran. Pakistan has an economy with a well-integrated agriculture sector. The Pakistani economy is the 24th-largest in the world in terms of purchasing power and it is ranked among the emerging and growth-leading economies of the world, and is backed by one of the worlds largest and fastest-growing middle classes. The post-independence history of Pakistan has been characterised by periods of military rule, the country continues to face challenging problems such as illiteracy, healthcare, and corruption, but has substantially reduced poverty and terrorism and expanded per capita income. It is also a member of CERN. Pakistan is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, the name Pakistan literally means land of the pure in Urdu and Persian. It is a play on the word pāk meaning pure in Persian and Pashto, the letter i was incorporated to ease pronunciation and form the linguistically correct and meaningful name. Some of the earliest ancient human civilisations in South Asia originated from areas encompassing present-day Pakistan, the earliest known inhabitants in the region were Soanian during the Lower Paleolithic, of whom stone tools have been found in the Soan Valley of Punjab. The Vedic Civilization, characterised by Indo-Aryan culture, laid the foundations of Hinduism, Multan was an important Hindu pilgrimage centre. The Vedic civilisation flourished in the ancient Gandhāran city of Takṣaśilā, the Indo-Greek Kingdom founded by Demetrius of Bactria included Gandhara and Punjab and reached its greatest extent under Menander, prospering the Greco-Buddhist culture in the region. Taxila had one of the earliest universities and centres of education in the world. At its zenith, the Rai Dynasty of Sindh ruled this region, the Pala Dynasty was the last Buddhist empire, which, under Dharampala and Devapala, stretched across South Asia from what is now Bangladesh through Northern India to Pakistan. The Arab conqueror Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the Indus valley from Sindh to Multan in southern Punjab in 711 AD, the Pakistan governments official chronology identifies this as the time when the foundation of Pakistan was laid
3.
Mountain range
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A mountain range is a geographic area containing numerous geologically related mountains. A mountain system or system of ranges, sometimes is used to combine several geological features that are geographically related. Mountain ranges are usually segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys, individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geologic structure or petrology. They may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earths land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the worlds longest mountain system. The Alpide belt includes Indonesia and southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, the belt also includes other European and Asian mountain ranges. The Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, mountain ranges outside of these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a range is stretched to include underwater mountains. The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, the sub-range relationship is often expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains, equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, and the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians. The position of mountains influences climate, such as rain or snow, when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the side, it warms again and is drier. Often, a shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are constantly subjected to forces which work to tear them down. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted and long after until the mountains are reduced to low hills, rivers are traditionally believed to be the principle erosive factor on mountain ranges, with their ability of bedrock incision and sediment transport. The rugged topography of a range is the product of erosion. The basins adjacent to a mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. The early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example and this mass of rock was removed as the range was actively undergoing uplift
4.
Urdu
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Urdu is a persianized standard register of the Hindustani language. It is the language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India, hyderabad, Rampur, Bhopal and Lucknow are noted Urdu-speaking cities of India. Urdu is historically associated with the Muslims of the northern Indian subcontinent, apart from specialized vocabulary, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, another recognized register of Hindustani. Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of Hindustani, Urdu developed under the influence of the Persian and Arabic languages, both of which have contributed a significant amount of vocabulary to formal speech. Around 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit, Urdu words originating from Chagatai and Arabic were borrowed through Persian and hence are Persianized versions of the original words. For instance, the Arabic ta marbuta changes to he or te, nevertheless, contrary to popular belief, Urdu did not borrow from the Turkish language, but from Chagatai. Urdu and Turkish borrowed from Arabic and Persian, hence the similarity in pronunciation of many Urdu, Arabic influence in the region began with the late first-millennium Arab invasion of India in the 7th century. The Persian language was introduced into the subcontinent a few centuries later by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties including that of the Delhi Sultanate. With the advent of the British Raj, Persian was no longer the language of administration but Hindustani, still written in the Persian script, the name Urdu was first used by the poet Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780. From the 13th century until the end of the 18th century Urdu was commonly known as Hindi, the language was also known by various other names such as Hindavi and Dehlavi. The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the language in 1837 and was made co-official. Urdu was promoted in British India by British policies to counter the previous emphasis on Persian and this triggered a Brahman backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. At independence, Pakistan established a highly Persianized literary form of Urdu as its national language, English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language. Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localized wherever it is spoken, similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects like Dakhni of South India, and Khariboli of the Punjab region since recent times. Because of Urdus similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can understand one another if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. The syntax, morphology, and the vocabulary are essentially identical. Thus linguists usually count them as one language and contend that they are considered as two different languages for socio-political reasons
5.
