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{{Infobox war faction
, name = Taliban
, native_name = طَالِبَانْ (Tālibān)
, native_name_lang = ps
, war = {{plainlist,
*
249
}{{Cite book , last=Clements , first=Frank A. , title=Conflict in Afghanistan: An Encyclopedia (Roots of Modern Conflict) , publisher=ABC-CLIO , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-85109-402-8 , page=219 minority
''Mapping Militant Organizations''. Stanford University. Updated 15 July 2016. Retrieved 24 September 2017.{{cite book, last1=Ogata, first1=Sadako N., title=The Turbulent Decade: Confronting the Refugee Crises of the 1990s, date=2005, publisher=W. W. Norton & Company, pag
286
url=https://archive.org/details/turbulentdecade00sada, url-access=registration, isbn=978-0-393-05773-7 * Afghan nationalism *
* Hezb-e Islami Khalis *
{{small, (alleged by the US, but denied by China) * {{flagcountry, Iran
{{small, (alleged during the
{{small, (alleged by the US) * {{flagcountry, Pakistan
{{small, (1994–2001; alleged during the
96
, quote=Pakistan provided military support, including arms, ammunition, fuel, and military advisers, to the Taliban through its Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) , url-access=registration{{Cite news , year=2000 , title=Pakistan's support of the Taliban , publisher=Human Rights Watch , url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan2/Afghan0701-02.htm , quote=Of all the foreign powers involved in efforts to sustain and manipulate the ongoing fighting n Afghanistan Pakistan is distinguished both by the sweep of its objectives and the scale of its efforts, which include soliciting funding for the Taliban, bankrolling Taliban operations, providing diplomatic support as the Taliban's virtual emissaries abroad, arranging training for Taliban fighters, recruiting skilled and unskilled manpower to serve in Taliban armies, planning and directing offensives, providing and facilitating shipments of ammunition and fuel, and ... directly providing combat support. * {{flagcountry, Qatar
{{small, (alleged by Saudi Arabia) * {{flagcountry, Russia
{{small, (alleged, but denied by Russia) * {{flagcountry, Saudi Arabia
{{small, (alleged by the US){{Cite web , title=Why did Saudi Arabia and Qatar, allies of the US, continue to fund the Taliban after the 2001 war? , url=https://scroll.in/article/862284/why-did-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-allies-of-the-us-continue-to-fund-the-taliban-after-the-2001-war , access-date=19 April 2018 , website=scroll.in, date=22 December 2017 * {{flagicon image, Flag of the Syrian revolution.svg
{{small, (alleged, since 2024) * {{flagcountry, Turkmenistan
{{small, (until 2001){{Cite web , title=Turkmenistan Takes a Chance on the Taliban , url=https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/turkmenistan-takes-chance-taliban , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191208215217/https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/turkmenistan-takes-chance-taliban , archive-date=8 December 2019 , website=Stratfor * {{flagcountry, United Arab Emirates
{{small, (until 2001) ---- Non-state allies * {{Flagicon image, Flag of Turkistan Islamic Party.svg
{{small, (until 2001) * {{flagicon image, Flag of Tehrik-i-Taliban.svg
{{flag, New Zealand{{cite web, url=https://police.govt.nz/advice/personal-community/counterterrorism/designated-entities/lists-associated-with-resolutions-1267-1989-2253-1988, title=Lists associated with Resolutions 1267/1989/2253 and 1988, website=police.govt.nz, access-date=14 November 2023, date=1 August 2023
{{flag, Tajikistan{{cite web, url=https://nbt.tj/en/financial_monitoring/perechni.php, title=The list of terrorists and extremists, publisher=National Bank of Tajikistan, access-date=3 March 2020
{{flag, Turkey{{Cite journal , last1=Sönmez , first1=Göktuğ , last2=Bozbaş , first2=Gökhan , last3=Konuşul , first3=Serhat , date=27 December 2020 , title=AFGAN TALİBANI: DÜNÜ, BUGÜNÜ VE YARINI , url=https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/neusbf/743916 , journal=Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi , language=tr , volume=2 , issue=2 , pages=59–77 , issn=2667-8063 , access-date=10 August 2021 {{dead link, date=September 2022, bot=medic{{cbignore, bot=medic
{{flag, United Arab Emirates{{cite web, url=http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302618259, title=43 new designations specifically address threats posed by Qatar linked and based Al Qaida Terrorism Support Networks, publisher=Emirates News Agency, date=9 June 2017, access-date=4 March 2020{{cite web, url=http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302624655, title=UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain declare details of new terror designations, work=wam , publisher=Emirates News Agency, date=25 July 2017, access-date=4 March 2020 {{Campaignbox Afghan Civil War {{Politics of Afghanistan {{Jihadism sidebar The Taliban,{{efn, {{IPAc-en, ', t, ae, l, ᵻ, b, ae, n, ,_, ', t, a:, l, ᵻ, b, a:, n; {{langx, ps, طَالِبَانْ, Tālibān, lit=students which also refers to itself by its
After the Soviet Union intervened and occupied Afghanistan in 1979, Islamic mujahideen fighters waged a war against Soviet forces. During the
Website photius.com. Text from 1997, purportedly sourced on The Library of Congress Country Studies (US) and CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 22 December 2017.{{better source needed, date=August 2021 Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin party refused to recognise the interim government, and in April infiltrated Kabul to take power for itself, thus starting this civil war. In May, Hekmatyar started attacks against government forces and Kabul. Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from Pakistan's ISI.{{Cite book , first=Neamatollah , last=Nojumi , title=The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region , publisher=Palgrave, location= New York , year=2002 {{ISBN? With that help, Hekmatyar's forces were able to destroy half of Kabul. Iran assisted the Hezbe Wahdat forces of Abdul-Ali Mazari. Saudi Arabia supported the Ittihad-i Islami faction.{{Cite web , title=Blood-Stained Hands, Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan's Legacy of Impunity , date=6 July 2005 , url=https://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/07/06/blood-stained-hands , publisher=
In mid 2021, the Taliban led a major offensive in Afghanistan during the withdrawal of US troops from the country, which gave them control of over half of Afghanistan's 421 districts as of 23 July 2021.{{Cite news , last=Stewart , first=Idrees , date=21 July 2021 , title=Taliban Consolidation and Foothold , work= , publisher=Reuters, Asia Pacific , url=https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/half-all-afghan-district-centers-under-taliban-control-us-general-2021-07-21/ , access-date=26 July 2021 , ref=Milley said more than 200 of the 419 district centers were under Taliban control. Last month, he had said the Taliban controlled 81 district centers in Afghanistan. By mid-August 2021, the Taliban controlled every major city in Afghanistan; following the near seizure of the capital Kabul, the Taliban occupied the
Written works published by the group's Commission of Cultural Affairs, including ''Islami Adalat'', ''De Mujahid Toorah{{snd De Jihad Shari Misalay, and Guidance to the Mujahideen'' outlined the core of the Taliban Islamic Movement's philosophy regarding jihad, sharia, organization, and conduct. The Taliban régime interpreted the ''Sharia'' law in accordance with the
In 1999, Mullah Omar issued a decree in which he called for the protection of the
The Warlord's Tune: Afghanistan's war on children
at
The Taliban have been criticized for their strictness towards those who disobeyed their imposed rules, and Mullah Omar has been criticized for titling himself
142
}{{Cite book , last=Tripathi , first=Deepak , title=Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism , publisher=Potomac , year=2011 , isbn=978-1-59797-530-8 , page=116 In a major effort to retake the Shomali Plains to the north of Kabul from the United Front, the Taliban indiscriminately killed civilians, while uprooting and expelling the population. Among others, Kamal Hossein, a special reporter for the UN, reported on these and other
{{blockquote, To PHR's knowledge, no other régime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual 
Brutal repression of women was widespread under the Taliban and it received significant international condemnation.{{Cite book , last=Forsythe , first=David P. , title=Encyclopedia of human rights , publisher=Oxford University Press , year=2009 , isbn=978-0-19-533402-9 , edition=Volume 1 , page=2 , quote=In 1994 the Taliban was created, funded and inspired by PakistanDupree Hatch, Nancy. "Afghan Women under the Taliban" in Maley, William. ''Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban''. London: Hurst and Company, 2001, pp. 145–166.{{Cite book , last=Wertheime , first=Molly Meijer , title=Leading Ladies of the White House: Communication Strategies of Notable Twentieth-Century First Ladies , publisher=Rowman & Littlefield , year=2004 , isbn=978-0-7425-3672-2 , page=253{{Cite book , last=Cooke , first=Miriam , url=https://archive.org/details/terrorculturepol0000unse/page/177 , title=Terror, Culture, Politics: 9/11 Reconsidere , publisher=Indiana University Press , year=2006 , isbn=978-0-253-34672-8 , editor-last=Sherman , editor-first=Daniel J. , pag
177
}{{Cite book , last=Moghadam , first=Valentine M. , url=https://archive.org/details/modernizingwomen0000mogh_x1r1/page/266 , title=Modernizing women: gender and social change in the Middle East , publisher=Lynne Rienner , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-58826-171-7 , edition=2nd Revised , pag
266
}{{Cite book , last=Massoumi , first=Mejgan , title=The fundamentalist city?: religiosity and the remaking of urban space , publisher=Routledge , year=2010 , isbn=978-0-415-77935-7 , editor-last=AlSayyad , editor-first=Nezar , page=223{{Cite book , last=Skaine , first=Rosemarie , title=Women of Afghanistan in the Post-Taliban Era: How Lives Have Changed and Where They Stand Today , publisher=McFarland , year=2009 , isbn=978-0-7864-3792-4 , page=57{{Cite book , last=Skain , first=Rosemarie , title=The women of Afghanistan under the Taliban , publisher=McFarland , year=2002 , isbn=978-0-7864-1090-3 , page=41 Abuses were myriad and violently enforced by the
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101226163948/https://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2010/18/kemp.php , date=26 December 2010 , ''The Journal of International Security Affairs'', Spring 2010 – Number 18, Richard Kemp, Commander of British forces in Afghanistan
"Taliban to Enforce Hindu 'Badges.'"
