Atlast dawn come up with something related to Afghan history, resistance and "Jihad". Still depicts in an artistic way but still i appreciate it :)

Nice Work ....

Salute to all those brave Afghanis who fought and died in order to save their homeland. Salute to Red Army also for fighting such a hard battle.

Pictures depicting the worst black days faced by Afghans....!! I really salute to Afghan nation, who bear a lot of ups and downs !!

@MHamza And don't forget that even Afghanis, Arabs were attacking other countries some centuries ago. Time always change.

There is nothing great about these Religious wars and then museums in their honour. What a failure of humanity!

@Sandeep Singh and it will change again inshaallah

when is Nato edition coming up?

@Sandeep Singh , Yes that is the NORM in world affairs for millennium. Boundaries of countries have changed all the times and different nations have controlled weaker nations all the time. May be century is turning for INDIA and CHINA to control World affairs and that will be NORM. India and China should be prepared to sacrifice for their EMPIRES.....

Awesome work. Long live Afghanistan. Love from Pakistan.

Nostalgia affects even killers, and what is the moral of the story? Jihad is good and jihadis are good? It is good to bomb innocent Kabul residents willy nilly for over a decade? How about all the drugs smuggled to fund their religious jihad?

The Islamic fighters. Watch for additions to the museum for display of their resistance and victory over USA and allies!

@Sandeep Singh. Being a Muslim I must say attacking others country and religion and destroying their religious places like Somnath is against the teaching of Islam. This is the reason Muslims and Hindus who were together for thousands years are not friends to each others. We should bridge this gap as much as possible and respect each others religion and places of worship. Together India and Pakistan i/c Bangladesh, Afghanistan are more than any other area or nation in the world.

@asim Do you think the Afghans won against Nato? Millions Afghans killed, million children left without father or mother, millions of girls sold as slavery and for sex trade....and you think for one minute the Afghan's won against Nato!

I remember yFrench teacher used to tell me that they didn't fight Germans to avoid the destruction of Paris. Now by looking at Kabul I do understand what he meant.

and now new addition will be the depicts of US invasion of Afghanistan and the Afghan resistance

If Dawn can take and publish an interview of this man. Will be very interesting to know about the man who worked as a spy for USSR then converted to Islam and now living in Afghanistan instead of going to his home country.

@Shak Kabul was not destroyed by fighting with soviets. It was destroyed by infighting between mujahideen. Also story is of a russian secret agent who stayed in Afganistan and looked pretty happy. I feel good that God helped him to convert to Islam and the path to erternal salvation.

spoils of war?

This museum would have been inaugurated by the great Sir Zaid Zaman Hamid.

The term 'Jihad' for Afghan resistance to Soviet invasion was coined by the Americans. Do the Jihadis of today approve of this museum. I doubt. How can they with all those statues, and women without veil. I like Mr Abduaal's picture with his wife.

what a marvelous work of art and design. i really like the 3D structure of the Afghans and the portray of Afghanistan.

And what about Afghan invasion of India ? Would Muslim of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan like if any such museum built in India?

Afghanistan is always been a nightmare of invaders. It has a long history of invasions and getting kicked by mysterious lands and natives. None of them really succeed.

Jihad museum Srinagar next.

Afghan history have invasions only. Either they invaded or they were invaded.

May Allah reward brother abdullah for doing good deeds . he encourages us all to be good Muslim Salàm to him and his fàmily

@Liaquat Syed good comment,I appreciate your thought.This is high time to get unite all these countries specially INDIA,PAKISTAN,AFGHANISTAN AND other neighbor countries. To stop intervention of uncle sam and other war extremist.be happy and prosperity.long live ASIA.

Against Soviet Union That Was Jihad & Against NATO its Terrorism. Puzzle gamd

Great work of a great nation and it's people.

Centuries ago Afghan king Muhomad Ghori captured Prithviraj Chauhan the Hindu king of Delhi and took him to Ghazni and killed him Then Mohamad Ghazni invaded India a number of times and destroyed Somnath temple in Gujarat and looted and plundered and killed.These are very very painful memories for which today's Muslims are in no way responsible.But please do not glorify Mohmad Ghori and Mohmad Ghazni as your heroes

Afghanis never fought Soviet Army but American weapons did Since USA didn't had guts to fight against Soviet directly.

This was a nationalist struggle lead by a non-jihadi (i.e. non-religious fighter) named Ahmed Shah Mehsud who was murdered by the jihadis after the soviets were thrown out. These jihadi hypocrites are trying to change history and that is all.

He conveniently ignored the aftermath of the Jihad. 8th century laws applied to a diverse and mostly secular country. Women were forced indoors and girls school were bombed, Music and movies were banned, minorities and non religious people were imprisoned or killed and country was pulled back into the darkness.

Please do not glorify war.

The real Jihad started after the Soviet Union left. Kabul was destroyed, 80000 killed & half million wounded. Jihadis are the most hated people in Afghanistan. One of reason Afghans like Ashraf Ghani & Karzai that they were not part of jihad & their hands were not stained with blood.

WELL DONE.

@Traveller The museum is about Russian Invasion of Afghanistan and the resistance. Russia did not invade Afghanistan on the premises of any religion. Resistance found Islam to be the uniting factor so it happened so but your observation is wrong that it was a religious war.

