Zurmat ( ps, زرمت ولسوالۍ / fa, ولسوالی زرمت) is a district in

Paktia Province Paktia (Pashto/Dari: – ''Paktyā'') is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the east of the country. Forming part of the larger Loya Paktia region, Paktia Province is divided into 15 districts and has a population of roughly ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

.Zurmat District Development Plan - MRRD
The main town is

Zurmat Zurmat ( ps, زرمت) is the main town of Zurmat District in Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Zurmat is the largest city of Paktia Province, while Zurmat District, with a population of 109,805, is also the most populous district of the province.

, which is one of the main cities of the region of

Loya Paktia Lōya Paktiā ( ps, لويه پکتيا; lit. Greater Paktia) is a historical and cultural region of Afghanistan, comprising the modern Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika, as well as parts of Logar

Geography

Zurmat borders Logar, Ghazni, and Paktika provinces. Tamir is the main bazaar of the district. Geographical features of Zurmat include the

Shah-i-Kot Valley The Shah-i-Kot Valley (also Shahi-Kot, Shah-e-Kot and other variant spellings) is a valley in Afghanistan's Paktia province, southeast of the town of Zormat. The terrain in and around the valley is notoriously rugged, located at a mean altitude o ...

and the

Arma Mountains The Arma Mountains are a mountain range in Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and Sou ...

. The district contains 63 or 64 schools. Zurmat does not receive power from the national electricity grid, so solar power and generators are prevalent.

Demographics

The population of the district is 120,000 (CSO 2004). According to the same sources,

Pashtuns Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically r ...

make up 99% of the total population followed by 1%

Tajiks Tajiks ( fa, تاجيک، تاجک, ''Tājīk, Tājek''; tg, Тоҷик) are a Persian-speaking Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Taj ...

. Many people of Zurmat work in Arab countries like

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it ...

and

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

History

Operation Anaconda Operation Anaconda was a military operation that took place in early March 2002 as part of the War in Afghanistan. CIA paramilitary officers, working with their allies, attempted to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. The operation took plac ...

, a major battle of the

War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC) * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709) *Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see al ...

, took place in Zurmat in 2002. For the rest of the war, Zurmat has been a stronghold of the

Taliban insurgency {{Infobox military conflict , partof = the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) and the Afghanistan conflict , image = 2021 Taliban Offensive.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Map of the 2021 Taliban of ...

and the

Haqqani network The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanist ...

. In 2019, the Taliban controlled 80% of the district.

References

Districts of Paktia Province {{Paktia-geo-stub