''
Censorship of historical thought: a world guide, 1945–2000
', Antoon de Baets On 2 March 2001, the Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed with dynamite, on orders from the Taliban's leader Mullah Omar. In October of the same year, the Taliban "took sledgehammers and axes to thousands of years’ worth of artifacts" in the National Museum of Afghanistan, destroying at least 2,750 ancient works of art. Afghanistan has a rich musical culture, where
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060731084124/http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/Set_43_2811-2921.pdf , date=31 July 2006 , from Shabir Ahmed's ''
Mullah Omar: Taliban choose deputy Mansour as successor
BBC News, 30 July 2015 and following Mansour's killing in a May 2016 US drone strike, Mawlawi
Rashid described the Taliban government as "a secret society run by
51
}{{Cite book , last1=Pugh , first1=Michael C. , title=War Economies in a Regional Context: Challenges of Transformation , first2=Neil , last2=Cooper , first3=Jonathan , last3=Goodhand , publisher=Lynne Rienner , year=2004 , isbn=978-1-58826-211-0 , page=48{{Cite book , author-link=Graciana del Castillo , first=Graciana , last=del Castillo , title=Rebuilding War-Torn States: The Challenge of Post-Conflict Economic Reconstruction , publisher=Oxford University Press , year=2008 , isbn=978-0-19-923773-9 , page=167{{Cite book , last=Skaine , first=Rosemarie , title=Women of Afghanistan in the Post-Taliban Era: How Lives Have Changed and Where They Stand Today , publisher=McFarland , year=2009 , isbn=978-0-7864-3792-4 , page=58
Under the Transit treaty between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a massive network for smuggling developed. It had an estimated turnover of 2.5 billion dollars with the Taliban receiving between $100 and $130 million per year. These operations along with the trade from the Golden Crescent financed the war in Afghanistan and also had the side effect of destroying start up industries in Pakistan. Ahmed Rashid also explained that the Afghan Transit Trade agreed on by Pakistan was "the largest official source of revenue for the Taliban."{{Cite book , last=Nojum , first=Neamatollah , url=https://archive.org/details/riseoftalibani00neam/page/178 , title=The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War and the Future of the Region , publisher=St Martin's Press , year=2002 , isbn=978-0-312-29584-4 , pag
178
}{{Cite book , last=Nojum , first=Neamatollah , url=https://archive.org/details/riseoftalibani00neam/page/186 , title=The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War and the Future of the Region , publisher=St Martin's Press , year=2002 , isbn=978-0-312-29584-4 , pag
186
}{{Cite book , last=Chouvy , first=Pierre-Arnaud , title=Opium: uncovering the politics of the poppy , publisher=Harvard University Press , year=2010 , pages=52ff Between 1996 and 1999, Mullah Omar reversed his opinions on the drug trade, apparently as it only harmed kafirs. The Taliban controlled 96% of Afghanistan's poppy fields and made opium its largest source of taxation. Taxes on opium exports became one of the mainstays of Taliban income and their war economy. According to Rashid, "drug money funded the weapons, ammunition and fuel for the war." In ''The New York Times'', the Finance Minister of the United Front, Wahidullah Sabawoon, declared the Taliban had no annual budget but that they "appeared to spend US$300 million a year, nearly all of it on war." He added that the Taliban had come to increasingly rely on three sources of money: "
283
}{{Cite book , last=Thourni , first=Francisco E. , title=The Organized Crime Community: Essays in Honor of Alan A. Block , publisher=Springer , year=2006 , isbn=978-0-387-39019-2 , editor-last=Bovenkerk , editor-first=Frank , page=130{{Cite book , last=Lyman , first=Michael D. , url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_2901437744506/page/309 , title=Drugs in Society: Causes, Concepts and Control , publisher=Elsevier , year=2010 , isbn=978-1-4377-4450-7 , pag
309
} There was also an environmental toll to the country, heavy deforestation from the illegal trade in timber with hundreds of acres of pine and cedar forests in
147
, url-access=registration{{Cite book , last=Wehr , first=Kevin , url=https://archive.org/details/greencultureatoz0000unse/page/223 , title=Green Culture: An A-to-Z Guide , publisher=Sage , year=2011 , isbn=978-1-4129-9693-8 , pag
223
}{{Cite book , last=Rashid , first=Ahmed , title=Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in central Asia , publisher=I.B.Tauris , year=2002 , isbn=978-1-86064-830-4 , page=187{{Cite book , last=Clements , first=Frank , title=Conflict in Afghanistan: a historical encyclopedia , publisher=ABC-CLIO , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-85109-402-8 , page=148{{Cite book , last=Bennett , first=Adam , title=Reconstructing Afghanistan , publisher=International Monetary Fund , year=2005 , isbn=978-1-58906-324-2 , edition=illustrated , page=29{{Cite book , last1=Farah , first1=Douglas , title=Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible , last2=Braun , first2=Stephen , publisher=Wiley , year=2008 , isbn=978-0-470-26196-5 , page=146{{Cite book , last=Askari , first=Hossein , title=Economic sanctions: examining their philosophy and efficacy , publisher=Potomac , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-56720-542-8 , page=56{{Cite book , last=Pillar , first=Paul R. , title=Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy , publisher=Brookings Institution , year=2003 , isbn=978-0-8157-7077-0 , page=77 According to the lawsuit, filed in December 2019 in the D.C. District Court on behalf of Gold Star families, some US
The building had neither electricity or running water. One month later the UN offices were also shut down.{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, pp=71–72. Around 2000, the UN drew up sanctions against officials and leaders of Taliban, because of their harbouring Osama bin Laden. Several of the Taliban leaders have subsequently been killed. In 2009, British Foreign Secretary
One Year of Taliban Rule Over Afghanistan
"Afghan Women and the Taliban: An Exploratory Assessment" (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague 2014)
* {{cite book, last=Rashid , first=Ahmed , author-link=Ahmed Rashid , date=2022 , title=Taliban: The Power of Militant Islam in Afghanistan and Beyond , edition=3rd , publisher=
War in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to:
*Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire
* Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...
* War on Terror
, image = Flag of Taliban.svg{{!border
, image_size = 300px
, image_alt = The Shahada written in black on a white background
, caption = Flag of the Taliban, also used as the flag of Afghanistan
The national flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (; ), adopted on 15 August 2021 due to the Taliban's victory in the 2001–2021 war, features a white field with a black ''Shahada'' inscribed. Since the 20th century, Afghanistan has cha ...
, founders = {{plainlist,
* Mullah Omar
Muhammad Umar Mujahid (196023 April 2013), commonly known as Mullah Omar or Muhammad Omar, was an Afghan militant leader and founder and the first leader of the Taliban from 1994 until his death in 2013. During the Third Afghan Civil War, the T ...
{{Natural Causes
* Abdul Ghani Baradar
Abdul Ghani Baradar (born 29 September 1963 known by the honorific ''mullah'') is an Afghan politician and religious leader who is the acting first Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan, deputy prime minister, alongside Abdul Salam Hanafi, of the ...
, leader1_title = Supreme leaders
, leader1_name = {{indented plainlist,
* Mullah Omar
Muhammad Umar Mujahid (196023 April 2013), commonly known as Mullah Omar or Muhammad Omar, was an Afghan militant leader and founder and the first leader of the Taliban from 1994 until his death in 2013. During the Third Afghan Civil War, the T ...
{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013)
* Akhtar Mansour
Akhtar Mohammad Mansour (196821 May 2016) was an Afghan militant leader who served as the second supreme leader of the Taliban. Succeeding the founding leader, Mullah Omar, he was the supreme leader from July 2015 to May 2016, when he was killed ...
{{Assassinated (2015–2016)
* Hibatullah Akhundzada
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada (born 19 October 1967), also spelled Haibatullah Akhunzada, is an Afghan cleric who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan in the internationally unrecognized Taliban regime. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and ...
(2016–present)
, leader2_title = Governing body
, leader2_name = Leadership Council
, clans = Primarily Pashtuns
Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghan (ethnon ...
;{{Cite book , last=Giustozzi , first=Antonio , url=https://archive.org/details/decodingnewtalib00anto/page/249 , title=Decoding the new Taliban: insights from the Afghan field , publisher=Columbia University Press , year=2009 , isbn=978-0-231-70112-9 , pag249
}{{Cite book , last=Clements , first=Frank A. , title=Conflict in Afghanistan: An Encyclopedia (Roots of Modern Conflict) , publisher=ABC-CLIO , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-85109-402-8 , page=219 minority
Tajiks
Tajiks (; ; also spelled ''Tadzhiks'' or ''Tadjiks'') is the name of various Persian-speaking Eastern Iranian groups of people native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Even though the term ''Tajik'' ...
and Uzbeks
The Uzbeks () are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, being among the largest Turkic ethnic groups in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakhs, Kazakh and Karakalpaks, Karakalpak ...
