Jowzjan Province
Jowzjan, sometimes spelled as Jawzjan or Jozjan, is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the north of the country bordering neighboring Turkmenistan. The province contains hundreds of villages, it has a population of about 512,100, multi-ethnic and agriculturers. Sheberghan is the capital of Jozjan province; the province is named after the early medieval principality of Juzjan. Between the early 16th century and mid-18th century, the area was ruled by the Khanate of Bukhara, it was conquered by Ahmad Shah Durrani and became part of the Durrani Empire in or about 1750, which formed to the modern state of Afghanistan. The area was untouched by the British during the three Anglo-Afghan wars that were fought in the 19th and 20th centuries. Following a series of changing allegiances and falling out with Uzbek warlord Abdul Malik Pahlawan in 1997, the Taliban withdrew from the area, but in 1998 a contingent of 8,000 Taliban troops pressed through neighboring Faryab, seizing Abdul Rashid Dostum's headquarters in Sheberghan.
Swedish-led Provincial Reconstruction Team, based in Mazar-e-Sharif since about 2005 and responsible for four provinces including Jozjan, established an office and some troops in the province. Security situation in the province has deteriorated in 2009 and 2010. A new Turkish PRT has been established in the province in the summer of 2010, providing security to the area which covers Sar-e Pol; the Afghan National Security Forces began expanding in the last decade and took over security from International Security Assistance Force. The Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border is maintained by the Afghan Border Police while law and order for the rest of the province is provided by the NATO-trained Afghan National Police. Although it can be regarded as a secured place compared to some other provinces of Afghanistan, there is an increasing number of incidents in Darzab, Qush Tepa and Fayzabad districts; the Mazar-e-Sharif-Sheberghan highway has turned into a dangerous traveling route because of militants carrying out attacks against government forces, NGO workers and civilians.
In April 2012 construction of a mega power network with power pylons carrying 500 megawatts of electricity from neighboring Turkmenistan started in the province. Initial work on the $390 million project had been completed. Turkmenistan will install power pylons over a distance of 374 kilometres on its soil toward the Afghanistan border and the project will take a year to complete; the network would supply electricity to many areas in Jozjan, Sar-e Pol and Kabul provinces. The Governor of the province is Murad Quenili, who replaced Mohammad Aleem Sayee in July 2013. Quenili was a senator representing his province Jozjan in the National Assembly of Afghanistan. All law enforcement activities throughout the province are managed by the Afghan National Police; the police chief represents the Ministry of the Interior in Kabul. The ANP is backed including the NATO-led forces; the percentage of households with clean drinking water increased from 24% in 2005 to 44% in 2011. The percentage of births attended to by a skilled birth attendant increased from 9% in 2005 to 21% in 2011.
The overall literacy rate fell from 31% in 2005 to 16% in 2011. The overall net enrolment rate increased from 40% in 2005 to 46% in 2011. Jozjan is situated in the northern part of Afghanistan, bordering Turkmenistan in the north, Balkh province in the east, Sar-e Pol province in the south and Faryab province in the west. Jozjan province covers an area of 10,326 km². More than one quarter of the province is mountainous or semi mountainous terrain, while more than two thirds of the area is made up of flat land, it is one of the provinces known to contain natural gas. Mining and agriculture are the main industries; the population of Jozjan province is about 512,100, who are multi-ethnic and farmers. Occasional ethnic violence is reported in the area, most in 2002.39.5% of the population speak Uzbek, 28.7% speak Turkmen, 17.2% speak Pashto, 12.1% speak Dari Persian and 2.5% speaks other languages. Abu'Ubayd al-Juzjani, the famous pupil of Avicenna, was from this region, hence his name Abdul Rashid Dostum, Vice President of Afghanistan, is from Hodja Dukhu village of this province Soroush Higano, an Afro-Japanese Afghan, Pashtun Barakzai, is from Qarqin in this province.
