List of cities in Afghanistan
The only city in Afghanistan with over 1 million population is its capital, Kabul. The rest are smaller cities and towns. According to the CIA, an estimated total number of people living inside Afghanistan was 31,822,848. Of this, around 6 million or so were reported to be living in urban areas and the rest in rural or countryside.
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
By 2001, the Taliban controlled as much as 90% of Afghanistan, with the Northern Alliance confined to the country's northeast corner. Fighting alongside Taliban forces were some 28,000–30,000 Pakistanis (usually also Pashtun) and 2,000–3,000 Al-Qaeda militants. Many of the Pakistanis were recruited from madrassas. A 1998 document by the U.S. State Department confirmed that "20–40 percent of [regular] Taliban soldiers are Pakistani." The document said that many of the parents of those Pakistani nationals "know nothing regarding their child's military involvement with the Taliban until their bodies are brought back to Pakistan". According to the U.S. State Department report and reports by Human Rights Watch, other Pakistani nationals fighting in Afghanistan were regular soldiers, especially from the Frontier Corps, but also from the Pakistani Army providing direct combat support.