, ideology = Majority:
* Deobandi jihadism
Deobandi jihadism is a militant and Islamism, political interpretation of Islam that draws upon the teachings of the Deobandi movement, which originated in the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century. The Deobandi movement underwent three waves ...
{{cite book, last=Maley, first=William, title=Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban, year=2001, publisher=C Hurst & Co, isbn=978-1-85065-360-8, page=14
* {{nowrap, Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a revivalist and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. The term has been used interchangeably with similar terms such as Islamism, Islamic revivalism, Qut ...
Deobandi Islam: The Religion of the Taliban U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps, 15 October 2001{{Cite book , last=Maley , first=William , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x_10sqkVMgUC , title=Fundamentalism Reborn?: Afghanistan and the Taliban , date=1998 , publisher=Hurst , isbn=978-1-85065-360-8 , pages=14'The Taliban'''Mapping Militant Organizations''. Stanford University. Updated 15 July 2016. Retrieved 24 September 2017.{{cite book, last1=Ogata, first1=Sadako N., title=The Turbulent Decade: Confronting the Refugee Crises of the 1990s, date=2005, publisher=W. W. Norton & Company, pag
286
url=https://archive.org/details/turbulentdecade00sada, url-access=registration, isbn=978-0-393-05773-7 * Afghan nationalism *
Pashtunwali
Pashtunwali (), also known as Pakhtunwali and Afghaniyat, is the traditional lifestyle or a code of honour and tribal code of the Pashtuns, Pashtun people, from Afghanistan and Pakistan, by which they live. Many scholars widely have interpreted it ...
* Traditionalism
Traditionalism is the adherence to traditional beliefs or practices. It may also refer to:
Religion
* Traditional religion, a religion or belief associated with a particular ethnic group
* Traditionalism (19th-century Catholicism), a 19th-cen ...
, active = {{plainlist,
* 1994–1996 (militia
A militia ( ) is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or se ...
)
* 1996–2001 ( 1st government)
* 2001–2021 (insurgency
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare against a larger authority. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric warfare, asymmetric nature: small irregular forces ...
)
* 2021–present ( 2nd government)
, headquarters = Kandahar
Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...
(1994–2001; 2021–present)
, area = Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
, size = Core strength
{{plainlist,
* 45,000 (2001 est.)
* 11,000 (2008 est.)
* 36,000 (2010 est.)
* 60,000 (2014 est.)
* 60,000 (2017 est. excluding 90,000 local militia and 50,000 support elements){{Cite web , date=14 January 2021 , title=Afghanistan's Security Forces Versus the Taliban: A Net Assessment , url=https://ctc.usma.edu/afghanistans-security-forces-versus-the-taliban-a-net-assessment/ , access-date=14 August 2021 , website=Combating Terrorism Center at West Point , archive-date=15 August 2021 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815115043/https://ctc.usma.edu/afghanistans-security-forces-versus-the-taliban-a-net-assessment/ , url-status=dead
* 75,000 (2021 est.)
* 168,000 soldiers and 210,121 police forces and pro-Taliban militia (2024 self-claim)
, predecessor = Students of Darun Uloom Haqqania and Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia
Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia (, ''Jāmiā Ulūm-i Islāmīyā'' / , ''Jāmi‘at-ul-‘Ulūm-ul-Islāmīyah'') is an Islamic University in Binori Town, Banoori Town, Karachi, Pakistan. The university continues the tradition of the Darul Uloom system ...
* Hezb-e Islami Khalis *
Haqqani Network
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanis ...
, partof = {{flagicon image, Flag of the Taliban.svg Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ( 2021–present, 1996–2001)
, allies = {{Collapsible list , title={{Nbsp, Subgroups
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Haqqani network
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanis ...
{{small, (since 1995)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Jamaat al-Dawah ila al-Quran wal-Sunnah
Jamaat al-Dawah ila al-Quran wal-Sunnah (), abbreviated as JDQS, also known as The Salafi Group, was a militant Islamist organisation operating in eastern Afghanistan.
Background
Founded around 1986 during the Soviet–Afghan War by Jamil al-R ...
{{small, (since 2010)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Tora Bora Military Front {{small, (since 2016)
* {{flagicon image, Imam Bukhari Jamaat flag.svg Imam Bukhari Jamaat {{small, (since 2017)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan {{small, (since 2021)
----
State allies
* {{flagcountry, China{{small, (alleged by the US, but denied by China) * {{flagcountry, Iran
{{small, (alleged during the
Taliban insurgency
{{Infobox military conflict
, partof = the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), the Afghan conflict, and the War on terror
, image = 2021 Taliban Offensive.png
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Map of th ...
, but denied by Iran)
* {{flagcountry, North Korea{{small, (alleged by the US) * {{flagcountry, Pakistan
{{small, (1994–2001; alleged during the
Taliban insurgency
{{Infobox military conflict
, partof = the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), the Afghan conflict, and the War on terror
, image = 2021 Taliban Offensive.png
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Map of th ...
, but denied by Pakistan){{Cite book , last=Giraldo , first=Jeanne K. , url=https://archive.org/details/terrorismfinanci00haro , title=Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective , publisher=Stanford University Press , year=2007 , isbn=978-0-8047-5566-5 , pag96
, quote=Pakistan provided military support, including arms, ammunition, fuel, and military advisers, to the Taliban through its Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) , url-access=registration{{Cite news , year=2000 , title=Pakistan's support of the Taliban , publisher=Human Rights Watch , url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan2/Afghan0701-02.htm , quote=Of all the foreign powers involved in efforts to sustain and manipulate the ongoing fighting n Afghanistan Pakistan is distinguished both by the sweep of its objectives and the scale of its efforts, which include soliciting funding for the Taliban, bankrolling Taliban operations, providing diplomatic support as the Taliban's virtual emissaries abroad, arranging training for Taliban fighters, recruiting skilled and unskilled manpower to serve in Taliban armies, planning and directing offensives, providing and facilitating shipments of ammunition and fuel, and ... directly providing combat support. * {{flagcountry, Qatar
{{small, (alleged by Saudi Arabia) * {{flagcountry, Russia
{{small, (alleged, but denied by Russia) * {{flagcountry, Saudi Arabia
{{small, (alleged by the US){{Cite web , title=Why did Saudi Arabia and Qatar, allies of the US, continue to fund the Taliban after the 2001 war? , url=https://scroll.in/article/862284/why-did-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-allies-of-the-us-continue-to-fund-the-taliban-after-the-2001-war , access-date=19 April 2018 , website=scroll.in, date=22 December 2017 * {{flagicon image, Flag of the Syrian revolution.svg
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
{{small, (alleged, since 2024) * {{flagcountry, Turkmenistan
{{small, (until 2001){{Cite web , title=Turkmenistan Takes a Chance on the Taliban , url=https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/turkmenistan-takes-chance-taliban , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191208215217/https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/turkmenistan-takes-chance-taliban , archive-date=8 December 2019 , website=Stratfor * {{flagcountry, United Arab Emirates
{{small, (until 2001) ---- Non-state allies * {{Flagicon image, Flag of Turkistan Islamic Party.svg
Turkistan Islamic Party
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) is an Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Pakistan by Hasan Mahsum. Its stated goals are to establish an Islamic state in Xinjiang and Central Asia.
The Chinese government asserts that the T ...
* {{flagdeco, ISIL Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan {{small, (anti-ISIS
Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...
faction)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Hezbi Islami Gulbuddin.svg Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin
The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (; abbreviated HIG), also referred to as Hezb-e-Islami or Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is an Afghan political party and paramilitary organization, originally founded in 1976 as Hezb-e-Islami and led by Gulbuddin H ...
{{small, (denied from 2016–2021, openly since 2021)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Lashkar-e-Taiba.svg Lashkar-e-Taiba
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is a Pakistani Islamism, Islamist militant organization driven by a Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist ideology. The organisation's primary stated objective is to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan. It was founded in 19 ...
{{Cite web, title=Watch: in Pakistan Jaish-e-Muhammed & Lashkar-e-taiba rallies to celebrate Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, website = YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
, date=23 August 2021 , url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJpFSsl69Ro&ab_channel=HindustanTimes, access-date=23 August 2021 {{small, (occasional support){{cite web , last1=Stephen , first1=Tankel , title=Lashkar-e-Taiba in Perspective , url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/04/23/lashkar-e-taiba-in-perspective/ , publisher=Foreign Policy
Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...
, date=2010
*{{flagicon image, Flag of Taliban.svg Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group (denied)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Al-Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
{{small, (currently denied)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Jamaat Ansarullah{{Cite web, url=https://www.khabaronline.ir/news/1654401/طالبان-تاجیکستان-اعلام-موجودیت-کرد/, title=طالبان تاجیکستان اعلام موجودیت کرد! – خبرآنلاین, website=www.khabaronline.ir, access-date=2022-08-02, language=fa {{small, (denied)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan {{small, (denied)
* {{flagicon image, Jaishi-e-Mohammed.svg Jaish-e-Mohammed {{small, (denied)
* {{flagicon image, InfoboxHTS.svg Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a Sunni Islamist political organisation and paramilitary group involved in the Syrian civil war. It was formed on 28January 2017 as a merger between several armed groups: Jaysh al-Ahrar (an Ahrar al-Sham facti ...