Qari Hekmat, leader of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Darzab District. Provinces of Afghanistan Jowzjan Province - Powerpoint Overview
Balkh
Balkh is a town in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan, about 20 km northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, some 74 km south of the Amu Darya river and the Uzbekistan border. It was an ancient centre of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism and one of the major cities of Khorasan, since the latter's earliest history; the ancient city of Balkh was known to the Ancient Greeks as Bactra. It was known as the centre and capital of Bactria or Tokharistan. Marco Polo described Balkh as a "noble and great city". Balkh is now for the most part a mass of ruins, situated some 12 km from the right bank of the seasonally flowing Balkh River, at an elevation of about 365 m. French Buddhist Alexandra David-Néel associated Shambhala with Balkh offering the Persian Sham-i-Bala as an etymology of its name. In a similar vein, the Gurdjieffian J. G. Bennett published speculation that Shambalha was Shams-i-Balkh, a Bactrian sun temple; the Bactrian language name of the city was βαχλο. In Middle Persian texts was named Baxl.
The name of the province or country appears in the Old Persian inscriptions as Bāxtri, i.e. Bakhtri, it is written in the Avesta as Bāxδi. From this came the intermediate form Bāxli, Sanskrit Bahlīka for "Bactrian", by transposition the modern Persian Balx, i.e. Balkh, Armenian Bahl. Balkh is considered to be the first city to which the Indo-Iranian tribes moved from north of the Amu Darya, between 2000 and 1500 BC; the Arabs called it Umm Mother of Cities on account of its antiquity. The city was traditionally a center of Zoroastrianism; the name Zariaspa, either an alternate name for Balkh or a term for part of the city, may derive from the important Zoroastrian fire temple Azar-i-Asp. Balkh was regarded as the place where Zoroaster first preached his religion, as well as the place where he died. Since the Indo-Iranians built their first kingdom in Balkh some scholars believe that it was from this area that different waves of Indo-Iranians spread to north-east Iran and Seistan region, where they, in part, became today's Persians, Tajiks and Baluch people of the region.
The changing climate has led to desertification since antiquity, when the region was fertile. Its foundation is mythically ascribed to the first king of the world in Persian legend. For a long time the city and country was the central seat of the dualistic Zoroastrian religion, the founder of which, died within the walls according to the Persian poet Firdowsi. Armenian sources state that the Arsacid Dynasty of the Parthian Empire established its capital in Balkh. There is a long-standing tradition that an ancient shrine of Anahita was to be found here, a temple so rich it invited plunder. Alexander the Great married Roxana of Bactria after killing the king of Balkh; the city was the capital of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and was besieged for three years by the Seleucid Empire. After the demise of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, it was ruled by Indo-Scythians, Indo-Parthians, Kushan Empire, Indo-Sassanids, Hephthalite Empire and Sassanid Persians before the arrival of the Arabs. Bactrian documents - in the Bactrian language, written from the fourth to eighth centuries - evoke the name of local deities, such as Kamird and Wakhsh, for example, as witnesses to contracts.
The documents come from an area between Balkh and Bamiyan, part of Bactria. Balkh town is well-known to Buddhist countries because of two great Buddhist monks of Afghanistan – Trapusa and Bahalika. There are two stupas over their relics. According to a popular legend, Buddhism was introduced in Balkh by Bhallika, disciple of Buddha, the city derives its name from him, he had come from Bodhgaya. In literature, Balkh has been described as Valhika or Bahlika. First Vihara at Balkh was built for Bhallika. Xuanzang visited Balkh in 630. According to the Memoirs of Xuanzang, there were about a hundred Buddhist convents in the city or its vicinity at the time of his visit there in the 7th century. There were a large number of stupas and other religious monuments; the most remarkable stupa was the Navbahara. Shortly before the Arab conquest, the monastery became a Zoroastrian fire-temple. A curious reference to this building is found in the writings of the geographer Ibn Hawqal, an Arab traveller of the 10th century, who describes Balkh as built of clay, with ramparts and six gates, extending for half a parasang.
