Thread by @AfghanHistorian

Thread on Naghlu Dam
Tweets by AF (@TheFahimi): 1/8

Khrushchev and Bulganin welcomed by PM Muhammad Daud Khan in #Kabul in Dec 1955. They agreed to extend a $100 million aid by USSR to #Afghanistan which would build #Naghlu dam, Bagram military airfield and Darunta dam.

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Naghlu dam, also #Afghanistan’s largest hydropower plant with a 100 MW generation capacity, is located on Kabul River in Surobi district of #Kabul. Work on the dam started in January 1960 and by 1968 the dam was ready for operation. /AF

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When Surobi area was controlled by Hekmatyar's militia (i.e. during #Soviet-#Afghan war and in the years leading to the #Taliban rule), they used the power plant as a tool to pressure Kabul by cutting the electricity connection.
Later, the Taliban would do the same. /AF

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By 2001, only two generators out of the total four were operating. The government of #Afghanistan first awarded a #Russian company to rehabilitate the plant. Later, with the financial support of the World Bank, all four generators of the dam were made operational. /AF

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Tensions with #Pakistan:
The river on which Naghlu dam is built, Kabul river, emerges in #Afghanistan but empties in Indus river in Attock of Pakistan. This makes the river transboundary and thus the use of it takes a regional dimension. /AF

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Nearly all of #Afghanistan's rivers are transboundary. #Kabul River runs past Kabul, Surobi, & Jalalabad in Afghanistan and Peshawar & Nowshera in #Pakistan.
Around 25 million people in both countries live in this basin and the river provides drinking water to 7 million. /AF

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#Pakistan has, on multiple occasions, criticized Afghanistan's "aggressive dam building" on #Kabul river. Currently #Afghanistan has Naghlu, Surobi and Darunta dams on this river while #Pakistan's 250 MW-Warsak dam is also on Kabul river. This river is "indispensable .../AF

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...for irrigation of the Peshawar Valley and parts of Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Banuri, and North Waziristan." #Pakistan fears #Afghanistan will go ahead with its planned 12 dam projects. /AF. END

Thank you very much for your attention. It was my last thread. By @TheFahimi