{{small, ( until January 2025)
* {{flagcountry, Turkmenistan{{small, (until 2001) * {{flagicon image, Flag of Tehrik-i-Taliban.svg
Pakistani Taliban
The Pakistani Taliban, officially the Tehreek-i-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP), is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current ...
{{Cite news , last=Roggio , first=Bill , date=12 July 2021 , title=Taliban advances as U.S. completes withdrawal , work=FDD's Long War Journal
''FDD's Long War Journal'' (LWJ) is an American news website, also described as a blog, which reports on the War on terror. The site is operated by Public Multimedia Incorporated (PMI), a non-profit media organization established in 2007. ...
, url=https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2021/07/taliban-advances-as-u-s-completes-withdrawal.php , url-status=live , access-date=16 July 2021 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210724142322/https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2021/07/taliban-advances-as-u-s-completes-withdrawal.php , archive-date=24 July 2021 {{small, (denied)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Islamic Jihad Union
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Ansar al-Islam.svg Ansar al-Islam in Kurdistan
Ansar al-Islam in Kurdistan (; ''the Supporters of Islam in Kurdistan''),Chalk, Peter, ''Encyclopedia of Terrorism'' Volume 1, 2012, ABC-CLIO better known as Ansar al-Islam (; AAI), was a Kurdish Salafi jihadist and separatist militant group. ...
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.svg Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
* {{flagicon image, Al-Badr flag.svg Al-Badr
* {{flagicon image, Flag of the Islamic Jamaat of Ichkeria.svg Caucasian Front
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind {{small, (denied)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Lashkar-e-Islam {{small, (denied)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT; ) is an international pan-Islamist and Islamic fundamentalist political organization whose stated aim is the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate to unite the Muslim community (called ''ummah'') and implement sharia glo ...
{{small, (sometimes)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.svg Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
* {{flagicon image, Flag of JTJ.svg Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (), abbreviated as JTJ or Jama'at, was a Salafi jihadist militant group. It was founded in Jordan in 1999, and was led by Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the entirety of its existence. During the Iraqi ...
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Caucasian Emirate.svg Caucasus Emirate
The Caucasus Emirate (, IK; ), also known as the Caucasian Emirate, Emirate of Caucasus, or Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus, was a jihadist organisation active in rebel-held parts of Syria and previously in the North Caucasus region of Russia. It ...
* {{flagicon image, Tnsm-flag.svg Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM, ) is an Islamic extremist militant group. The group swore an Bay'ah, oath of loyalty to Pakistani Taliban and become the part of it in 2007 aftermath the siege of Lal Masjid. The group's stated objecti ...
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Katibat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad
, opponents = {{Collapsible list , title={{Nbsp, State and intergovernmental opponents
* {{flagicon, Afghanistan, 1992 {{flagicon image, Flag of Afghanistan (2002–2004).svg {{flagicon image, Flag of Afghanistan (2013–2021).svg Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
{{small, (1994–2021)
* {{flag, NATO {{small, ( 2001–2021)
* {{flag, United States {{small, ( 2001–2021)
----
Non-state opponents
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jamiat-e Islami.svg Jamiat-e Islami
* {{flagicon image, Flag of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan.svg National Resistance Front of Afghanistan
The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) is a military alliance of former Northern Alliance members and other anti-Taliban fighters loyal to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Its founder and leader is Ahmad Massoud, who mobilized t ...
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Afghanistan (2013–2021).svg Afghanistan Freedom Front
The Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) is an anti-Taliban militant group operating in Afghanistan. In some parts of Afghanistan, the AFF and National Resistance Front (NRF) collaborate on anti-Taliban operations.
The AFF has reportedly tried to ...
* {{flagicon image, AQMI Flag asymmetric.svg Islamic State – Khorasan Province
The Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP or ISIS–K) is a regional branch of the Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist group Islamic State (IS) active in Central Asia, Central and South Asia, primarily Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uz ...
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT; ) is an international pan-Islamist and Islamic fundamentalist political organization whose stated aim is the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate to unite the Muslim community (called ''ummah'') and implement sharia glo ...
{{small, (sometimes)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan {{small, (ISIS allied faction)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg Fidai Mahaz
The Sacrifice Front, more commonly known as Fidai Mahaz (), was a Taliban splinter group and faction in the War in Afghanistan. It was led by Mullah Najibullah, also known as Omar Khitab, a former Taliban commander.
History
Foundation
Fidai M ...
{{small, (sometimes 2016–2021, no fighting since 2021)
* {{flagicon image, Flag of Jihad.svg High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan {{small, (2015–2021)
, battles = {{tree list
* Second Afghan Civil War
** Battle of Kabul (1992–1996)
* Tajikistani Civil War
The Tajikistani Civil War,, group=pron also known as the Tajik Civil War, began in May 1992 and ended in June 1997. Regional groups from the Garm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan rose up against the newly formed government of Preside ...
{{Cite book , last=Jonson , first=Lena , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hLi9oJMT5B8C&pg=PA96 , title=Tajikistan in the New Central Asia , year=2006 , publisher=Bloomsbury Academic , isbn=978-1-84511-293-6 , access-date=17 December 2014 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160116011515/https://books.google.com/books?id=hLi9oJMT5B8C&pg=PA96 , archive-date=16 January 2016 , url-status=live
* Third Afghan Civil War
* War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
The war in Afghanistan was a prolonged armed conflict lasting from 2001 to 2021. It began with United States invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion by a Participants in Operation Enduring Freedom, United States-led coalition under the name Oper ...
** Taliban insurgency
{{Infobox military conflict
, partof = the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), the Afghan conflict, and the War on terror
, image = 2021 Taliban Offensive.png
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Map of th ...
** 2021 Taliban offensive
The 2021 Taliban offensive was a Offensive (military), military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and allied militants that led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the end of the nearly 20-year War in Afghanistan (200 ...
* Islamic State–Taliban conflict
The Islamic State–Taliban conflict is an ongoing insurgency waged by the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (IS-KP) against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The conflict initially began when both operated as rival insurgent groups in Nan ...
* Republican insurgency in Afghanistan
The republican insurgency in Afghanistan is an ongoing Low-intensity conflict, low-level Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla war between the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, National Resistance Front and allied groups which fight under the ...
* Afghanistan–Pakistan clashes (2024–present)
The 2024 Afghanistan–Pakistan clashes are a series of ongoing armed clashes consisting of cross-border airstrikes and exchanges of gunfire between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The conflict also separately includes the Balochistan Liberation Army ...
{{tree list/end
, designated_as_terror_group_by = {{flag, Canada{{Cite web, date=3 February 2021, title=Currently listed entities, url=https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-en.aspx, access-date=3 February 2021, website=Public Safety Canada, publication-date=21 June 2019{{flag, New Zealand{{cite web, url=https://police.govt.nz/advice/personal-community/counterterrorism/designated-entities/lists-associated-with-resolutions-1267-1989-2253-1988, title=Lists associated with Resolutions 1267/1989/2253 and 1988, website=police.govt.nz, access-date=14 November 2023, date=1 August 2023
{{flag, Tajikistan{{cite web, url=https://nbt.tj/en/financial_monitoring/perechni.php, title=The list of terrorists and extremists, publisher=National Bank of Tajikistan, access-date=3 March 2020
{{flag, Turkey{{Cite journal , last1=Sönmez , first1=Göktuğ , last2=Bozbaş , first2=Gökhan , last3=Konuşul , first3=Serhat , date=27 December 2020 , title=AFGAN TALİBANI: DÜNÜ, BUGÜNÜ VE YARINI , url=https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/neusbf/743916 , journal=Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi , language=tr , volume=2 , issue=2 , pages=59–77 , issn=2667-8063 , access-date=10 August 2021 {{dead link, date=September 2022, bot=medic{{cbignore, bot=medic
{{flag, United Arab Emirates{{cite web, url=http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302618259, title=43 new designations specifically address threats posed by Qatar linked and based Al Qaida Terrorism Support Networks, publisher=Emirates News Agency, date=9 June 2017, access-date=4 March 2020{{cite web, url=http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302624655, title=UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain declare details of new terror designations, work=wam , publisher=Emirates News Agency, date=25 July 2017, access-date=4 March 2020 {{Campaignbox Afghan Civil War {{Politics of Afghanistan {{Jihadism sidebar The Taliban,{{efn, {{IPAc-en, ', t, ae, l, ᵻ, b, ae, n, ,_, ', t, a:, l, ᵻ, b, a:, n; {{langx, ps, طَالِبَانْ, Tālibān, lit=students which also refers to itself by its
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,{{Efn, Also referred to as Taliban Islamic Movement or Islamic Movement of Taliban. is an Afghan political and militant movement with an ideology comprising elements of the Deobandi movement
The Deobandi movement or Deobandism is a revivalist movement within Sunni Islam that adheres to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. It was formed in the late 19th century around the Darul Uloom Madrassa in Deoband, India, from which the name ...
of Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a revivalist and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. The term has been used interchangeably with similar terms such as Islamism, Islamic revivalism, Qut ...
.{{Cite journal , last=Whine , first=Michael , date=2001-09-01 , title=Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences , url=https://doi.org/10.1080/714005450 , journal= Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions , volume=2 , issue=2 , pages=54–72 , doi=10.1080/714005450 , s2cid=146940668 , issn=1469-0764, url-access=subscription {{Cite web , title=National Counterterrorism Center {{! Groups , url=https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/afghan_taliban.html , access-date=2022-10-07 , website=Dni.gov{{cite book, title=Political Islam in the Age of Democratization, publisher=Palgrave Macmillan
Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains offi ...