He mentions a castle and a mosque. A Chinese pilgrim, Fa-Hein, found Hinayana practice prevalent in Shan Shan, Kashgar, Osh and Gandhara. Xuanzang remarked that Buddhism was practised by the Hunnish rulers of Balkh, who descended from Indian royal stock. A Korean monk, noted as late as the Eighth century after the Arab invasion that the residents of Balkh practiced Buddhism and followed a Buddhist king, he that the king of Balkh at the time had fled to nearby Badakshan. Furthermore, we know; the most important was the Nawbahar near the town of Balkh, which evidently served as a pilgri
Dushi District
Dushi district is located in the central part of Baghlan Province, Afghanistan. It lies on the major Kabul-Kunduz highway; the population of the district was estimated to be around 57,160 in 2004. Hazaras are around 88% of the population and make up the majority in the district, followed by small minorities of Tajiks and Pashtuns The centre of the district is Dushi. Dushi is home to an overhead power line carrying imported electricity from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; the 300 MegaWatt supply was the subject of a grant for expansion in 2013 from the Asian Development Bank. The line supplies the capital, Kabul. On April 13, 2018, Taliban insurgents used explosives to destroy a pylon, disrupting power supplies to the region. Districts of Afghanistan Map of Settlements United Nations, AIMS, May 2002
Badakhshan Province
Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the farthest northeastern part of the country between Tajikistan and northern Pakistan. It shares a 56.5-mile border with China. It is part of a broader historical Badakhshan region; the province contains 22 to 28 districts, over 1,200 villages, 904,700 people. Feyzabad serves as the provincial capital. Badakhshan is bordered by Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province and Khatlon Province in Tajikistan to the north and east. In the east of the province a long spur called the Wakhan Corridor extends above northern Pakistan's Chitral and Northern Areas to a border with China; the province has a total area of 44,059 square kilometres, most of, occupied by the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountain ranges. Badakhshan was a stopover on the ancient Silk Road trading path, China has shown great interest in the province after the fall of the Taliban, helping to reconstruct roads and infrastructure. According to the World Wildlife Fund, Badakhshan contains temperate grasslands and shrublands, as well as Gissaro-Alai open woodlands along the Pamir River.
Common plants found in these areas include pistachio, walnut, apple and sagebrush. Montane grasslands and shrublands are existent in the province, with the Hindu Kush alpine meadow in the high mountains in the northern and southwestern regions; the Wakhan corridor contains two montane grassland and shrubland regions: the Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe and in the Pamir Mountains and Kuh-e Safed Khers in Darwaz region. South of Fayzabad the terrain becomes dominated by xeric shrublands. Common vegetation includes thorny bushes, zizyphus and Amygdatus. Paropamisus xeric woodlands can be found in central areas. Common vegetation includes almond, pistachio and sea-buckthorn; the area has a long history like the rest of Afghanistan, dating to its conquering by the Achaemenid Empire and beyond. Badakhshan etymologically derives from an official title; the suffix of the name, -ān, means the region belonged to someone with the title badaxš. The territory was ruled by the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara between the early 16th century and the mid-18th century.
It was given to Ahmad Shah Durrani by Murad Beg of Bukhara after a treaty of friendship was reached in or about 1750 and became part of the Durrani Empire. It was ruled by the Durranis followed by the Barakzai dynasty, was untouched by the British during the three Anglo-Afghan wars that were fought in the 19th and 20th centuries, it remained peaceful for about 100 years until the 1980s Soviet–Afghan War at which point the Mujahideen began a rebellion against the central Afghan government. During the 1990s, much of the area was controlled by forces loyal to Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud, who were de facto the national government until 1996. Badakhshan was the only province that the Taliban did not conquer during their rule from 1996 to 2001. However, during the course of the wars a non-Taliban Islamic emirate was established in Badakhshan by Mawlawi Shariqi, paralleling the Islamic Revolutionary State of Afghanistan in neighboring Nuristan. Rabbani, a Badakhshan native, Massoud, were the last remnants of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance during the peak of Taliban control in 2001.
