Abdullah Athayi Hague Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws. Just as international borders form the most critical geographical means of delineating the physical limits of a state, the notion of citizenship determines who the legitimate residents within that defined space are (Partha, 2016). The modes of acquisition and loss of Afghan citizenship are important not only from a legal perspective but also from a national security and order perspective. The terrorist attack in the United States in September 2001 led the Afghan government to re-analyse its citizenship rules and regulations, as since 1995 government officials had pointed out that many foreigners, including Arabs, Pakistanis, Uzbeks and Chechens, who had a criminal background in their country of origin and currently were actors in terrorist networks obtained Afghan passports. Ali Shah Paktiyawal, Chief of Interpol Police in Kabul, has stated that “among the thousands of foreign citizens who have obtained Afghan passports, currently at least eight hundred of these people are active members of terrorist networks.”14 Reports indicate that a considerable number of foreign citizens are interested in acquiring Afghan citizenship. The administration under former president Karzai approved the citizenship of 20 foreign citizens and 20 applications were pending in 2007. It is interesting that while hundreds of thousands of Afghan citizens have migrated to Europe since 2015, a number of foreign citizens are still seeking the citizenship of Afghanistan. Due to a lack of available data, it is not possible to indicate the number of foreign citizens who have acquired or renounced Afghan citizenship. 3.1 The main modes of acquisition and loss of nationality 3.1.1 Acquisition of Afghanistan citizenship Afghan citizenship is acquired by descent, birth, naturalisation and on the basis of international treaties. Ius sanguinis has always been the primary ground for granting Afghan citizenship. On the basis of the principle of descent, a child who is born in or outside the territory to a father and mother holding Afghan citizenship automatically acquires Afghan citizenship (Article 9(2)). Article 11 also explains that “a child will be considered a citizen of Afghanistan regardless of whether he or she was born inside or outside the territory of Afghanistan if one of his or her parents is a citizen of Afghanistan and the other is not or his or her citizenship is not established.” If at the time of the child’s birth one of the parents holds the citizenship of Afghanistan and the other holds the citizenship of another country, the child is considered a citizen if s/he is born 1) in the territory of Afghanistan; 2) outside the territory of Afghanistan but one of his or her parents permanently resides in Afghanistan; 3) outside the territory of Afghanistan and the parents also live outside the territory of Afghanistan and by mutual consent they select the citizenship of Afghanistan for the child. These provisions mean that a child who is born in Afghan territory to Afghan parents or Afghan-foreign parents acquires Afghan citizenship without any further conditions. The article seems to have been adopted to prevent statelessness in the children of Afghan women who marry a foreign citizen, because according to Article 28 of the law on citizenship Afghan women maintain their Afghan citizenship on marriage to a foreigner. Citizenship is granted to a legitimate baby whose parents married according to Sharia jurisprudence because the Afghan Civil Code relates a child to the husband in cases where 14 Available at http://www.bbc.com/persian/afghanistan/story/2006/02/060218_s-afg-pass.shtml (accessed 2/1/2017). 8 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2017/9 - © 2017 Author