, year=2013, isbn=978-1-137-31349-2, editor1-last=Bokhari, editor1-first=Kamran, location=New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
, pages=119–133, chapter=Rejector Islamists: Taliban and Nationalist Jihadism, doi=10.1057/9781137313492_7, editor2-last=Senzai, editor2-first=Farid, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ThiuAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA119 It ruled approximately 75% of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, before it was overthrown by an American invasion after the September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
carried out by the Taliban's ally al-Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
. The Taliban recaptured Kabul in August 2021 following the departure of coalition forces, after 20 years of Taliban insurgency
{{Infobox military conflict
, partof = the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), the Afghan conflict, and the War on terror
, image = 2021 Taliban Offensive.png
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Map of th ...
, and now controls the entire country. The Taliban government is not recognized by any country and has been condemned for restricting human rights
Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
, including women
A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl.
Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...
's rights to work and have an education
Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
.
The Taliban emerged in 1994 as a prominent faction in the Afghan Civil War and largely consisted of students from the Pashtun
Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...
areas of east and south Afghanistan, who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools ({{Transliteration, ps, madāris). Under the leadership of Mullah Omar
Muhammad Umar Mujahid (196023 April 2013), commonly known as Mullah Omar or Muhammad Omar, was an Afghan militant leader and founder and the first leader of the Taliban from 1994 until his death in 2013. During the Third Afghan Civil War, the T ...
({{Reign, 1996, 2001), the movement spread through most of Afghanistan, shifting power away from the Mujahideen
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' (), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' (), an Arabic term that broadly refers to people who engage in ''jihad'' (), interpreted in a jurisprudence of Islam as the fight on behalf of God, religion or the commun ...
warlords
Warlords are individuals who exercise military, economic, and political control over a region, often one without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over local armed forces. Warlords have existed throug ...
. In 1996, the group established the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban's government was opposed by the Northern Alliance
The Northern Alliance ( ''Da Šumāl E'tilāf'' or ''Ettehād Šumāl''), officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( ''Jabha-ye Muttahid-e barāye Afğānistān''), was a military alliance of groups that op ...
militia, which seized parts of northeast Afghanistan and maintained international recognition as a continuation of the Islamic State of Afghanistan
The Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accords of 26 April 1992. Many Afghan mujahideen parties participated in its creation, after the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, socialist government. Its power was ...
.
During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban enforced a strict interpretation of ''Sharia
Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...
'', or Islamic law,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, pages=37, 42–43 and were widely condemned for massacres against Afghan civilians, harsh discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities, denial of UN food supplies to starving civilians, destruction of cultural monuments, banning women from school and most employment, and prohibition of most music
Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
. The Taliban committed a cultural genocide
Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept first described by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the same book that coined the term ''genocide''. The destruction of culture was a central component in Lemkin's formulation of genocide ...
against Afghans by destroying their historical and cultural texts, artifacts and sculptures. The Taliban held control of most of the country until the United States invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001. Many members of the Taliban fled to neighboring Pakistan.
After being overthrown, the Taliban launched an insurgency to fight the US-backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was a presidential republic in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2021. The state was established to replace the Afghan Afghan Interim Administration, interim (2001–2002) and Transitional Islamic State of Afghanist ...
and the NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
-led International Security Assistance Force
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was a multinational military mission in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. It was established by United Nations Security Council United Nations Security Council Resolution 1386, Resolution 1386 ac ...
(ISAF) in the War in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to:
*Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire
* Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...
. In May 2002, exiled members formed the Council of Leaders based in Quetta
Quetta is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Balochistan. It is the ninth largest city in Pakistan, with an estimated population of over 1.6 million in 2024. It is situated in the south-west of the country, lying in a ...
, Pakistan. Under Hibatullah Akhundzada
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada (born 19 October 1967), also spelled Haibatullah Akhunzada, is an Afghan cleric who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan in the internationally unrecognized Taliban regime. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and ...
's leadership, in May 2021, the Taliban launched a military offensive, that culminated in the fall of Kabul in August 2021 and the Taliban regaining control. The Islamic Republic was dissolved and the Islamic Emirate reestablished. Following their return to power, the Afghanistan government budget lost 80% of its funding and food insecurity became widespread.{{cite magazine , last1=Anderson , first1=Jon Lee , title=The Taliban Confront the Realities of Power , magazine=The New Yorker , date=28 February 2022 , url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/28/the-taliban-confront-the-realities-of-power-afghanistan , access-date=3 March 2022 The Taliban returned Afghanistan to many policies implemented under its previous rule, including banning women from holding almost any jobs, requiring women to wear head-to-toe coverings such as the burqa
A burqa or burka (; ) is an enveloping outer garment worn by some Muslim women which fully covers the body and the face. Also known as a chadaree (; ) or chaadar (Dari: چادر) in Afghanistan, or a ''paranja'' (; ; ) in Central Asia, the Ara ...
, blocking women from travelling without male guardians, banning female speech and banning all education for girls.
Etymology
The word ''Taliban'' is Pashto, {{lang, ps, طَالِباَنْ ({{transliteration, ps, ṭālibān), meaning "students", the plural of {{transliteration, ps, ṭālib. This is aloanword
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
from Arabic {{lang, ar, طَالِبْ ({{transliteration, ar, ṭālib), using the Pashto plural ending ''-ān'' {{lang, ps, اَنْ. (In Arabic {{lang, ar, طَالِبَانْ ({{transliteration, ar, ṭālibān) means not "students" but rather "two students", as it is a dual form, the Arabic plural being {{lang, ar, طُلَّابْ ({{transliteration, ar, ṭullāb)—occasionally causing some confusion to Arabic speakers.) Since becoming a loanword in English, ''Taliban'', besides a plural noun referring to the group, has also been used as a singular noun referring to an individual. For example, John Walker Lindh
John Philip Walker Lindh (born February 9, 1981) is an American Taliban member who was captured by United States forces as an enemy combatant during the United States' invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001. He was detained at Qala-i-Jangi ...
has been referred to as "an American Taliban" rather than "an American Talib" in domestic media. This is different in Afghanistan, where a member or a supporter of the group is referred to as a ''Talib'' (طَالِبْ) or its plural ''Talib-ha'' (طَالِبْهَا). In other definitions, Taliban means 'seekers'.
In English, the spelling ''Taliban'' has gained predominance over the spelling ''Taleban''.{{Cite web , date=28 December 2006 , title=English <-> Arabic Online Dictionary , url=http://online.ectaco.co.uk/main.jsp?do=e-services-dictionaries-word_translate1&status=translate&lang1=23&lang2=ar&source_id=2248807 , access-date=2 September 2012 , publisher=Online.ectaco.co.uk In American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...
, the definite article
In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" ...
is used, the group is referred to as "the Taliban", rather than "Taliban". In English-language media in Pakistan, the definite article is always omitted. Both Pakistani
Pakistanis (, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as ...
and Indian English
Indian English (IndE, IE) or English (India) is a group of English dialects spoken in the Republic of India and among the Indian diaspora and native to India. English is used by the Government of India for communication, and is enshrined ...
-language media tend to name the group "Afghan Taliban", thus distinguishing it from the Pakistani Taliban
The Pakistani Taliban, officially the Tehreek-i-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP), is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current ...
. Additionally, in Pakistan, the word ''Talibans'' is often used when referring to more than one Taliban member.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban is frequently called the {{lang, fa, گرُوهْ طَالِبَانْ ({{transliteration, fa, Goroh-e Taleban), Dari term which means 'Taliban group'. As per Dari/Persian grammar, there is no "the" prefix. Meanwhile, in Pashto, a determiner
Determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a term used in some models of grammatical description to describe a word or affix belonging to a class of noun modifiers. A determiner combines with a noun to express its reference. Examp ...
is normally used and as a result, the group is normally referred to as per Pashto grammar: {{lang, ps, دَ طَالِبَانْ ({{transliteration, pa, Da Taliban) or {{lang, ps, دَ طَالِبَانُو ({{transliteration, pa, Da Talibano).
Background
{{Main, Afghan conflict {{further, History of Afghanistan (1978–1992), History of Afghanistan (1992–present)Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1978–1992)
After the Soviet Union intervened and occupied Afghanistan in 1979, Islamic mujahideen fighters waged a war against Soviet forces. During the Soviet–Afghan War
The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...
, nearly all of the Taliban's original leaders had fought for either the Hezb-i Islami Khalis or the Harakat-i Inqilab-e Islami factions of the Mujahideen.
Pakistan's President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (12 August 192417 August 1988) was a Pakistani military officer and statesman who served as the sixth president of Pakistan from 1978 until Death of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, his death in an airplane crash in 1988. He also se ...
feared that the Soviets were also planning to invade Balochistan
Balochistan ( ; , ), also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in West and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region o ...
, Pakistan, so he sent Akhtar Abdur Rahman to Saudi Arabia to garner support for the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation forces. A while later, the US CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
and the Saudi Arabian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) funnelled funding and equipment through the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) to the Afghan mujahideen.{{Cite web , title=Pakistan: A Plethora of Problems , url=http://globalsecuritystudies.com/Price%20Pakistan.pdf , access-date=22 December 2012 , website=Global Security Studies, Winter 2012, Volume 3, Issue 1, by Colin Price, School of Graduate and Continuing Studies in Diplomacy , location=Norwich University, Northfield, VT. About 90,000 Afghans, including Mullah Omar, were trained by Pakistan's ISI during the 1980s.