Badakhshan was thus one of the few provinces of the country that witnessed little insurgency in the Afghan wars - however during the 2010s Taliban insurgents managed to attack and take control of several districts in the province. On 26 October 2015, the 7.5 Mw Hindu Kush earthquake shook northern Afghanistan with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII. This earthquake destroyed 30,000 homes, left several hundred dead, more than 1,700 injured; the current Governor of the province is Shah Waliullah Adeeb. His predecessors were Baz Mohammad Ahmadi; the borders with neighboring Tajikistan and Pakistan are monitored by the Afghan Border Police. All law enforcement activities throughout the province are handled by the Afghan National Police. A provincial Police Chief is assigned to lead both the ANP and the ABP; the Police Chief represents the Ministry of the Interior in Kabul. The ANP is backed by the military, including the NATO-led forces. Fayzabad, the capital of Badakhshan province, sits on the Kokcha River and has an approximate population of 50,000.
The chief commercial and administrative center of northeast Afghanistan and the Pamir region, Fayzabad has rice and flour mills. Fayzabad Airport serves the province with regular direct flights to Kabul; the percentage of households with clean drinking water increased from 13% in 2005 to 21% in 2011. The percentage of births attended to by a skilled birth attendant increased from 1.5% in 2003 to 2% in 2011. The overall literacy rate fell from 31% in 2005 to 26% in 2011; the overall net enrolment rate increased from 46% in 2005 to 68% in 2011. Despite massive mineral reserves, Badakhshan is one of the most destitute areas in the world. Opium poppy growing is the only real source of income in the province and Badakhshan has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, due to the complete lack of health infrastructure, inaccessible locations, bitter winters of the province. BORNA Institute of Higher Education being the first private university located on the bank of Kokcha river. Lapis lazuli has been mined in the Sar-e-Sang mines, located in the Kuran wa Munjan District of Badakhshan, for over 6,000 years.
The mines were the largest and most well-known source in ancient times. Most recent
Khwahan District
Khwahan District, is one of the 28 districts of Badakhshan Province, located in northeastern Afghanistan. The district capital is Khwahan; the population of the district is 27,000. The district borders Raghistan to the southwest, Kuf Ab in the northeast, the Panj River in the northwest, Shuro-obod district, Khatlon Province, of Tajikistan. Kuh-e kallat List of villages and places, of Khwahan District in alphabetical order Darwaz Map at the Afghanistan Information Management Services Its coordinates are 37°53'19" N and 70°13'10" E in DMS or 37.8886 and 70.2194. Its UTM position is XG09 and its Joint Operation Graphics reference is NJ42-11khwahan
Baghlan Province
Baghlan is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. It is in the north of the country; as of 2013, the province has a population of about 910,700. Its capital is Puli Khumri; the ruins of a Zoroastrian fire temple, the Surkh Kotal, are located in Baghlan. The lead nation of the local Provincial Reconstruction Team was Hungary, which operated from 2006 to 2015; the name Baghlan is derived from Bagolango or "image-temple", inscribed on the temple of Surkh Kotal during the reign of the Kushan emperor, Kanishka in the early 2nd century CE. The Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang traveled through Baghlan in the mid-7th Century CE, referred to it as the "kingdom of Fo-kia-lang". In the 13th Century CE, a permanent garrison of Mongol troops was quartered in the Kunduz-Baghlan area, in 1253 fell under the jurisdiction of Sali Noyan Tatar, appointed there by Möngke Khan. Sali Noyan's position was inherited by his son Uladu, grandson Baktut; these Turco-Mongol garrison troops formed the Qara'unas faction, by the 14th Century had allied with the Chaghataite Khanate.
