Afghanistan
 

1. Taliban Threatens New Wave of Prison Raids
[By Matthias Gebauer (SPIEGEL ONLINE)]

 

Western forces in Afghanistan are worried that last Friday's well-organized prison raid that freed 1,000 inmates  including around 400 Taliban fighters will further embolden the militant group. It has already vowed to mount further attacks to free its members from Afghan jails..
 
 

2. 'What's Important Is to Kill the Germans'
[Interview conducted by Susanne Koelbl &Sami Yousafzai (SPIEGEL ONLINE)]

INTERVIEW WITH A TALIBAN COMMANDER
Taliban commander Qari Bashir Haqqani is threatening the Germans in Afghanistan. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, the representative of the radical Islamists says they will ramp up deadly suicide attacks against Germans

   

3. Islamic conquest of Afghanistan
[By Wikipedia ]

The Islamic conquest of Afghanistan (642–870) began in the middle of the 7th century after the Islamic conquest of Persia was completed, when Arab Muslims defeated the Sassanid Empire at the battles of Walaja

4. Historical Sketch of Buddhism and Islam
[By Alexander Berzin, The Berzin Archives]

Various schools of Hinayana Buddhism were present in Afghanistan from the earliest times, along the kingdoms that lay on the trade route to Central Asia. The main kingdoms were Gandhara and Bactria. Gandhara included the areas on both the Pakistani Punjab and Afghani sides of the Khyber Pass. Eventually, the Afghani half, from the Khyber Pass to the Kabul Valley, received the nameNagarahara; while the Punjabi

   

5. Islam and Islamism in Afganistan
By Kristin Mendoza
The last half-century in particular has seen the recurrent use of religious Islam as ideology, often referred to as political Islam or Islamism, in groups espousing the establishment of an Islamic state. Attention was drawn to Afghanistan when it became the rallying point for Islamists in the 1980s