Afghan Civil War (1992–1996)
{{See also, Afghan Civil War (1992–1996), Battle of Kabul (1992–1996) In April 1992, after the fall of the Soviet-backed régime ofMohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai (6 August 1947 – 27 September 1996) was an Afghan military officer and politician who served as the second president of Afghanistan from 1987 until his resignation in April 1992, shortly after the Afghan mujahideen' ...
, many Afghan political parties agreed on a peace and power-sharing agreement, the Peshawar Accord, which created the Islamic State of Afghanistan
The Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accords of 26 April 1992. Many Afghan mujahideen parties participated in its creation, after the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, socialist government. Its power was ...
and appointed an interim government for a transitional period. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (born 1 August 1949) is an Afghan politician, and former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party, so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis spl ...
's Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin
The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (; abbreviated HIG), also referred to as Hezb-e-Islami or Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is an Afghan political party and paramilitary organization, originally founded in 1976 as Hezb-e-Islami and led by Gulbuddin H ...
, Hezbe Wahdat, and Ittihad-i Islami did not participate. The state was paralysed from the start, due to rival groups contending for total power over Kabul
Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...
and Afghanistan.'The Peshawar Accord, 25 April 1992'Website photius.com. Text from 1997, purportedly sourced on The Library of Congress Country Studies (US) and CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 22 December 2017.{{better source needed, date=August 2021 Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin party refused to recognise the interim government, and in April infiltrated Kabul to take power for itself, thus starting this civil war. In May, Hekmatyar started attacks against government forces and Kabul. Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from Pakistan's ISI.{{Cite book , first=Neamatollah , last=Nojumi , title=The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region , publisher=Palgrave, location= New York , year=2002 {{ISBN? With that help, Hekmatyar's forces were able to destroy half of Kabul. Iran assisted the Hezbe Wahdat forces of Abdul-Ali Mazari. Saudi Arabia supported the Ittihad-i Islami faction.{{Cite web , title=Blood-Stained Hands, Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan's Legacy of Impunity , date=6 July 2005 , url=https://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/07/06/blood-stained-hands , publisher=
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
{{Cite book , first=Amin , last=Saikal , title=Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival , publisher=I.B. Tauris & Co , year=2006 , isbn=978-1-85043-437-5 , edition= , location=London & New York , page=352 , author-link=Amin SaikalGutman, Roy (2008): ''How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan'', Endowment of the United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC.{{ISBN?{{page needed, date=July 2023 The conflict between these militias also escalated into war.
Due to this sudden initiation of civil war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Atrocities were committed by individuals inside different factions. Ceasefires, negotiated by representatives of the Islamic State's newly appointed Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud
Ahmad Shāh Massoud (2 September 19539 September 2001) was an Afghan militant leader and politician. He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 19 ...
, President Sibghatullah Mojaddedi
Sibghatullah Mojaddedi (; 27 September 1926 – 11 February 2019) was an Afghan politician, who served as Acting President after the fall of Mohammad Najibullah's government in April 1992. He was the first leader to call for armed resistance aga ...
and later President Burhanuddin Rabbani
Burhānuddīn Rabbānī (; 20 September 1940 – 20 September 2011) was an Afghanistan, Afghan politician and teacher who served as the sixth president of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996, and again from November to December 2001 (in exile from 199 ...
(the interim government), or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commonly collapsed within days. The countryside in northern Afghanistan, parts of which were under the control of Defense Minister Massoud, remained calm and some reconstruction took place. The city of Herat under the rule of Islamic State ally Ismail Khan also witnessed relative calm.{{citation needed, date=September 2019 Meanwhile, southern Afghanistan was neither under the control of foreign-backed militias nor the government in Kabul, but was ruled by local leaders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and their militias.
History
{{Main, History of the Taliban {{Further, Afghan Civil War (1996–2001), Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001), War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), Taliban insurgency The Taliban movement originated in Pashtun nationalism, and its ideological underpinnings are with that of broader Afghan society. The Taliban's roots lie in the religious schools ofKandahar
Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...
and were influenced significantly by foreign support, particularly from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, during the Soviet–Afghan War. They emerged in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, capturing Kandahar and expanding their control across the country; they became involved in a war with the Northern Alliance
The Northern Alliance ( ''Da Šumāl E'tilāf'' or ''Ettehād Šumāl''), officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( ''Jabha-ye Muttahid-e barāye Afğānistān''), was a military alliance of groups that op ...
. The international response to the Taliban varied, with some countries providing support while others opposed and did not recognize their regime.
During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban implemented strict religious regulations, notably affecting women's rights and cultural heritage. This period included significant ethnic persecution and the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan
The Buddhas of Bamiyan (, ) were two monumental Buddhist statues in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan, built possibly around the 6th-century. Located to the northwest of Kabul, at an elevation of , carbon dating of the structural components o ...
. After the US-led invasion in 2001, the Taliban were ousted from power but regrouped and launched an insurgency that lasted two decades.
The Taliban returned to power in 2021 following the US withdrawal. Their efforts to establish the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan continue, with education policies and international relations, including internal and external challenges faced by the Taliban regime.
2021 offensive and return to power
{{Main, 2021 Taliban offensive, Fall of Kabul (2021) {{Further, , Afghanistan#Taliban resurgence
In mid 2021, the Taliban led a major offensive in Afghanistan during the withdrawal of US troops from the country, which gave them control of over half of Afghanistan's 421 districts as of 23 July 2021.{{Cite news , last=Stewart , first=Idrees , date=21 July 2021 , title=Taliban Consolidation and Foothold , work= , publisher=Reuters, Asia Pacific , url=https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/half-all-afghan-district-centers-under-taliban-control-us-general-2021-07-21/ , access-date=26 July 2021 , ref=Milley said more than 200 of the 419 district centers were under Taliban control. Last month, he had said the Taliban controlled 81 district centers in Afghanistan. By mid-August 2021, the Taliban controlled every major city in Afghanistan; following the near seizure of the capital Kabul, the Taliban occupied the Presidential Palace
A presidential palace is the official residence of the president in some countries. Some presidential palaces were once the official residences to monarchs in former monarchies that were preserved during those states' transition into republics. ...
after the incumbent President Ashraf Ghani
Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (born 19 May 1949) is an Afghan former politician and economist who served as the president of Afghanistan from September 2014 until August 2021, when his government was 2021 Taliban offensive, overthrown by the Ta ...
fled Afghanistan to the United Arab Emirates. Ghani's Asylum was confirmed by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on 18 August 2021. Remaining Afghan forces under the leadership of Amrullah Saleh
Amrullah Saleh (Pashto/, ; born 15 October 1972) is an Afghan politician who served as the Vice President of Afghanistan, first vice president of Afghanistan from February 2020 to August 2021, and acting Ministry of Interior Affairs (Afghanist ...
, Ahmad Massoud, and Bismillah Khan Mohammadi
Bismillah Khan Mohammadi (; born 1961, in Panjshir Province), or Bismillah Khan, is an Afghan politician who served as the defense minister of Afghanistan from 2012 to 2015 and for two months in 2021. From 2002 to 2010, he served as Chief of S ...
retreated to Panjshir to continue resistance.
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (2021–present)
The Taliban had "seized power from an established government backed by some of the world's best-equipped militaries"; and as an ideological insurgent movement dedicated to "bringing about a truly Islamic state" its victory has been compared to that of theChinese Communist Revolution
The Chinese Communist Revolution was a social revolution, social and political revolution in China that began in 1927 and culminated with the proclamation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The revolution was led by the Chinese C ...
in 1949 or Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...
of 1979, with their "sweeping" remake of society. However, as of 2021–2022, senior Taliban leaders have emphasized the "softness" of their revolution and how they desired "good relations" with the United States, in discussions with American journalist Jon Lee Anderson.
Anderson notes that the Taliban's war against any " graven images", so vigorous in their early rule, has been abandoned, perhaps made impossible by smartphones and Instagram. One local observer (Sayed Hamid Gailani) has argued the Taliban have not killed "a lot" of people after returning to power. Women are seen out on the street, Zabihullah Mujahid (acting Deputy Minister of Information and Culture) noted there are still women working in a number of government ministries, and claimed that girls will be allowed to attend secondary education when bank funds are unfrozen and the government can fund "separate" spaces and transportation for them.
When asked about the slaughter of Hazara Shia by the first Taliban régime, Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban nominee for Ambassador to the U.N. told Anderson "The Hazara Shia for us are also Muslim. We believe we are one, like flowers in a garden." In late 2021, journalists from ''The New York Times'' embedded with a six-man Taliban unit tasked with protecting the Shi'ite Sakhi Shrine
Sakhi Shah-e Mardan Shrine or Ziyarat-e Sakhi (Pashto/), is a shrine and mosque located in the Karte Sakhi area of Kabul, Afghanistan. It is associated with the place to which the cloak of the Islamic prophet Muhammad was brought and with a vis ...
in Kabul from the Islamic State
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...
, noting "how seriously the men appeared to take their assignment." The unit's commander said that "We do not care which ethnic group we serve, our goal is to serve and provide security for Afghans." In response to "international criticism" over lack of diversity, an ethnic Hazara was appointed deputy health minister, and an ethnic Tajik appointed deputy trade minister.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Women's Affairs has been closed and its building is the new home of Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. According to Anderson, some women still employed by the government are "being forced to sign in at their jobs and then go home, to create the illusion of equity"; and the appointment of ethnic minorities has been dismissed by an "adviser to the Taliban" as tokenism.
