Lashkar Gah is a city in southern Afghanistan, the capital of Helmand province. It is situated between the Helmand and Arghandab rivers. Lashkar Gah is linked by highways with Kandahar to the east, Zaranj to the west and Herat to the north-west. It is mostly very arid and desolate. However, farming does exist around the Helmand and Arghandab rivers. This is an alphabetical list of the sovereign states of the world, including both de jure and de facto independent states. ... Afghanistan consists of 34 provinces, or velayat: Badakhshan Badghis Baghlan Balkh Bamiyan Daikondi - established March 28, 2004 Farah Faryab Ghazni Ghowr Helmand Herat Jowzjan Kabul Kandahar Kapisa Khost Konar Kondoz Laghman Lowgar Nangarhar Nimruz Nurestan Oruzgan Paktia Paktika Panjshir - established April 13, 2004 Parvan Samangan Sar-e Pol Takhar Vardak... Helmand (Persian: هلمند) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. ... A time zone is a region of the Earth that has adopted the same standard time, usually referred to as the local time. ... ... In politics, a capital (also called capital city or political capital — although the latter phrase has a second meaning based on an alternative sense of capital) is the principal city or town associated with a countrys government. ... Helmand (Persian: هلمند) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. ... The Helmand River: Avestan: Haētumant rich in dams (also Helmend, Helmund, Hirmand or Tarnak) is the longest river in Afghanistan. ... Arghandab is a river of Afghanistan, about 250 mi. ... This article is about the city in Afghanistan. ... The city Zaranji is the capital of the Afghan province of Nimruz located in the southwest of the country close to the Iranian border. ... Court of the Friday Mosque in Herāt. ...

History

Lashkar Gah means "place of the soldiers." It grew up a thousand years ago as a riverside barracks town for soldiers accompanying the Ghaznavid nobility to their grand winter capital of Bost. The ruins of the Ghaznavid mansions still stand along the Helmand River; the city of Bost and its outlying communities were sacked in successive centuries by the Ghorids, Genghis Khan, and Timur Leng. The Ghaznavid Empire was a state in the region of todays Afghanistan that existed from 977 to 1186. ... Ghorids are people from Ghor province of Afghanistan. ... For other uses, see Genghis Khan (disambiguation). ... Timur (Chagatai Turkish: تیمور) (also known as Temur, Taimur, Timur Lenk, Timur i Leng, Tamerlane, Tamburlaine, or Taimur-e-Lang, which translates to Timur the Lame, as he was lame after sustaining an injury in battle) (1336–February 1405) was a great 14th century Turco-Mongol conqueror, ruler of the Timurid...

The great fortress of Bost, Qala-e-Bost, remains an impressive ruin at the convergence of the Helmand and Arghandab Rivers, a half hour's drive south of Lashkar Gah. Qala-e-Bost is famous for its decorative arch, which appears on the 100 Afghani note (Afghan currency). As of early 2005, it was possible to descend into an ancient shaft about 20 feet across and 200 feet deep, with a series of dark side rooms and a spiral staircase leading to the bottom. In 2006 construction began on a cobblestone road to lead from the south of Lashkar Gah to the Qala-e-Bost Arch. Arghandab is a river of Afghanistan, about 250 mi. ...

The modern city of Lashkar Gah was built as a headquarters for American engineers working on the Helmand valley irrigation project in the 1950s. Lashkar Gah was built in American style, with broad tree-lined streets and brick houses with no walls separating them from the street. In the wake of the Soviet invasion and the long Afghan civil war, the trees mostly came down and walls went up. The Afghan Civil War is a civil war that began in 1978 and has continued since, though it has included several distinct phases. ...

The massive Helmand irrigation project in the 1940s-1970s created one of the most extensive farming zones in southern Afghanistan, opening up many thousands of hectares of desert to human cultivation and habitation. The project focused on three large canals: the Boghra, Shamalan, and Darweshan. The new communities of Nad-i-Ali and Marja (now two of the largest districts in Helmand province) were settled by mostly Pashtun migration from all corners of the country. Responsibility for maintaining the canals was given to the Helmand Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA), a semi-independent government agency whose authority (in its heyday) rivaled that of the provincial governors. The Pashtuns (also Pushtun, Pakhtun, ethnic Afghan, or Pathan) are an ethno-linguistic group consisting mainly of eastern Iranian stock living primarily in eastern and southern Afghanistan, and the North West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Baluchistan provinces of Pakistan. ...

See also

• Afghanistan
• International Security Assistance Force
• Provincial Reconstruction Team
• NATO

Logo of ISAF. Persian writing: کمک و همکاری (Komak va Hamkari) means Help and Cooperation. One of many ISAFs military bases in Afghanistan. ... A Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) is an administrative unit of international aid to Afghanistan, consisting of a small operating base from which a group of sixty to more than one hundred civilians and military specialists work to perform small reconstruction projects or provide security for others involved in aid work. ... NATO 2002 Summit in Prague The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation[1] (NATO), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, the Atlantic Alliance or the Western Alliance, is an international organisation for collective security established in 1949, in support of the North Atlantic Treaty signed in Washington, DC, on 4 April 1949. ...

References and footnotes

External links

• Historical Guide to Afghanistan (Lashkar Gah and Bost)