Mountain pass
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A mountain pass is a route through a mountain range or over a ridge. At lower elevations it may be called a hill pass, the highest vehicle-accessible pass in the world appears to be Mana Pass, located in the Himalayas on the border between India and China. Mountain passes make use of a gap, saddle or col, a topographic saddle is analogous to the mathematical concept of a saddle surface, with a saddle point marking the highest point between two valleys and the lowest point along a ridge. On a topographic map, passes are characterized by lines with an hourglass shape. Passes are often found just above the source of a river, a pass may be very short, consisting of steep slopes to the top of the pass, or may be a valley many kilometres long, whose highest point might only be identifiable by surveying. Roads have long been built – and more recently railways – through passes, some high and rugged passes may have tunnels bored underneath to allow faster traffic flow throughout the year. The top of a pass is frequently the only ground in the area. If a national border follows a mountain range, a pass over the mountains is typically on the border, and there may be a control or customs station. For instance Argentina and Chile share the worlds third-longest international border,5,300 kilometres long, the border runs north-south along the Andes mountains, with a total of 42 mountain passes. On a road over a pass, it is customary to have a roadside sign giving the name of the pass. As well as offering relatively easy travel between valleys, passes also provide a route between two mountain tops with a minimum of descent. As a result, it is common for tracks to meet at a pass, passes traditionally were places for trade routes, communications, cultural exchange, military expeditions etc. A typical example is the Brenner pass in the Alps, some mountain passes above the tree line have problems with snow drift in the winter. This might be alleviated by building the road a few meters above the ground, there are many words for pass in the English-speaking world. In the United States, pass is very common in the West, the gap is common in the southern Appalachians, notch in parts of New England. Scotland has the Gaelic term bealach, while Wales has the similar bwlch, the roads at Mana Pass at 5,610 metres and Marsimik La at 5,582 metres, on and near the China-India border respectively, appear to be worlds two highest motorable passes. Media related to Mountain passes at Wikimedia Commons
6.
Balochistan, Pakistan
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Balochistan, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the southwestern region of the country. Its provincial capital and largest city is Quetta and it shares borders with Punjab and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the northeast, Sindh to the southeast, the Arabian Sea to the south, Iran to the west, and Afghanistan to the north. The name Balochistan means the land of the Baloch in many regional languages, although largely underdeveloped, the provincial economy is dominated by natural resources, especially its natural gas fields, which supply the entire country. Gwadar Port also plays a significant role in the development of the province. Balochistan is noted for its culture and extremely dry desert climate. Baloch people practice Islam and are predominantly Sunni, similar to the rest of Pakistan, Balochistan marked the westernmost extent of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Centuries before the arrival of Islam in the 7th Century, parts of Balochistan was ruled by the Paratarajas, at certain times, the Kushans also held political sway in parts of Balochistan. With time, Baloch tribes linguistically absorbed all the people in Makran, southern Sistan. By 654, the whole of what is now Balochistan was controlled by the Rashidun Caliphate, however, this town was later conquered during the reign of Caliph Ali. Abdulrehman ibn Samrah made Zaranj his provincial capital and remained governor of these areas from 654 to 656. During the Caliphate of Ali, revolt broke out in southern Balochistans Makran region. Due to civil war in the Rashidun Caliphate, Ali was unable to deal with these areas until 660, Haris ibn Marah Abdi arrived in Makran and conquered it by force, and then moved northward to north-eastern Balochistan and reconquered Qandabil. Finally, he moved south and conquered Kalat after a fierce battle, Muslim forces later regained control of the area during the Umayyad reign. It also remained a part of the Abbasid Caliphate, ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Afghan Empire, also won the allegiance of that areas rulers. Most of the area would revert to local Baloch control, after Afghan rule. During the period of the British Raj, there were four Princely States in Balochistan, Makran, Kharan, Las Bela and Kalat. After the Second Afghan War was ended by the Treaty of Gandamak in May 1879, on 1 April 1883, the British took control of the Bolan Pass, south-east of Quetta, from the Khan of Kalat. In 1887, small areas of Balochistan were declared British territory
7.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
8.
