Afghan national Army After the removal of the Taliban

The Afghan National Army (ANA) is a service branch of the military of Afghanistan, which is currently trained by the coalition forces to ultimately take the role in land-based military operations in Afghanistan. As of January 2011, the Afghan National Army is divided into seven regional Corps and consists of around 150,000 active troops. The Afghan Ministry of Defense is expanding the ANA to about 260,000 troops by 2014, a move supported and funded primarily by the United States Department of Defense. There were more than 4,000 American military trainers in late 2009 and additional numbers from other NATO states, providing advanced warfare training to the ANA.

Afghanistan's army was first organized in 1880 with British support, during Emir Abdur Rahman Khan's reign. Prior to 1880, the national army was composed of private militia forces belonging to different regional commanders, as well as a special army force under the ruler of the country.^] During World War I and World War II, the Afghan army was supplied by Germany but Afghanistan remained a neutral state. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the army of Afghanistan was trained and equipped by the Soviet Union. By 1992, the national army fragmented into regional militias under local warlords. This was followed by the Taliban government in the mid 1990s, which had their own militia-style forces.

After the removal of the Taliban in late 2001, the new Afghan National Army was created with support from NATO, mainly the United States. Since 2002, billions of dollars worth of military equipment, facilities, and other forms of aid has been provided to the ANA. Most of the weapons arrived from the United States, which included Humvees, M-16 assault rifles, body armored jackets as well as other types of vehicles and military equipment. It also included the building of a national military command center, with training compounds in different parts of the country.To thwart and dissolve anti-government militant groups, the Karzai administration has offered cash and vocational training to encourage members to join the ANA.

Pakhtun Pakhtoon History, Afghan Pakhtoons All History and Photos

Pashtuns (Pashto: پښتون Paṣ̌tun, Pax̌tun, also rendered as Pushtuns, Pakhtuns, Pukhtuns), also called Pathans (in Urdu: پٹھان and Hindi: पठान Paṭhān) or ethnic Afghans (in Persian: افغان; see also origin of the term), are an Eastern Iranian ethno-linguistic group with populations primarily in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, which includes Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan. The Pashtuns are typically characterized by their usage of the Pashto language and practice of Pashtunwali, a traditional set of ethics guiding individual and communal conduct. Their true origin is unclear but historians have come across references to a people called Paktha (Pactyans) between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BC, which may be the early ancestors of Pashtuns. Since the 3rd century AD and onward, they are mostly referred to by the name "Afghan" ("Abgan").

During the Delhi Sultanate era, a number of Pashtun Emperors (Sultans) ruled the Indian subcontinent. Other Pashtuns fought the Safavid Persians and the Mughal Empire before obtaining an independent state in the early-18th century, which began with a successful revolution by the Hotaki dynasty followed by military conquests by the Durrani Empire. Pashtuns played a vital role during the Great Game from the 19th century to the 20th century as they were caught between the imperialist designs of the British and Russian empires. For over 300 years, they reigned as the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan with nearly all rulers being Pashtun. More recently, the Pashtuns gained global attention during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and with the rise of the Taliban, since they are the main ethnic contingent in the movement. Pashtuns are also an important community in Pakistan, where they have attained the presidency and high positions in the military, and are the second-largest ethnic group in that country.

The Pashtuns are the world's largest (patriarchal) segmentary lineage ethnic group. According to Ethnologue, the total population of the group is estimated to be as high 49 million but an accurate count remains elusive due to the lack of an official census in Afghanistan since 1979. Estimates of the number of Pashtun tribes and clans range from about 350 to over 400.