Ghor
or Ghowr (Persian:
غور ) is one of the thirty-four provinces of
Afghanistan. It is located in central Afghanistan,
towards the north-west. The capital of Ghor is
Chaghcharan.
Ghor, which was part of Persia for many centuries in the
past history, was one of the regions which participated
in the Persian Cultural Revival after the Arab invasion
of Persia. The name Ghor is a dialectal version of the
Middle-Persian word gar meaning mountain. The same word
is spelled as ghar in Pashto language.
Ghor was also the centre of the Ghurid dynasty in the
12th and 13th century. The remains of their capital
Firuzkuh, including UNESCO World Heritage site the
Minaret of Jam, are located in the province.
19th century American adventurer Josiah Harlan claimed
the title Prince of Ghor for himself and his descendants
in perpetuity, in exchange for military aid during local
factional fighting.
On June 17, 2004, hundreds of troops of Abdul Salaam
Khan, who had rejected the Afghan government's plan to
disarm regional militias, attacked Chaghcharan and took
over the city in an afternoon-long siege. Eighteen
people were killed or wounded in the fighting and
province governor Mohammed Ibrahim fled. Three days
later the Afghan
government announced that it would not retake Chaghcharan.
However, Khan and Ibrahim began negotiations soon after, but reached no
agreements. Khan's troops left Chaghcharan on June 23, a day ahead of the
arrival of an Afghan National Army battalion, led by Lieutenant-General
Aminullah Paktiyanai, arrived with the support o
f about twenty U.S. soldiers.