Quetta
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Quetta is the provincial capital of Balochistan, Pakistan and the ninth-largest city of the country. The city is known as the garden of Pakistan, due to the numerous fruit orchards in and around it. The city was known as Little London in the past because of its beauty. The immediate area has long been one of pastures and mountains, with varied plants, Quetta is at an average elevation of 1,680 meters above sea level, making it Pakistans only high-altitude major city. The population of the city is estimated to be approximately 1,140,000, located in north western Balochistan near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Quetta is a trade and communication centre between the two countries. The city lies on the Bolan Pass route which was once the gateway from Central Asia to South Asia. Quetta played an important role militarily for the Pakistani Armed Forces in the intermittent Afghanistan conflict, Quetta is also spelled Kuwatah, which is a variation of Kot, a Pashto word meaning fortress. It is believed that it relates to the four imposing hills that surround the city, in 1876 Quetta was incorporated into British controlled territories of the subcontinent. British Troops constructed the infrastructure for their establishment as it was a strategic location, by the time of the earthquake on 31 May 1935 Quetta had developed into a bustling city with a number of multistory buildings and was known as Little Paris because of that. The epicenter of the earthquake was close to the city and destroyed most of the city’s infrastructure, during the independence movement of the Indian subcontinent, the predominantly Muslim population of the region supported the Muslim League and the Pakistan Movement. Quetta has an area of 2,653 km2 and consists of series of river valleys which act as a natural fort surrounded on all sides by hills. The closest city is Kandahar in Afghanistan, north-west at the end of the N25 road, three main roads gradually fan out to the south, the central route, the N25 leads via the city of Khuzdar to the coastal metropolis of Karachi. Quetta has a high semi-arid climate with a significant variation between summer and winter temperatures, summer starts about late May and goes on until early September with average temperatures ranging from 24–26 °C. The highest temperature in Quetta is 42 °C which was recorded on 10 July 1998, autumn starts in late September and continues until mid-November with average temperatures in the 12–18 °C range. Winter starts in late November and ends in late March, with temperatures near 4–5 °C. The lowest temperature in Quetta is −18.3 °C which was recorded on 8 January 1970, spring starts in early April and ends in late May, with average temperatures close to 15 °C. Unlike more easterly parts of Pakistan, Quetta does not have a season of heavy rainfall. In the winter, snowfall has become quite erratic, the city saw a severe drought from 1999 to 2001, during which the city did not receive snowfall and below normal rains
9.