Under the rule of Temür the Qara'unas were given to Chekü Barlas, to his son Jahānshāh. Forbes Manz notes that these Kunduz-Baghlan forces appear to have remained cohesive and influential throughout the Timurid period, though under different leaders and different names, up until the Uzbek invasion. By the Islamic year 900, the area was noted in the Baburnama. In the mid-20th Century, as Afghanistan became the target of international development from both the Western and Soviet world, agricultural-industrial projects were initiated in Baghlan; these included factories for the production of sugar for vegetable oil. Czech expertise figured into the development of Baghlans' coal-mining industry, centred at Baghlan's Karkar Valley, the only coal mine in Afghanistan to remain operational up through 1992; the modern Baghlan Province was created out of the former Qataghan Province in 1964. During the Soviet–Afghan War, the Soviets in 1982 established the Kayan military zone in southern Baghlan; the area was defended by 10,000 Ismaili militiamen, increasing to 18,000 by 1992, who sided with the Soviets due to differences with the Islamist opposition.
Afghan Ismailis overall were inclined to support the Communists, though a local Ismaili leader, Sayed Manuchehr, lead a partisan movement against the Communists until Ismaili leader Sayed Mansur Naderi accepted Soviet support. Large portions of Baghlan and neighbouring Samangan Province were under the sway of the Soviet-aligned Naderi clan, the hereditary Ismaili Sayeds of Kayan. Under their jurisdiction, was quiet and societally functional throughout the 1980s, with hospitals and administrative services, funded by the communist central government. Despite the Naderi's alliance with the Communists, they maintained positive relations with the Mujahideen as well, permitting them to move through the area provided they refrained from attacks. One of the Soviets' three primary bases in Afghanistan, was located in Baghlan Province, served as the "largest military supply and armoury centre of the Soviet troops in Afghanistan." As the 2001 Afghan War commenced, Ismaili leader Sayed Mansoor Naderi attempted to retake Baghlan from the Taliban.
Naderi was aligned with Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Jumbesh-e Milli party, the competing Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e Islami party was keen to seize control of Baghlan as Taliban power eroded. The Jamiat were able to seize the capital of Pul-i Khumri before Naderi, who despite his strong backing among the Afghan Ismailis and Shia Hazaras, was unable to rally enough supporters to control the province. Naderi failed to retake the capital in 2001 and 2003, in the latter event he negotiated a power-sharing agreement with the dominant Andarabi militias and made the Ismaili bastion of the Kayan Valley his base. On 13 June 2012, two earthquakes hit Afghanistan and there was a major landslide in Burka District of Baghlan Province; the village of Sayi Hazara was buried under up to 30 meters of rock. The town of Puli Khumri serves as the capital of the province. All law enforcement activities throughout the province are handled by the Afghan National Police; the provincial police chief represents the Ministry of the Interior in Kabul.
The ANP is backed including the NATO-led forces. Abdul Sattar Bariz has been the governor of the province since October 2015; the population of Baghlan province was reported at 863,700 in the year 2013. Tajiks make up 50% of the population, followed by 20% Pashtuns, 5% Turkmens, 20% Hazaras, 5% Uzbeks, others. Most of the population speak Persian, followed by Pashto-speaking Pashtuns and some Tatars. Baghlan is home to a small community of Ismaili Muslims led by the Sayeds of Kayan; the percentage of households with clean drinking water increased from 19% in 2005 to 25% in 2011. The percentage of births attended to by a skilled birth attendant increased from 5.5% in 2005 to 22% in 2011. The overall literacy rate increased from 21% in 2005 to 24% in 2011; the overall net enrolment rate increased from 29% in 2005 to 62% in 2011. Baghlan's primary crops were cotton and sugar beets, industrial sugar production having begun under Czech supervision in the 1940s; the area produced grapes and pomegranates.
The primary livestock is Karakul sheep. The province produces silk, coal is mined in the Karkar Valley. Baghlan 2007 Baghlan sugar factory bom
Wakhan District
Wakhan District is one of the 28 districts of Badakhshan Province in eastern Afghanistan. The total population for the district is about 13,000 residents; the district has three international borders: Tajikistan to the north, Pakistan to the south, Afghanistan's only border with China to the east. The capital of the district is the village of Khandud, which has a population of 1,244. Wakhan Wakhan Corridor Map at the Afghanistan Information Management Services
