Kelat-i Ghilzai

There are very few images of this important location in Ghilzai country between Qandahar and Kabul. This fort is a larger version of the more common and much smaller fortified compounds known as qala that characterize the rural zones of eastern and southern Afghanistan and the wider region. The scarcity of images of Kelat-i Ghilzai parallels a larger cartographic gap regarding Katawaz, a particularly prominent sub-region associated with the Ghilzai tribal confederation. Together Kelat-i Ghilzai and Katawaz are legendary for their strategic centrality to armies, but both were fundamentally marginal to state authorities. These two places, like Afghanistan more generally, are of central importance to the international community but are very poorly known and improperly understood by those international actors.

Image courtesy of The Royal Society for Asian Affairs (formerly the Royal Central Asian Society).

There are very few images of this important location in Ghilzai country between Qandahar and Kabul. This fort is a larger version of the more common and much smaller fortified compounds known as <em>qala</em> that characterize the rural zones of eastern and southern Afghanistan and the wider region. The scarcity of images of Kelat-i Ghilzai parallels a larger cartographic gap regarding Katawaz, a particularly prominent sub-region associated with the Ghilzai tribal confederation. Together Kelat-i Ghilzai and Katawaz are legendary for their strategic centrality to armies, but both were fundamentally marginal to state authorities. These two places, like Afghanistan more generally, are of central importance to the international community but are very poorly known and improperly understood by those international actors