Bengal Army
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The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire. In 1895 all three armies were merged into the Indian Army. The Bengal Army originated with the establishment of a European Regiment in 1756, in 1757 the first locally recruited unit of Bengal sepoys was created in the form of the Lal Paltan battalion. It was recruited from Bhumihar, Bihari Rajputs and Pathan soldiers that had served in the Nawabs Army from Bihar, there were actually no soldiers from the modern Bengal region. Drilled and armed along British army lines this force served well at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and 20 more Indian battalions were raised by 1764. In 1824 the Bengal Army underwent reorganisation, with the infantry being grouped into 68 single battalion regiments numbered according to their date of establishment. Nine additional infantry regiments were raised, though several existing units were disbanded between 1826 and 1843. On the eve of the First Afghan War the Bengal Army had achieved a dominant role in the forces of the HEIC, there were 74 battalions of Bengal regular infantry against only 52 from Madras,26 from Bombay and 24 British. A new feature in the Bengal Army was the creation of irregular infantry and cavalry regiments during the 1840s and these were permanently established units but with less formal drill and fewer British officers than the regular Bengal line regiments. The main source of recruitment continued to be high caste Brahmins and Rajputs from Bihar and Oudh, during the 1840s and early 1850s numbers of Nepalese Gurkhas and Sikhs from the Punjab were however accepted in the Bengal Army. Both Gurkhas and Sikhs served in separate units but some of the latter were incorporated into existing Bengal infantry regiments, two of these BNI regiments were serving in China in 1857 and so escaped any involvement in the great rebellion of that year. A total of 64 Bengal Army regular infantry and cavalry regiments rebelled during the Indian Mutiny, from 1858 onwards the actual high-caste Awadhi and Bihari Hindu presence in the Bengal Army was reduced because of their perceived primary role as mutineers in the 1857 rebellion. A largely unspoken rationale was that an army of diverse origins was unlikely to unite in rebellion, in 1895 the three separate Presidency Armies were abolished and the Army of India was divided into four commands, each commanded by a lieutenant-general. These comprised Madras, Punjab, Bengal and Bombay, the Bengal infantry units in existence at the end of the Presidency era continued as the senior regiments (1st Brahmans to 48th Pioneers of the newly unified Indian Army. Prior to 1857, and despite the name, the actual ethnic Bengali presence was minimal to non-existent, the Bengal Army of the East India Company was mainly recruited from high castes living in Bihar and the Awadh, especially Bihari Rajputs and Bhumihars who were referred to as Purbiyas. Governor Generals Bodyguard 1st to 10th Bengal Light Cavalry Regiments, eight of these regular regiments mutinied and two were disbanded during 1857–58. None were carried over into the post-Mutiny army, 1st to 4th Bengal European Light Cavalry Regiments. Recruited hastily in Britain in November 1857 to replace the eight regiments of Bengal Light Cavalry which had mutinied, the mention of European in the name indicated that it consisted of white soldiers rather than Indian sowars
10.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
11.
Khyber Pass
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The Khyber Pass is a mountain pass connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan, cutting through the northeastern part of the Spin Ghar mountains. An integral part of the ancient Silk Road, it has long had significant cultural, economic, throughout history it has been an important trade route between Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent and a strategic military location. The summit of the pass is 5 kilometres inside Pakistan at Landi Kotal, the Khyber Pass is part of the Asian Highway 1. Khyber is the Hebrew word for fort, well known invasions of the area have been predominantly through the Khyber Pass, such as the invasions by Darius I, Genghis Khan and later Mongols such as Duwa, Qutlugh Khwaja and Kebek. Prior to the Kushan era, the Khyber Pass was not a widely used trade route, among the Muslim invasions of ancient India, the famous invaders coming through the Khyber Pass are Mahmud Ghaznavi, and the Afghan Muhammad Ghori and the Turkic-Mongols. Finally, Sikhs under Ranjit Singh captured the Khyber Pass in 1834 until they were defeated by the forces of Wazir Akbar Khan in 1837, hari Singh Nalwa, who manned the Khyber Pass for years, became a household name in Afghanistan. To the north of the Khyber Pass lies the country of the Mullagori tribe, to the south is Afridi Tirah, while the inhabitants of villages in the Pass itself are Afridi clansmen. Throughout the centuries the Pashtun clans, particularly the Afridis