• the NATO commander in Afghanistan labelled the Siege of Sangin against Taliban insurgents the most intensive engagement involving British soldiers since the Korean War?
• the Dzungarian Gate, the only gateway through the 3,000-mile (4,800 km) mountain-wall from Manchuria to Afghanistan, has been linked to griffins (pictured) and the legendary Hyperboreans?
• the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways add about 500 km of new track each year to their network with planned links to Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan?
• the attack on Camp Chapman in Afghanistan on December 30, 2009, was the most lethal sustained by the CIA in 25 years?
• the 2007 documentary film Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience was based on a collection of writings by U.S. soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq?
• retired General Volney F. Warner has publicly criticized the Iraq War; his granddaughter, First Lieutenant Laura Margaret Walker, served in Afghanistan and was the first female graduate of West Point to die in combat?
• silver coins in the 10th-century Viking Harrogate Hoard, recovered intact in Yorkshire, January 2007, came from as far as Afghanistan?
• the Little Pamir valley in Afghanistan supports populations of Marco Polo sheep, ibex, and other wild animals?
• the Mosque of the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed, in Kandahar, has been described as the "heart of Afghanistan"?
• when Sabi (pictured), a detection dog of the Australian Special Forces, was found after 14 months missing in action in Afghanistan, a journalist joked that she may have been on a spying mission?
• when describing his time fighting jihad in Afghanistan, Mohamad Elzahabi said "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"?
• thousands of Flat Daddies, life-size photo cutouts of American soldiers deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, have been created to help families cope with their deployment?
• the treasure of Tillia tepe, Afghanistan, was re-discovered after it was thought to have been destroyed by the Taleban, and is now on display at the Musée Guimet in Paris?
• the director of Afghan Muscles ignored the role of Afghan women in bodybuilding, noting "It's men looking at men," and "60% [of men] have their first sexual experience with another man"?
• the new Shia Family Law of Afghanistan has attracted criticism for including clauses that some analysts believe encourage spousal rape?
• prior to the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif, all American military flights into Afghanistan had to be launched from Uzbekistan or aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea?
• it was at Petersberg where the Bonn Agreement concerning Afghanistan was actually negotiated and signed?
• Major-General Nick Carter is the current commander of British forces in southern Afghanistan?
• U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has expanded the Human Terrain Team program to match anthropologists with every brigade in Iraq and Afghanistan?
• cross stitches are part of the embroidery traditions of the Balkans, Middle East, Afghanistan, Colonial America and Victorian England?
• Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, who died in 2009 during Operation Panther's Claw in Afghanistan, is the highest-ranking British officer to be killed in action since Lt Col 'H'. Jones in the Falklands War?
• Lieutenant-General Sir Nick Parker is currently in command of 140,000 troops as acting commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan?
• Corporal Mark Wright will be posthumously awarded the George Cross for entering an unmarked minefield in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, attempting to save other injured soldiers?
• India's USD 650–750 million aid for Afghanistan has bolstered bilateral relations and made it the largest regional provider of aid since overthrow of the Taliban?
• Gary O'Donnell is the first person in 26 years to be awarded a second George Medal, the last one posthumously for "immense bravery" in Afghanistan?
• Mark Donaldson became the first recipient of the Victoria Cross for Australia, for his gallant actions under enemy fire in Afghanistan in September 2008?
• after United States Navy SEAL Erik Kristensen died in Afghanistan in 2005 California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called for flags at the state Capitol to be flown at half-staff?
• in 2005, Abdullah Wardak, a former Mujahideen commander from Afghanistan, received the "key to the city" of Evansville, Indiana?
• The Candidate was an 2009 Afghan reality TV show that pitted youth against each other in a mock presidential election?
• Ronald E. Neumann the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan is the first ambassador since John Q. Adams in 1817 to be appointed to the same country where his father was also ambassador?
• Michael Lockett, a British sergeant who was killed by a roadside bomb, was the first British soldier awarded the Military Cross to die in Afghanistan?
• Michael T. Flynn is the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Afghanistan and has been pushing for closer cooperation with Afghans?
• Corporal Bryan Budd is being posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, only the 13th such award since the Second World War?

