Chapter 2 continues...


The Hindu Kush Mountains cover most of the North-eastern and the Central parts of the country.
There are four strategically crucial cities (Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i- Sharif and Herat) that form a quadrangle (see Map on the “Location of Afghanistan”), which frames the central mountain close to the Iranian border. In the south is Kandahar, an easy road from Herat and accessible through the mountain passes from India. In the east is the Afghan capital Kabul. In the northern centre of the country, on a decent road from Herat and accessible from Kabul through high passes across the Hindu Kush, is Mazar-i-Sharif. The area around Kabul remains a strategically important place with Bagram lying forty-five miles to the north. It is connected by a
high altitude road to Bamiyan in the west from which farther passes lead to the north and Herat. Some eighty miles south of Kabul, on the route to Kandahar, is Ghazni, once the center of a great Afghan empire, and eighty miles to the east lays Jalalabad at the head of the Khyber Pass, the famous treacherous route to Peshawar in today’s Pakistan and thence to India. Possession of Kabul does not translate into control of the entire country; but no one can hope to rule Afghanistan without holding Kabul.
Although most of Afghanistan is barren and mountainous, there are fertile plains and valleys as well. There is around 12.13 percent of arable land (as of 2005) and irrigated land of about 27,200 square kilometres (as of 2003). Principal agricultural crops include grains, rice, fresh and dried fruits, vegetables, cotton seeds and potatoes. In Afghanistan there are also mineral deposits of coal, copper, barite, lapis-lazauli,12 emerald and salt. Until recently, Afghanistan was the largest producer of poppy. Despite regular clampdowns on opium production and trafficking, Afghanistan’s farmers are being forced by poverty to revive the industry. With regard to forestry, in 1995, forests covered 2.1 percent of the total land area and timber production in 1999 was 8.28 million cubic metres.

To be continued...