All Episodes - The Taliban - Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group - Podcast

The Land Afghanistan is a remote and rugged land, protected from modernity by a “mud curtain” of geographic and cultural isolation. Much like the people of Afghanistan, the country’s terrain is tough. It is roughly the size of Texas and comprises over 250,000 square miles of diverse geography and climatic zones. Despite its relatively large size, only 12 percent of the land is arable. Vast tracts in southern and western Afghanistan are desert and share geographic traits with the Southern Californian or New Mexican high desert. Other parts of Afghanistan are mountainous, and earthquakes are frequent there. In the 19th century, European leaders vied for supremacy and empire in Central and South Asia. Afghanistan was torn between the ambitions of two expanding empires, the British and the Russians, in the “Great Game.” In this struggle, the Afghans proved themselves fierce fighters. In January 1842, Britain’s Kabul garrison was forced to withdraw to its hard-pressed fort in Jalalabad. Th

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