Facts on topics related to Afghanistan

NATO

• Albania expects to accede to NATO this April after individual NATO member states ratify its accession protocol?
• American four-star admiral Lynde D. McCormick became NATO's first Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic despite opposition from British prime minister Winston Churchill?
• NATO pilots flew more than 100,000 sorties over Bosnia during Operation Deny Flight?
• Edith S. Sampson (pictured) was the first Black U.S. delegate to the United Nations and NATO?
• Operation Grand Slam in 1952 was a major naval exercise of the newly formed NATO alliance, with over 200 warships?
• both the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO and the North American Free Trade Agreement were signed in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium (pictured) in Washington, D.C.?
• current Chief of National Defense General Staff of Greece, Air Chief Marshal Ioannis Giagkos, served as Commander in NATO Combined Air Operations Centre-7?
• in 1951, Bulgarian politician and exile G. M. Dimitrov helped found the first Bulgarian NATO company?
• in 1990, it was revealed that a stay-behind army backed by NATO had been active in Switzerland throughout the Cold War, preparing for a possible Soviet invasion?
• the cruiseferry M/S Nordlandia (originally M/S Olau Hollandia) was built to be NATO-compatible, so that she could easily be converted to a troopship?

Central Intelligence Agency

• JMWAVE was a secret CIA base on University of Miami campus grounds during the 1960s?
• Jim Sanborn's sculpture Kryptos (pictured), located at the United States CIA headquarters, contains text that remains undeciphered after more than 18 years?
• Michigan State University, which gave technical assistance to South Vietnam from 1955 to 1962, provided cover for the CIA?
• an exploding cigar was at the heart of an alleged plot by the Central Intelligence Agency to assassinate Fidel Castro?
• the attack on Camp Chapman in Afghanistan on December 30, 2009, was the most lethal sustained by the CIA in 25 years?
• the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency supported the Chushi Gangdruk guerilla fighters in their attempts to overthrow the Communist Party of China in Tibet in the 1950s?
• the United States Youth Council received more than 90 percent of its funds from the Central Intelligence Agency?
• visual evidence of the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba which triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was found in reconnaissance photographs by CIA analysts led by Arthur C. Lundahl?

Kabul

• India's Defence Attaché Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta was killed in the suicide bombing on the Indian Embassy in Kabul and is being considered for the Kirti Chakra?
• surgeon William Brydon was the only European of 16,500 British troops to survive the retreat to Jalalabad from Kabul during the First Anglo-Afghan War?
• the owner of the Afghani restaurant Teaneck Kebab House fled Kabul in 1985 during the Soviet war in Afghanistan?

Pakistan

• India and Pakistan have expanded cross-border road and rail transport links, including across the disputed region of Kashmir?
• Indian businessman Ness Wadia, a co-owner of the Indian Premier League cricket team Kings XI Punjab, is the great-grandson of Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah?
• Muslim scholar Maulvi Abdul Haq is decorated as the Father of Urdu in Pakistan?
• Pakistan established bilateral relations with Nepal in 1962-63 and agreed to provide free trade access and transport facilities to Nepal at the Chittagong Port?
• Pakistan's newly created Ministry of Human Rights has announced a law which will assist in uncovering the fate of thousands who have disappeared since the War on Terror began?
• Pakistani Sufi singer Sain Zahoor (pictured) cut his first record in 2006, was nominated for the BBC World Music awards by word of mouth, and was the winner for the Asia/Pacific region that year?
• Pakistani actress Maria Wasti played a role depicting philanthropist and Lenin Peace Prize winner Bilquis Edhi?
• Pakistani actress Veena Malik (pictured) has emerged as one of the leading women on Pakistani television with her abilities in improvisational mimicry?
• Pakistani artist Anwar Shemza changed his name so it would match that of his studio in Lahore?
• Pakistani general Zahirul Islam Abbasi plotted a coup d'etat against then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1995?

Iran

• Iran and Cuba have been seeking to strengthen their relationship in recent years?
• Marzieh Meshkini's 2000 film The Day I Became a Woman depicts three stages in the lives of Iranian women, focusing on a nine-year-old girl, a married woman, and an elderly widow?
• Tanaz Eshaghian's film Be Like Others explores the experiences of transsexuals in Iran, a country that outlaws homosexuality but sanctions sex-reassignment surgery?
• Azerbaijanis live in Iran, Georgia, Turkey, Iraq and the United States, as well as Azerbaijan?
• IR-40, an Iranian heavy water reactor, could produce 10 kilograms (22 lb) to 12 kilograms (26 lb) of plutonium, enough to build two nuclear weapons, each year?
• Lake Urmia, Iran's largest lake, is too salty to support fish?
• Louis Merrilat played football with Dwight Eisenhower at West Point, trained Iran's Persian Guard, and served as a soldier of fortune in China and with the French Foreign Legion?
• Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is on death row in Iran for the crime of adultery, and was originally to be executed by stoning?
• riots broke out among Azeris in Iran after a newspaper published a cartoon about a cockroach?
• Jews of Iran is the first documentary film about Iran's Jewish minority?