Reports have "circulated" of
"Hazara farmers being forced from their land by ethnic Pashtuns, of raids of activists' homes, and of extrajudicial executions of former government soldiers and intelligence agents".According to a
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
's report released in November 2021, the Taliban killed or forcibly disappeared more than 100 former members of the Afghan security forces in the three months since the takeover in just the four provinces of Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, and Kunduz. According to the report, the Taliban identified targets for arrest and execution through intelligence operations and access to employment records that were left behind. Former members of the security forces were also killed by the Taliban within days of registering with them to receive a letter guaranteeing their safety.
Despite Taliban claims that the ISIS has been defeated, IS carried out suicide bombings in October 2021 at Shia mosques in Kunduz and Kandahar, killing over 115 people. As of late 2021, there were still "sticky bomb" explosions "every few days" in the capital Kabul.
Explanations for the relative moderation of the new Taliban government and statements from its officials such as – "We have started a new page. We do not want to be entangled with the past," –?include that it did not expect to take over the country so quickly and still had "problems to work out among" their factions"; that $7 billion in Afghan government funds in US banks has been frozen, and that the 80% of the previous government's budget that came from "the United States, its partners, or international lenders", has been shut off, creating serious economic crisis; according to the U.N. World Food Program country director, Mary Ellen McGroarty, as of late 2021, early 2022 "22.8 million Afghans are already severely food insecure, and seven million of them are one step away from famine"; and that the world community has "unanimously" asked the Taliban "to form an inclusive government, ensure the rights of women and minorities and guarantee that Afghanistan will no more serve as the launching pad for global terrorist operations", before it recognizes the Taliban government.{{cite news , last1=Haider , first1=Nasim , title=Why is the world not recognizing the Taliban government? , url=https://www.geo.tv/latest/386122-why-is-the-world-not-recognizing-the-taliban-government , access-date=4 March 2022 , agency=AFP , publisher=Geo News , date=6 December 2021 In conversation with journalist Anderson, senior Taliban leaders implied that the harsh application of sharia during their first era of rule in the 1990s was necessary because of the "depravity" and "chaos" that remained from the Soviet occupation, but that now "mercy and compassion" were the order of the day. This was contradicted by former senior members of the Ministry of Women's Affairs, one of which who told Anderson, "they will do anything to convince the international community to give them financing, but eventually I'll be forced to wear the burqa again. They are just waiting."
After Taliban retook power in 2021, border clashes erupted between the Taliban with its neighbors includes Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
and Pakistan
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
, leading to casualties on both sides.
In the early months of Taliban rule, international journalists have had some access to Afghanistan. In February 2022, several international journalists, including Andrew North were detained. The Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in New York City, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists. The '' American Journalism ...
described their detention as "a sad reflection of the overall decline of press freedom and increasing attacks on journalists under Taliban rule." The journalists were released after several days. Subsequently, watchdog organizations have continued to document a number of arrests of local journalists, as well as barring access to international journalists.
The country's small community of Sikhs
Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Sikh'' ...
- who form Afghanistan's second largest religion - as well as Hindus
Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
, have reportedly been prevented from celebrating their holidays as of 2023 by the Taliban government. Despite this, the Taliban in a later statement praised the communities and assured that their private land and property will be secured.{{Cite news , last=Bhattacherjee , first=Kallol , date=2024-04-15 , title=Taliban is 'particularly committed' to protect rights of Hindus and Sikhs: Spokesperson of Taliban 'Justice Ministry' , url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/taliban-is-particularly-committed-to-protect-rights-of-hindus-and-sikhs-spokesperson-of-taliban-justice-ministry/article68068378.ece , access-date=2024-04-17 , work=The Hindu , issn=0971-751X In April 2024, the former sole Sikh member of parliament, Narendra Singh Khalsa, returned to Afghanistan for the first time since the collapse of the Republic.
=Current education policy
= In September 2021, the government orderedprimary school
A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...
s to reopen for both sexes and announced plans to reopen secondary schools
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
for male students, without committing to do the same for female students.{{cite news , url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/17/taliban-ban-girls-from-secondary-education-in-afghanistan , title=Taliban ban girls from secondary education in Afghanistan , last=Graham-Harrison , first=Emma , work=The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
, date=17 September 2021 , access-date=18 September 2021 While the Taliban stated that female college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...
students will be able to resume higher education
Tertiary education (higher education, or post-secondary education) is the educational level following the completion of secondary education.
The World Bank defines tertiary education as including universities, colleges, and vocational schools ...
provided that they are segregated from male students (and professors, when possible),{{Cite web, date=2021-09-13, title=Taliban say women can study at university but classes must be segregated, url=https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/taliban-say-woman-can-study-university-classes-must-be-segregated-2021-09-12/, access-date=2021-09-21, website=Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' noted that "if the high schools do not reopen for girls, the commitments to allow university education would become meaningless once the current cohort of students graduated." Higher Education Minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani said that female university students will be required to observe proper hijab
Hijab (, ) refers to head coverings worn by Women in Islam, Muslim women. Similar to the mitpaḥat/tichel or Snood (headgear), snood worn by religious married Jewish women, certain Christian head covering, headcoverings worn by some Christian w ...
, but did not specify if this required covering the face.
Kabul University
Kabul University (KU; ) is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd District of the capital Kabul near the Ministry of Higher Education. It was founded in 1931 by King Mohammed Nadir Shah, wh ...
reopened in February 2022, with female students attending in the morning and males in the afternoon. Other than the closure of the music department, few changes to the curriculum were reported.{{cite web, last=Kullab, first=Samya, url=https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-education-higher-education-kabul-taliban-e57683e739550cb4a14687a96d5191dc?utm, title=Afghan students return to Kabul U, but with restrictions, work=Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
, date=2022-02-26, access-date=2022-03-23 Female students were officially required to wear an abaya and a hijab to attend, although some wore a shawl
A shawl (from ''shāl'') is a simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular piece of Textile, cloth, but can also be Square (geometry), square or tr ...
instead. Attendance was reportedly low on the first day.
In March 2022, the Taliban abruptly halted plans to allow girls to resume secondary school education even when separated from males. At the time, ''The Washington Post'' reported that apart from university students, "sixth is now the highest grade girls may attend". The Afghan Ministry of Education cited the lack of an acceptable design for female student uniforms.
On December 20, 2022, in violation of their prior promises, the Taliban banned female students from attending higher education institutions with immediate effect. The following day, December 21, 2022, the Taliban instituted a ban on all education for all girls and women around the country alongside a ban on female staff in schools, including teaching professions. Teaching was one of the last few remaining professions open to women.
Ideology and aims
{{Deobandi The Taliban's ideology has been described as an "innovative form of ''sharia
Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...
'' combining Pashtun tribal codes",{{Cite book , last=Martin , first=Richard C. , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TTUOAQAAMAAJ , title=Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World , date=2004 , publisher=Macmillan Reference US , isbn=978-0-02-865605-2 or Pashtunwali
Pashtunwali (), also known as Pakhtunwali and Afghaniyat, is the traditional lifestyle or a code of honour and tribal code of the Pashtuns, Pashtun people, from Afghanistan and Pakistan, by which they live. Many scholars widely have interpreted it ...
, with radical Deobandi interpretations of Islam favoured by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (, abbreviated as JUI, translated as Assembly of Islamic Clergy) is a Deobandi Sunni Muslim organization that was founded on 26 October 1945 by Shabbir Ahmad Usmani as a pro-Pakistan offshoot of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH ...
and its splinter groups. Their ideology was a departure from the Islamism
Islamism is a range of religious and political ideological movements that believe that Islam should influence political systems. Its proponents believe Islam is innately political, and that Islam as a political system is superior to communism ...
of the anti-Soviet mujahideen rulers{{Clarify, reason=, date=October 2017 and the radical Islamists{{Clarify, reason=, date=October 2017 inspired by the Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb (9 October 190629 August 1966) was an Egyptian political theorist and revolutionary who was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
As the author of 24 books, with around 30 books unpublished for differe ...
(Ikhwan). The Taliban have said they aim to restore peace and security to Afghanistan, including Western troops leaving, and to enforce ''Sharia'', or Islamic law, once in power.
According to journalist Ahmed Rashid, at least in the first years of their rule, the Taliban adopted Deobandi and Islamist anti-nationalist beliefs, and they opposed "tribal and feudal structures", removing traditional tribal or feudal leaders from leadership roles.
The Taliban strictly enforced their ideology in major cities like Herat, Kabul, and Kandahar. But in rural areas, the Taliban had little direct control, and as a result, they promoted village jirga
A jirga (, ''jərga'') is an assembly of leaders that makes decisions by consensus according to Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code. It is conducted in order to settle disputes among the Pashtuns, but also by members of other ethnic groups who ...
s, so in rural areas, they did not enforce their ideology as stringently as they enforced it in cities.
Ideological influences
The Taliban's religious/political philosophy, especially during its first régime from 1996 to 2001, was heavily advised and influenced byGrand Mufti
A Grand Mufti (also called Chief Mufti, State Mufti and Supreme Mufti) is a title for the leading Faqīh, Islamic jurist of a country, typically Sunni, who may oversee other muftis. Not all countries with large Sunni Muslim populations have Gra ...
