Wazir Akbar Khan () is a neighbourhood in northern

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

, forming part of District 10. It is named after the 19th century Afghan Emir

Wazir Akbar Khan Wazir Akbar Khān (1816–1847) also known as Mohammad Akbar Khān or Amīr Akbar Khān was a Barakzai prince and military commander who served as emir of Afghanistan from 1842 to 1843. He also served as vizier and heir apparent to his fathe ...

. It is one of the wealthiest parts of Kabul. Many foreign embassies were located there before the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, including those of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. The Hamid Karzai International Airport is also located nearby Wazir Akbar Khan. It is a common place for foreign workers to live. The streets are laid out on a grid with Western, two-story houses that date back to the 1960s and 1970s. Most of Afghanistan's national government institutions are located in the area, including the

Presidential Palace A presidential palace is the official residence of the president in some countries. Some presidential palaces were once the official residences to monarchs in former monarchies that were preserved during those states' transition into republics. ...

, the headquarters of the

Resolute Support Mission Resolute Support Mission (RSM) or Operation Resolute Support was a NATO-led multinational mission in Afghanistan. It began on 1 January 2015 as the successor to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was completed on 28 Dece ...

and the German-Afghan Amani High School. During the final stages of the

2021 Taliban offensive The 2021 Taliban offensive was a Offensive (military), military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and allied militants that led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the end of the nearly 20-year War in Afghanistan (200 ...

with the Taliban on the borders of the city, diplomats were evacuated from the district. A deadly car bomb explosion occurred at a mosque in the neighborhood in September 2022. Another explosion involving a magnetic bomb occurred near a mosque in the neighborhood in November 2022.

Terminology

The neighborhood is named after

Emir Emir (; ' (), also Romanization of Arabic, transliterated as amir, is a word of Arabic language, Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocratic, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person po ...

, a prominent Afghan hero during the early 1840s, a son of Emir Dost Mohammad Barakzai. Akbar is

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

for "great" and Khan means "chief/King" in

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

In popular culture

The early part of the novel '' The Kite Runner'' by Khaled Hosseini is set in this suburb.

References

Neighborhoods of Kabul {{Kabul-geo-stub