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- 70 - once again when Doust Mohmed Khan and Shuja and once again when Doust Mohamed Khan was on the throne. So that they reached Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Shikar Pour: and that due to the internecine wars in Afghanistan, the introduction of foreign forces was made clear to the extent of their being in possesion of three most important cities of Afghanistan, namely Kabul, Kandahar; and eyes were being cast towards Herat. Contemporary to the English activities in India: or indeed, a little earlier than that period: the imperialist designs of the Czarist Russia were making themselves felt amogst the Khanates of Central Asia; so that the Russian imperialist thrust was proceeding south wards towards the banks of the Oxus. There is, of course, little doubt that the English, when they were still not further west than the Punjab; and as early as the reign of Zaman Shah in Afghanistan; were rather apprehensive about the designs of Napoleon and Czars of Russia; and that when they managed to contain the Afghan progress behind the mountains of Afghanistan; and they themselves became the undispured monarchs of India; the fear gripped them for they had then to protect a much larger part of their possessions. The aggression of the English in Afghanistan was due to the fear in the hearts of their imperiallistically inclined officers regarding the western defence of their territories. In any case when after 1836. A. D. Afghanistan was divided into several local principalities; the Russians of the Czarist regime and the Persians under Kachars joineds hand in order to inroad into the Afghan territory with a view to possessing the city of Herat. The political heads of the East India Company in Bengal seeing the danger of the Russio-Persian alliance against Herat, were bent upon doing everything possible to see that the Russio-Persian designs were defeated. But that which had made the English more anxicus than ever was the condition of internal affairs in Afghanistan itself In Kabul, Kandahar and Herat local governments had been set up; and the enimosity of Barakzai brothers and the Saduzais had contributed to the creation of a separate kingdom by Kamran at Herat.