and the Afghan Shinwaris, have regarded the Pass as their own preserve and have levied a toll on travellers for safe conduct. Since this has long been their main source of income, resistance to challenges to the Shinwaris authority has often been fierce, for strategic reasons, after the First World War the British built a heavily engineered railway through the Pass. The Khyber Pass Railway from Jamrud, near Peshawar, to the Afghan border near Landi Kotal was opened in 1925, during World War II concrete dragon’s teeth were erected on the valley floor due to British fears of a German tank invasion of India. The Pass became widely known to thousands of Westerners and Japanese who traveled it in the days of the Hippie trail, at the Pakistani frontier post, travelers were advised not to wander away from the road, as the location was a barely controlled Federally Administered Tribal Area. Then, after customs formalities, a quick daylight drive through the Pass was made, monuments left by British Army units, as well as hillside forts, could be viewed from the highway. Almost 80 percent of the NATO and US supplies that are brought in by road were transported through this Khyber Pass, furthermore, it has also been used to transport civilians from the Afghan side to the Pakistani one. Until the end of 2007, this route had been relatively safe since the living there were paid by the Pakistani government to keep the area safe. However, since that year, the Taliban began to control the region, since the end of 2008, supply convoys and depots in this western part increasingly came under attack by elements from or supposedly sympathetic to the Pakistani Taliban. In January 2009, Pakistan sealed off the bridge as part of an offensive against Taliban guerrillas. This military operation was focused on Jamrud, a district on the Khyber road. The target was to “dynamite or bulldoze homes belonging to men suspected of harboring or supporting Taliban militants or carrying out other illegal activities”, the result meant that more than 70 people were arrested and 45 homes were destroyed
12.
Kabul
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Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan as well as its largest city, located in the eastern section of the country. According to a 2015 estimate, the population of the city was around 3,678,033 which includes all the ethnic groups. Rapid urbanization had made Kabul the worlds 64th largest city and the fifth fastest-growing city in the world, Kabul is said to be over 3,500 years old, mentioned since at least the time of the Achaemenid Empire. The city is at a location along the trade routes of South and Central Asia. It has been part of the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Mauryans, Kushans, Kabul Shahis, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Later, it was controlled by the Mughal Empire until finally becoming part of the Durrani Empire in 1747. The city is located high up in a valley between the Hindu Kush mountains. Kabul became the capital of Afghanistan during the reign of Timur Shah Durrani, in the early 19th century, the British occupied the city but were compelled to abandon it. Relations between Afghanistan and Great Britain were later established, the city was occupied by the Soviets in 1979 but they too abandoned it after the 1988 Geneva Accords were signed. A civil war in the 1990s between various rebel groups destroyed much of the city, resulting in many casualties, since the removal of the Taliban from power in late 2001, the city gradually began rebuilding itself with assistance by the international community. Despite the many terrorist attacks by elements, the city is growing and developing. The city is divided into about 18 districts, the Kabul International Airport is located in the Wazir Akbar Khan district a few miles from the foreign embassies. The Parliament of Afghanistan, built by India, is located in the Kārte Seh district, Kabul, also spelled Cabool, Caubul, Kabol, or Cabul. The word Kubhā is mentioned in the Rigveda, one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism, and the Avesta. The Rigveda praises it as a city, a vision of paradise set in the mountains. The area in which the Kabul valley sits was ruled by the Medes before falling to the Achaemenids, there is a reference to a settlement called Kabura by the rulers of the Achaemenid Empire, It became a center of Zoroastrianism followed by Buddhism and Hinduism. The region became part of the Seleucid Empire but was given to the Indian Maurya Empire. The Greco-Bactrians captured Kabul from the Mauryans in the early 2nd century BC, indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BC, but lost the city to the Kushan Empire about 100 years later. Some historians ascribe Kabul the Sanskrit name of Kamboja and it is mentioned as Kophes or Kophene in some classical writings
N-65 National Highway;[1] Rohri–Chaman Railway Line
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bolan Pass". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.