introductionplans to extend this road to the Iranian port of Chabahar. The completed
road will provide Afghanistan with an alternative port for its imports and
exports, reducing Afghanistan’s reliance on the port of Karachi in Pakistan,
though security on the roads is a major problem as insurgents and bandits
regularly hold up or kidnap travellers and attack security patrols.
Pushtun tribes are the dominant peoples of southern and southwestern
Afghanistan. Kandahar and Girishk is the homeland of the Durrani tribes
and Shahr-i Safa, on the Tarnak river between Kandahar and Muqur, was
once the stronghold of the royal Saddozai clan. The other powerful Pushtun
tribal confederation of southern Afghanistan is the Ghilzai. Qalat-i Ghilzai,
on the Kandahar–Ghazni road, was formerly the stronghold of the Tokhi
Ghilzais, though this tribe is now scattered throughout Afghanistan. In
1709 Mir Wa’is, malik of the Hotak Ghilzais, established an independent
Afghan kingdom in Kandahar and in 1722 his son, Mahmud, occupied the
Safavid capital of Isfahan and ruled southern Persia for seven years. Mir
Wa’is’s tomb is located in the Kokaran district of Kandahar city.
The central highlands of the Hazarajat is the domain of the Hazara
peoples. Here the winters are long and harsh and the growing season short
and precarious. Traditionally the Hazaras’ main export was rendered sheep
fat, or roghan-i zard, literally ‘yellow fat’, which was used in cooking, and
a kind of thick serge coat still used by nomads in winter. Hazara gilims,
woven by the women, are a popular floor covering in poorer homes. Some
years ago, potatoes were introduced to the region and quickly became the
major crop and a staple food. Living in mountainous regions has made
Hazaras men tough and strong and in the past they have worked as water
carriers, porters, night soil cleaners, carters or karachiwans, and wood
sellers. Nowadays many young, urbanized Hazaras, both men and women,
are well educated and work as translators, journalists, it and social media
specialists. Older Hazara women work in the service industry, mostly
as maids and household servants. The recent surfacing and widening
of the Kabul–Bamiyan road through the Ghurband valley promises to
have a major impact on one of the poorest and most neglected regions of
Afghanistan. There are plans to extend this highway to Herat and to widen
and seal the old caravan road from Bamiyan to Doshi. If this plan is ever
realized, the Bamiyan–Herat highway will substantially cut both the time
and distance for travel between Kabul and Herat. The Bamiyan valley was
formerly a major Buddhist centre and the whole region is dotted with
Buddhist sites, as well as Kushan and Ghurid fortifications (see Table 2).
Bamiyan’s most famous Buddhist monuments are the giant statues of the
Buddha carved into the cliff face. Blown up by the Taliban in 2001 in an act