Durand Line

The Durand Line is an inexact, 2450 km long line of demarcation between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After the first two Anglo- Afghan wars succeeded in the UK in 1893 with the Durand Line, (now Pakistan) demarcate its colonial possessions in British India against the Emirate of Afghanistan. The line was named after the then Foreign Minister of the Indian administration, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, and resolved under British pressure the agreement of both sides. The demarcation line was deliberately set by the settlement areas of the Pashtuns to make Afghanistan a buffer zone and thus be able to control the people of the Afghans better. Approximately one-third of Afghanistan was delivered to the British.

1947, the state of Pakistan was established with the involvement of Pashtun areas. The Afghan Loya Jirga ( large council ') of 1949 then declared the Durand Line invalid, since the original agreement with the British and not with the Pakistani government had been decided, but according to the Vienna Convention, a bilateral contract not through unilateral contradiction contestable.

The hardly to be monitored demarcation line moved in the wake of the war on terrorism after the attacks of 11 September 2001 of increasing public awareness. Taliban fighters and Al Qaeda supporters moved relatively freely in the area and so found shelter in the autonomous Pashtun areas in Pakistan.