The Bala Hissar, or “High Fort,” of Kabul is an ancient fortress overlooking the city from a perch that it has held since the 6th century AD. The site has played an essential role in Afghan state affairs and was the seat of Afghan rulers for centuries, notably peaking under the Mughal rulers of the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Bala Hissar played a prominent role during the Anglo-Afghan wars of the 19th century, as well as during the Soviet and post-Soviet occupation eras, because of its historic importance and geostrategic value overlooking Kabul.

The site has undergone massive changes through multiple iterations of conflict, reconstruction, and deterioration. Perhaps the most comprehensive investigation of the site was made in 2009 by Brigadier C.W. Woodburn for an Institution of Royal Engineers professional paper called The Bala Hissar of Kabul: Revealing a Fortress-Palace in Afghanistan. Many British diplomats, officers, and troops were housed within the fort during the 19th century as Britain attempted to fend off territorial expansion towards its holdings in India by the Russian and later Soviet empires.

The vast complex was originally divided into two parts. The lower fortress housed comprehensive troop support resources such as barracks, stables, gardens, warehouses, officers’ quarters and pavilions, receiving courtyards for visitors, the infamous British residence, and at least one mosque. The upper fortress housed various higher-value establishments over the years, including audience halls, gardens, and royal palaces, as well as a dungeon and an armory. Much of the construction of the upper fortress was built atop an elaborate system of tunnels and underground storage bunkers, which until recently housed munition stores dating back to before the British occupation.

The perimeter had a substantial circumference that reached far beyond what is visible both in this photo and in modern Kabul’s layout. In his paper, Woodburn cited British Lieutenant Thomas Seaton, who was billeted in the fortress during the winter of 1839, and noted that: “The snow made our rounds at night very dangerous work. We had fully two and a half miles to go to visit all the guards, and in some places along the lofty walls the rampart was only two feet wide while it was twenty feet high.”

For 40 years, the fort served as barracks for British troops, until the Afghan mutiny against and massacre of Sir Louis Cavagnari and the British mission on September 3, 1879. A few days later, as evidence was still being gathered about the circumstances of the rebellion, a gunpowder magazine in the upper Bala Hissar exploded, killing dozens and further damaging the structures. It was never determined whether the act was accidental, punitive, or deliberate.

Rather than tearing down the whole fort -- as originally proposed by Cavagnari’s successor, General Frederick Roberts -- the compound was strengthened and fortified in the spring of 1880. This act was more of a strategic consideration than anything else, as it included the placement of additional armaments and the elimination of the residential section of the lower fortress. However, the British only stayed in Afghanistan a few more months, ultimately leaving the fort’s stewardship to the Afghan leadership.

In the 1880s, according to Woodburn, the incoming Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman decided that, given the disrepair of the site, he would build his palace elsewhere, though he retained use of the upper Bala Hissar as an arsenal and prison. The lower Bala Hissar was left to decay and was quickly dismantled, its valuable timber stripped and repurposed for other building projects. Only a decade after the British had departed, it was reported by Sir Mortimer Durand that the lower Bala Hissar had been completely leveled.

Fifty years later, in the 1930s, the territory of the lower fortress was again commandeered by the Afghan government and turned into a military academy. The academy was comprised of a main building and marching ground that rested on the site of the old palace courtyard, and included a swimming pool that outlasted the academy’s closure; it remains nestled at the base of a steep embankment leading to the upper fortress. The remainder of the lower Bala Hissar was re-enclosed by a new perimeter wall and began operating exclusively as a military base. It has not been generally open to the public since.

After decades of relative neglect and minimal strategic import, the Bala Hissar recaptured the spotlight in the late 1970s. On August 5, 1979, the fort saw fighting break out within its walls as Afghan rebels rallied and killed most of the pro-Communist government officers and their Soviet advisors. The rebels then commandeered tanks and heavy weaponry that had been stored at the military site. Communist government forces surrounded the fort, and after six hours of plane and helicopter bombardments, the Bala Hissar was retaken. Those who had staged the rebellion were captured, arrested, and executed by the regime.

Although Bala Hissar has long served as an active military installation, the city and its inhabitants have molded themselves around the fort’s borders to maximize their use of the valuable real estate. A neighborhood of traditional homes and a cemetery scattered with martyr flags creep up the back side of the fortress’s hills, while an informal marketplace -- dealing in everything from livestock to car parts -- buttresses the fort’s southern slopes.

The fort once again became a geographic point of conflict in the Afghan civil war of the early 1990s after the Soviets abandoned their claims to the country and withdrew. During inter-factional fighting for control of Kabul, the Bala Hissar was fortified with armored vehicles and other heavy weaponry. In June 1994, forces loyal to Burhanuddin Rabbani, the then-president of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, launched an attack on the fort to dislodge its non-government occupants. This included at least a dozen bombing raids, followed by shelling from artillery and mortars; the fort was eventually retaken by Rabbani’s forces.

Tanks and other wreckage from three decades of war litter the fortress’s grounds and tunnels. Over the past few years, great efforts have been made to rid the site of unexploded ordnance, though rusted tank shells and other heavy wreckage remain on the grounds.

The Bala Hissar is still an active military base for the Afghan National Security Forces. Sentries are constantly posted around the perimeter -- amidst decades-old debris -- to secure the site, which remains of strategic importance given its vantage point over much of Kabul’s urban center.

Looking down from the remaining fortifications of the upper fortress at Bala Hissar, one can see the vast urban sprawl that has overtaken what used to be the lower fortress. This is, in fact, not so different from the congestion that the same area would have been home to in its heyday, given that, according to Woodburn, an estimated 5,000 inhabitants occupied the area of the lower fortress.

A flat plain to the south of the Bala Hissar’s walls catches water during the spring season. As the water evaporates throughout the brutal summer months, the reservoir recedes and this vast space is used for football matches and animal grazing.

The holes in every third wall section show where hooded firing points -- which were structurally inferior, but allowed for defensive firing -- were located. Much of the damage sustained by the fort is attributable to airstrikes during the 1990s.

A broken seat used by the fort’s sentries looks out over modern Kabul.

An Afghan National Army sentry perches atop an outcrop of the upper fortress, with the Mausoleum of King Nadir Shah across Kabul in the distance.

While the site remains an active military installation with a history of political and geostrategic value, it is important to remember the sociocultural and archaeological value of the fort. Afghanistan is home to few historic sites as well-preserved and documented as the Bala Hissar and, though it is a military base, its cultural importance should be recognized and remembered.