Britain in Afghanistan - a Present History Explainer
‘May God deliver us from the venom of the cobra, teeth of the tiger, and vengeance of the Afghans’
So said Alexander the Great in 330 AD, as he reflected on his experience after invading Afghanistan. Except that he probably never did, and its actually a quote from Rambo III. Nevertheless, it is a sentiment many empires have learnt to be true. The British Empire among them.
The First Anglo-Afghan War
For Britain, the long and disastrous relationship with Afghanistan began in the mid 19th Century, with something that become known as the Great Game. For years, Britain and Russia had been competing against one another for political and imperial supremacy in Asia. It became a kind of cold-war, with the autocracy of Russia and the democracy of Britain looking set to clash. Looking out at the instability of Afghanistan, Lord Palmerston, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs became concerned about a potential Russian invasion of British India through Afghanistan.
A few years before, a long civil war had left Dōst Moḥammad Khan ruler of Afghanistan. Now, Britain viewed him as a threat; as potentially unstable and possibly vulnerable to Russian control. With the fear of Russian military action, and the instability of the ruler of Afghanistan, Britain moved to have more direct control over Afghan affairs. After their negotiations failed, Britain invaded, intending to replace Dōst Moḥammad with the more loyal Shah Shojāʿ.
In April 1839, after suffering great losses in supplies and resources, the British entered Kandahār and Shojāʿ was crowned Shah. The Afghan people were intolerant to the idea of a foreign power, or a shah imposed on them by that foreign power, ruling. Insurrections broke out across the country, and Dōst Moḥammad, who had escaped imprisonment, returned to lead his partisans against the British. On November 2, 1840, despite having the upper hand in a battle in Parwan, Dōst Moḥammad surrendered to the British and was deported to India.
This didn’t stop the violence, however, with the British soon coming to appreciate the power of that Afghan vengeance. They began to negotiate terms of withdrawal with Dōst Moḥammad’s son, Akbar Khan, but, when, in 1842, the British political agent, Sir William Hay Macnaghten was killed during a meeting with the Afghans, 4,500 British and Indian troops, with 12,000 camp followers, marched out of Kabul. This retreat turned into a bloodbath, as hundreds of Afghans swarmed the British soldiers, massacring them. As they struggled through the snowbound passes, Ghilzai warriors attacked them, the freezing temperatures suffocated them and the food began to run low. By the second day, all of the men of the Royal Afghan Army's 6th regiment deserted, heading back to Kabul, marking the end of the first attempt to give Afghanistan a national army.
Most were killed in the carnage. Running battles and a final stand saw the 44th Regiment lose all but nine of of their men. Estimates suggest that maybe a hundred out of the 16,000 soldiers and native camp followers were taken captive. The rest lay dead in the snow. The women and children were also taken prisoner. Shah Shojāʿwas executed, and in 1843 Dōst Moḥammad returned to Kabul and was restored to the throne. Till this day, this stands as one of the most humiliating defeats in British military history.
The Second Anglo-Afghan War
It wasn’t long before the British would try again. In November 1875 Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli appointed Lord Lytton governor-general of India. One of Lytton’s main concerns was India’s relations with Afghanistan, and the increasing role of Russia in the country. Determined to counteract this, and secure a stronger frontier, Lytton contacted Shīr ʿAlī Khan, the third son of Dōst Moḥammad, and his successor, telling him he was sending a mission to negotiate. Shīr ʿAlī refused, denying the British envoy entrance into Afghanistan. Dismissing Afghanistan as ‘an earthen pipkin between two metal pots’, Lytton didn’t take any action. But then, in 1878, Russia’s General Stolyetov was allowed into Kabul, while Lytton’s envoy, led by Sir Neville Chamberlain was again denied access.
Seriously enraged by this ‘pipkin’, Lytton invaded, determined to crush the emir. Thus began the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Almost immediately, Shīr ʿAlī fled, dying in exile in early 1879. It wasn’t long before the British were back in control of Kabul, and signing an agreement with Shīr ʿAlī’s son, Yaʿqūb Khan, who agreed to to receive a permanent British embassy at Kabul. He also agreed for the British to have an influential hand in the rest of Afghanistan’s foreign policy.
The victory didn’t last long, with the British envoy, Sir Louis Cavagnari, and his escort being murdered in Kabul on September 3, 1879. Once again, British troops invaded Kabul, seizing power. Yaʿqūb Khan, Britain’s appointee abdicated, with the throne remaining vacant for the next six months. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Shīr ʿAlī’s nephew, was next to take the throne, in July 1880, under whom the modern borders of Afghanistan were drawn.
The Third Anglo-Afghan War
When WW1 broke out in 1914, Afghanistan became a hotbed of support for the Ottoman Turks against the British. However, Afghanistan’s ruler, Ḥabībullāh Khan, was able to keep Afghanistan out of the war, with a stable policy of non-involvement. This all changed in 1919, when Ḥabībullāh was assassinated. His son, Amānullāh Khan, seized the throne, declaring complete independence from Britain in his coronation speech. This launched the Third Anglo-Afghan War. But, unlike the first and second wars, this one was short-lived. The Afghan army were largely ineffective, and the British Indian army were exhausted from the First World War. This war lasted little over a month, and consisted of a few fierce skirmishes. While not being as explosive as the previous wars, it achieved much more, with Britain signing a peace treaty that recognised the independence of Afghanistan. Two years later, the Afghan government would sign a treaty of friendship with the new Bolshevik regime of Russia, becoming one of the first nations to recognise the Soviet Union. This relationship lasted until 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War.