@Liaquat Syed A very good article I read by Guru Charan Das. Shah Jahan's eldest son believed in equality of all religion. He even learned Sanskrit and translated Upnishads to Persian. He was supposed to be king. However Aurangzeb killed him and other borthers and he believed in superiority of hardcore Islam. History would have been different if this event did not happen. But can we change it today? Can we stop appreciating Auranzeb who killed his brother and jailed his father? Can we keep our egos aside?

hey everyone, sandeep singh has explained everything. "afghanis" didn't beat soviets... it's a wrap. nothing to see here.

enjoyed reading.

Great article.. salutes to Sheikh Abdullah who preserves the history of the Afghan people.

@amd Our heroes don't have to be yours. Our heroes came from Simple tribes and crushed the supposedly advanced civilizations of India.

The pre-conversion name itself sounds Islamic...Bakhroddin. He may have turned believer. And is the article talking about some sort of religious greatness? Sorry if this is what this article trying to project, there is complete rejection. No amount of Islam, conversion, chrisitianity or oriental philosphies can ever create a great human if you don't believe in basic tenets of humanity. I rest my case.

what about jihad against jihad?

@Liaquat Syed there is no fight between hindus and muslim. If there is a fight, It's between India and Pakistan. There are muslim in India that live happily with Hidus and India has good relation with Iran, Saudi Arabia and other muslim coutries. So please talk about pakistani's or pakistani muslims and dont talk about all muslim world.

@lone Ranger Salute to Afghans for fighting bigger and better equipped army. Curse on Red Army/Soviet Army for killing Afghan children with toy bombs...!!! May soviet army suffer a embarrassing defeat everywhere!

@Traveller Bhagvat geeta is all about war..isn't it!

@SANJEEV KUMAR YADAV There is nothing wrong in depicting a history as long as it is true. The conquerors who came to India were muslims..but they had nothing to do with Islam....they came to conquer not to spread Islam. Just like Modi if he takes over Pakistan it would have nothing to do with hinduism..right!

@utkal kumar I agree...but western power will never let it happen!

@Sandeep Singh you are funny man! It hurts you to praise Afghans?

@Sandeep Singh Yes and Russian weapons fought in Vietnam..right...you ignorant ???

@talk_sane I agree with you. Just like issue between Palestine and Israel...has no religious conflict...its territorial

Hopefully, dawn.com's next feature will be about How this Afghan Jihad of the 1980s was funded -- and by whom -- in millions ... in cash, military equipments and sophisticated propaganda ... and what are its devastating consequences for the region, particularly for Pakistan.

Appreciated.!!!! Good work.

The name BAKHRODIN suggests that he was already a muslim.He smartly played the conversion card to lead a comfortable life .There is no dearth of fools whom he lead the garden path.

@Ridwan Yes your hero's did come from simple tribes....MA Jinnah, Iqbal, Bhuttos, all your army dictators, and the sharifs.... Please do some homework before commenting. LOLZ.....

@Pakistani Khan : Have you even read Kuran? forget talking about Gita.

@Dr. Malek Towghi : With all due respect to you Doctor Saab, aren't you expecting too much? Journalism world over (not just in India or Pakistan) has become a business, where "sales" figures are the only criteria for publishing or telecasting stories. Who cares for the facts?

@Muzaffar Ali A battle out of which was born the Taliban, victory be on whichever side, is A complete failure.understand that.

@Pakistani Khan Bhagwad Gita is about "internal Jihad", how to purify yourself, your mind, emotions, and intellect so you are able to stand before God in pride. Just going to a masjid doesn't make you pious or accepted by God. It takes lifetimes.

Hello isn't KHAKIMOV BAKARODEEN A Muslim name (BAKHRUDIN) the reason he did not go back as he was a TRAITER of his country and could not go back so he Converted to Islam that was the only choice he had,or may be he fell in love with Jamila his wife, if he would have gone back he would have been CORTMARSHALLED

LONG LIVE AFGHANISTAN

@Traveller; "There is nothing great about these Religious wars" Call it a religious war if you like, but at least you would agree that Afghans should not be ruled by Soviet Union or NATO.

@Muzaffar Ali; "you think for one minute the Afghan's won against Nato!" Do you think Pakistan should have stayed under the British rule? Pakistan lost more lives in 1947 than Afghanistan did in the last 30 years.

Why call them "Mujahideen" now ? Why not call them "terrorists" instead , since that's what there were , right USA ?

@Sam Well said ! India really needs to wake up and get over it's "Mahabharat" fantasies !

Sandeep Singh is absolutely right. It was USA's war against the Soviet Union, with the Afghans as its foot soldiers. A war that was started, funded, armed and directed entirely by the US. It riles the nerves of Islamists in Pakistan to hear this truth. Afghans did not have the means or the technology to fight the Soviet army. Let's not talk about wars in ancient history. Those wars were fought on horseback with swordsmen and archers, and probably a cannon or two. There was some kind of parity between the sides. The Islamist brigade, especially in Pakistan, loves to believe that it was somehow the magic of Islam which defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Sorry to burst your bubble folks, but as all students of history around the world know (except Pakistan, of course, where history exists in an alternate dimension) this war was won by the United States. Afghans could have benefited if they had not degenerated into savage civil war just after that momentous victory. But of course, Pakistan couldn't afford a stable, prosperous Afghanistan with its independent foreign policy at its doorstep. And we know the rest.