Lashkargāh (; ), historically called Bost or Boost (), is a city in southwestern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand Province. It is located in Lashkargah District, where the Arghandab River merges into the Helmand River. The city has a population of 201,546 as of 2006. Lashkargah is linked by major roads with Kandahar to the east, Zaranj on the border with Iran to the west, and Farah and Herat to the north-west. It is mostly very arid and desolate. However, farming does exist around the Helmand and Arghandab rivers. Bost Airport is located on the east bank of the Helmand River, five miles north of the junction of the Helmand and Arghandab rivers. Because of the trading hubs, it is Afghanistan's second largest city in size, after Kabul and before Kandahar. After several weeks of fighting in the Battle of Lashkargah, the city was captured by the Taliban on 13 August 2021, becoming the fourteenth provincial capital to be seized by the Taliban as part of the wider 2021 Taliban offensive. History Lashkargah means "army barracks" in Persian. The area was part of the Saffarids in the 9th century. It grew up a thousand years ago as a riverside barracks town for soldiers accompanying the Ghaznavid nobility to their grand winter capital of Bost. The ruins of the Ghaznavid mansions still stand along the Helmand River; the city of Bost and its outlying communities were sacked in successive centuries by the Ghorids, Mongols, and Timurids. However, the region was later rebuilt by Timur/Tamerlane (Timur Lang). By the late 16th century the city and region was governed by the Safavid dynasty. It became part of the Afghan Hotaki Empire in 1709. It was invaded by the Afsharid forces in 1738 on their way to Kandahar. By 1747 it became part of the Durrani Empire or modern Afghanistan. The British arrived in or about 1840 during the First Anglo-Afghan War but left about year later. The city was used by Ayub Khan in the Second Anglo-Afghan War until 1880 when the British helped return it to Abdur Rahman Khan. It remained peaceful for the next 100 years. The modern city of Lashkargah was used as a headquarters for United States Army Corps of Engineers working on the Helmand Valley Authority (HVA) irrigation project in the 1950s, modeled after the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the United States. Lashkargah was built using