2001 Invasion
On September 11th 2001, the world turned upside down.
Two planes flew into the World Trade Centre towers, a third crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth, was re-hijacked by the passengers and crashed into a field. Almost 3,000 people were killed, over 25,000 injured, and the world left in shock.
Relatively quickly, Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were named as the most prominent suspects and perpetrators. Immediately, the US State department demanded that the Taliban surrender all known Al-Qaeda associates in Afghanistan, provide intelligence on bin Laden and his affiliates, and expel all terrorists from their country.
The Taliban were defiant, in some cases out right refusing to hand over Bin Laden. Eventually, they shipped him off to Pakistan, where he was held under house arrest. The Taliban repeatedly called for an independent investigation, to confirm Bin Laden’s guilt. The American government was convinced of Bin Laden’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and consistently refused the Taliban’s demands, saying that their evidence was ‘clear and compelling’. The Taliban, according to the State Department, were using the charade of wanting an investigation as a time wasting tactic. Thus, on October 7th, 2001, the US and British aerial bombing of Afghanistan began. The same day, the State Department handed the Taliban an ultimatum: 'Hand over all al-Qaeda leaders or "every pillar of the Taliban regime will be destroyed’. Operation Enduring Freedom had begun.
Secretly, the CIA had been working with anti-Taliban groups on the ground in Afghanistan, and, in late October, they began to seize a series of towns once held by the Taliban. Quickly, the US-backed tribal leaders marched into Kabul, with the Taliban retreating without a fight. Kandahar, the largest city in southern Afghanistan and the Taliban’s spiritual home, fell in early December, spelling the end of Taliban power in Afghanistan.
The hunt for Bin Laden could begin. At the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, the US came within touching distance of Bin Laden, who managed to escape into Pakistan and began to rebuild an Al-Qaeda base of operations on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
As 2002 dawned, the newly established International Security Assistance Force entered Afghanistan, with Britain taking the first six-month rotation commanding the force. By April 2002, there were 1,700 British troops in Afghanistan. Working alongside the American Operation Enduring Freedom, Britain’s Operation Herrick deployed troops into Afghanistan to secure Kabul and provide a rapid reaction force for the surrounding area.
The first British casualties in Afghanistan came in 2002, with Private Darren John George, aged 23, from the Royal Anglian Regiment, being killed by a ricocheting bullet fired by a comrade who had a dizzy spell. The first death from enemy activity came in 2004, when, on 28 January, Private Jonathan Kitulagoda, aged 23, from the Rifle Volunteers Territorial Army, was killed in a suicide attack in Kabul. The British troops were in armoured vehicles when a taxi swerved into their convoy and a bomber detonated 200Ibs of explosives.
By 2003, the war seemed to be going well. The Taliban were beaten, a new government was being put into place and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced an end to “major combat” in Afghanistan.
This wouldn’t last long. The Taliban regrouped and reasserted its presence in Afghanistan in early 2005. Learning from the insurgents fighting the US in Iraq, the Taliban began a campaign of suicide bombings and IED attacks that began to cause heavy casualties. Between January 2005 and August 2006, Afghanistan endured 64 suicide attacks—a tactic that had been virtually unknown in the country’s history before then.
In April 2006, the British redeployed in strength, operating out of Camp Bastion, a specially built base in the desert near the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Over 3,000 troops were sent to help with reconstruction efforts, but were almost immediately drawn into intense firefights. Before the end of the year, 21 UK troops would be killed on operations in Helmand. Among them were Corporal Bryan Budd and Corporal Mark Wright, who were both posthumously awarded the awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery.
In July 2006, the mission in Afghanistan officially changed from a peacekeeping operation to a combat one.
Over the next few years, the intense resurgence of the Taliban, British deployment and casualties continued. 2009 was Britain’s deadliest year in Afghanistan, with 108 service personnel killed, with British forces reaching their height in 2010, with over 10,000 troops on the ground.
Meanwhile, the hunt for Osama Bin Laden continued. Then, on 2 May 2011, the announcement came.
Osama Bin Laden was dead, the mastermind of 9/11 had been killed. With this announcement, came a very gradual lessening of military involvement in Afghanistan. Four days later, on 6 July 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron announced the withdrawal of 500 British troops, cutting total numbers to 9,000 by September 2012. David Cameron also laid out his plan for the end of all British Combat missions in Afghanistan by 2014. On October 26th, 2014, Camp Bastion was handed over to Afghan forces, and all British troops that remained in the country took up training and advisory roles, away from combat.
In total, Britain lost 457 personnel, with thousands more injured and hospitalised. 750 British servicemen and women remained in Afghanistan until July 2021, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the complete withdrawal of all British troops.
Since then, the Taliban have swept through the country, regaining complete control with devastating speed. It seems that everything achieved from 2001 to 2021 has been undone.
Recently, the Ministry of Defence announced that they would be redeploying around 600 soldiers to help relocate British nationals, local allies, and those who had served with the British during the war.
The situation in Afghanistan is not over, and the question still remains as to whether it ever will be. There is a reason Afghanistan became known as the graveyard of empires. Only time will tell how Afghanistan will exist in the coming years - and if history can teach us anything, it is that it will not be without violence, potential upheaval and the potential involvement of outside powers.
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