British forces occupied the city during the First Anglo-Afghan War from 1832 to 1842. They also occupied the city during the Second Anglo-Afghan War from 1878 to 1880. During the Soviet occupation of 1979 to 1989, Kandahar was originally firmly under Soviet command until mujahideen fighters began to shake the Soviet grip on the region. After the Soviet withdrawal, control changed several times.

Recent History

At the end of 1994, the Taliban emerged from the city and set out to conquer the south, east, and center of the country. Since the removal of the Taliban in 2001, Kandahar came under the control of Gul Agha Sherzai, a Pashtun warlord who had controlled the province and city before the Taliban came to power, he is credited with permitting the same corruption that first fueled the growth the Taliban. Central Afghan control remains little more than symbolic.

Transportation

Kandahar International Airport serves the population of Kandahar as a method of traveling to far destinations. Kandahar Airport was built in the 1960s with US financial and technical assistance under the United States Agency for International Development program. Kandahar International Airport has been used by the NATO forces to deliver troops and humanitarian supplies since late 2001. The airport was severely damaged during the Soviet attacks on the city during 1979-89 and again during the US raids in late 2001. Repairs and upgrades also occurred during that period; the airport re-opened for civilian use in late 2006.
Kandahar has a loose public bus system carrying passengers. The city has a small public bus system that take commuters on daily routes to many destinations throughout the city. Besides the buses, there are yellow taxicabs that litter the city. Other traditional methods of ground transportation are also used. Private vehicles are on the rise in Kandahar, with Toyota and Hyundai dealerships opening in the city. More and more people are buying new cars as the roads and highways are being improved.
 

Education

Efforts to improve education in Afghanistan are severely hampered without books, which are in short supply. Lack of funding and political will has lead to only small gains since the fall of the Taliban. Education has moved somewhat upward in the rest of the country, but southern states, like Kandahar, have seen slow to no progress because of the continued fighting and instability of the region. In 2006 alone, almost 150 educational institutes have closed in Kandahar province alone, according to the education ministry. Regionally more than 50 schools have been attacked this year. Over 60,000 students cannot attend school because of the risk of attack.

Kandahar University is the largest college or university in the province. In partnership with the Asia Foundation, the Kandahar University conducted a pilot project that provided female high school graduates with a four-month refresher course to prepare for the college entrance examination. Kandahar University, for example, currently has an enrollment of six women and 1,094 men. All of the 24 women who sat for the exam passed and have been admitted to universities to study medicine, engineering, economics, law, and agriculture. The university is only one of two universities in Kandahar that serve all of southern Afghanistan. The conditions in the university or extremely poor, with no water, limited power, and a closed library. The structures of the University are very weak and unsafe. The university is far behind the universities of the North because of the violence, the two universities in southern Afghanistan also receive very limited funding.

Economics and Trades

Kandahar had well-irrigated gardens and orchards and was famous for its grapes, melons, and pomegranates, but these were made inaccessible by land mines or destroyed outright in the conflict between the Soviets and the mujahideen, Islamic guerrilla fighters during the Soviet occupation. The city is of significant strategic importance in the region due to the major airport built in the early 1970s with development funding from the United States. The main source of trade is to Pakistan, Iran, and the United States. Kandahar is an agricultural state.