Pashtun mujahidin on the Durand border line between Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1985 Historically, Afghanistan has lain astride the invasion route from central Asia into the Indian subcontinent. It was also the shortest route from central Asia to the Indian Ocean. This was the route that the Persian conqueror Darius I took in 516 BC. Alexander the Great followed suit in 326 BC. In turn they were followed by, among others, Muslim armies under Qutaybs ibn Muslim in 705, by Mahmoud Ghazni of the Afghan Ghaznavid Empire in 1001, Muhammad Ghori of the Ghurid Empire in 1175, and the Mongol, Genghis Khan in 1219. Timur (Tamerlane), during his conquest of northwest India in 1383, took the same route...
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