Rashid Ahmed Ludhianvi and his works. Its operating political and religious principles since its founding, however, were modeled on those of Abul A'la Maududi
Abul A'la al-Maududi (; – ) was an Islamic scholar, Islamist ideologue, Muslim philosopher, jurist, historian, journalist, activist, and scholar active in British India and later, following the partition, in Pakistan. Described by Wilfred C ...
and the Jamaat-e-Islami
Jamaat-e-Islami is an Islamist fundamentalist movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamist author and theorist Syed Abul Ala Maududi, who was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. It is considered one of the most influential Isla ...
movement.
Pashtun cultural influences
The Taliban, being largely Pashtun tribespeople, frequently follow a pre-Islamic cultural tribal code that is focused on preserving honor.Pashtunwali
Pashtunwali (), also known as Pakhtunwali and Afghaniyat, is the traditional lifestyle or a code of honour and tribal code of the Pashtuns, Pashtun people, from Afghanistan and Pakistan, by which they live. Many scholars widely have interpreted it ...
strongly influences decisions regarding other social matters. It is best described as subconscious social values and attitudes promoting various qualities such as bravery, preserving honor, being hospitable to all guests, seeking revenge and justice if one has been wronged, and providing sanctuary to anyone who seeks refuge, even an enemy. However, non-Pashtuns and others usually criticize some of the values, such as the Pashtun practice of equally dividing inheritances among sons, even though the Qur'an clearly states that women are supposed to receive one-half of a man's share.
According to Ali A. Jalali and Lester Grau, the Taliban "received extensive support from Pashtuns across the country who thought that the movement might restore their national dominance. Even Pashtun intellectuals in the West, who differed with the Taliban on many issues, expressed support for the movement on purely ethnic grounds."
Islamic rules under Deobandi philosophy
Written works published by the group's Commission of Cultural Affairs, including ''Islami Adalat'', ''De Mujahid Toorah{{snd De Jihad Shari Misalay, and Guidance to the Mujahideen'' outlined the core of the Taliban Islamic Movement's philosophy regarding jihad, sharia, organization, and conduct. The Taliban régime interpreted the ''Sharia'' law in accordance with the Hanafi
The Hanafi school or Hanafism is the oldest and largest Madhhab, school of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four schools within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the Faqīh, jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (), who systemised the ...
school of Islamic jurisprudence and the religious edicts of Mullah Omar.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, pages=37, 42–43 The Taliban, Mullah Omar in particular, emphasised dreams as a means of revelation.
Prohibitions
The Taliban forbade the consumption of pork and alcohol, the use of many types of consumer technology such as music with instrumental accompaniments,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, pages=35–36 television,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, pages=35–36 filming,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, pages=35–36 and the Internet, as well as most forms of art such as paintings or photography,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, pages=35–36 participation insport
Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...
s,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=35 including football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
and chess
Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...
;{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=35 recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for happiness, enjoyment, amusement, ...
al activities such as kite
A kite is a tethered heavier than air flight, heavier-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create Lift (force), lift and Drag (physics), drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have ...
-flying and the keeping of pigeons and other pets were also forbidden, and the birds were killed according to the Taliban's rules.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=35 Movie theatres were closed and repurposed as mosques.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=35 The celebration of the Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
and Iranian New Years was also forbidden.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=36 Taking photographs and displaying pictures and portraits were also banned because the Taliban considered them forms of idolatry
Idolatry is the worship of an idol as though it were a deity. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic ...
.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=35 This extended even to "blacking out illustrations on packages of baby soap in shops and painting over road-crossing signs for livestock.
Women were banned from working,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=34 girls were forbidden to attend schools or universities,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=34 were required to observe ''purdah
Pardah or purdah (from Hindi-Urdu , , meaning "curtain") is a religious and social practice of sex segregation prevalent among some Muslim, Zoroastrian and Hindu communities. The purdah garment is the same as a burqa, or yashmak, i.e a veil ...
'' (physical separation of the sexes) and '' awrah'' (concealing the body with clothing), and to be accompanied by male relatives outside their households; those who violated these restrictions were punished.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=34 Men were forbidden to shave their beards, and they were also required to let them grow and keep them long according to the Taliban's rules, and they were also required to wear turbans outside their households.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=37{{Cite web , date=4 March 2002 , title=US Country Report on Human Rights Practices – Afghanistan 2001 , url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/sa/8222.htm , access-date=4 March 2020 , publisher=State.gov Prayer
File:Prayers-collage.png, 300px, alt=Collage of various religionists praying – Clickable Image, Collage of various religionists praying ''(Clickable image – use cursor to identify.)''
rect 0 0 1000 1000 Shinto festivalgoer praying in front ...
was made compulsory. Those men who did not respect the religious obligation after the ''azaan
The (, ) is the Islamic call to prayer, usually recited by a muezzin, traditionally from the minaret of a mosque, shortly before each of the five obligatory daily prayers. The adhan is also the first phrase said in the ear of a newborn baby, ...
'' were arrested.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=37 Gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...
was banned,{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=36 and the Taliban punished thieves by amputating their hands or feet.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=35 In 2000, the Taliban's leader Mullah Omar officially banned opium cultivation and drug trafficking in Afghanistan;{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=39{{Cite journal , last1=Farrell , first1=Graham , last2=Thorne , first2=John , date=March 2005 , title=Where Have All the Flowers Gone?: Evaluation of the Taliban Crackdown Against Opium Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan , url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/28576871 , journal= International Journal of Drug Policy , publisher=Elsevier
Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...
, volume=16 , issue=2 , pages=81–91 , doi=10.1016/j.drugpo.2004.07.007 , via=ResearchGate
ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education' ...
{{Cite book , last=Ghiabi , first=Maziyar , title=Drugs Politics: Managing Disorder in the Islamic Republic of Iran , publisher=Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
, year=2019 , isbn=978-1-108-47545-7 , location=Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
, pages=101–102 , chapter=Crisis as an Idiom for Reforms , lccn=2019001098 , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HoOWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA101 the Taliban succeeded in nearly eradicating the majority of the opium production (99%) by 2001. During the Taliban's governance of Afghanistan, drug users and dealers were both severely persecuted.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=39
Views on the Bamyan Buddhas
In 1999, Mullah Omar issued a decree in which he called for the protection of the Buddha statues
Much Buddhist art uses depictions of the historical Buddha, Gautama Buddha, which are known as () in Sanskrit and Pali. These may be statues or other images such as paintings. The main figure in an image may be someone else who has obtained B ...
at Bamyan
Bamyan (), also spelled Bamian or Bamiyan, is the capital of Bamyan Province in central Afghanistan. Its population of approximately 100,000 people makes it the largest city in Hazarajat. Bamyan is at an altitude of about above sea level. The ...
, two 6th-century monumental statues of standing buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),*
*
*
was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...
s which were carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat
Hazarajat (), also known as Hazaristan () is a mostly mountainous region in the central Afghan highlands, central highlands of Afghanistan, among the Kuh-e Baba mountains in the western extremities of the Hindu Kush. It is the homeland of the H ...
region of central Afghanistan. But in March 2001, the Taliban destroyed the statues, following a decree by Mullah Omar, which stated: "All the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed."
Yahya Massoud, brother of the anti-Taliban and resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud
Ahmad Shāh Massoud (2 September 19539 September 2001) was an Afghan militant leader and politician. He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 19 ...
, recalls the following incident after the destruction of the Buddha statues at Bamyan:
{{blockquote, It was the spring of 2001. I was in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, together with my brother Ahmad Shah Massoud
Ahmad Shāh Massoud (2 September 19539 September 2001) was an Afghan militant leader and politician. He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 19 ...
, the leader of the Afghan resistance against the Taliban, and Bismillah Khan, who currently serves as Afghanistan's interior minister. One of our commanders, Commandant Momin, wanted us to see 30 Taliban fighters who had been taken hostage after a gun battle. My brother agreed to meet them.
I remember that his first question concerned the centuries-old Buddha statues that were dynamited by the Taliban in March of that year, shortly before our encounter. Two Taliban combatants from Kandahar confidently responded that worshiping anything outside of Islam was unacceptable and that therefore these statues had to be destroyed. My brother looked at them and said, this time in Pashto, 'There are still many sun- worshippers in this country. Will you also try to get rid of the sun and drop darkness over the Earth?'
Views on ''bacha bazi''
{{Main, Bacha bazi {{further, LGBT in Islam The Afghan custom of ''bacha bazi
''Bacha bāzī'' (, Pashto and Dari: بچه بازی, Literal translation, lit. 'boy play') refers to a pederasty, pederastic practice in Afghanistan in which men exploit and Slavery, enslave adolescent boys for entertainment and/or Sexual ...
'', a form of pederastic
Pederasty or paederasty () is a sexual relationship between an adult man and an adolescent boy. It was a socially acknowledged practice in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, Rome and elsewhere in the world, such as Homosexuality in Japan#Pre-Mei ...
sexual slavery
Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership rights, right over one or more people with the intent of Coercion, coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activities. This includ ...
, child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in Human sexual activity, sexual activit ...
and pedophilia
Pedophilia ( alternatively spelled paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of pube ...
which is traditionally practiced in various provinces of Afghanistan between older men and young adolescent "dancing boys", was also forbidden under the six-year rule of the Taliban régime. Under the rule of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, it carried the death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...
.
The practice remained illegal during the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's rule, but the laws were seldom enforced against powerful offenders, and police
The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...
had reportedly been complicit in related crimes.Bannerman, MarThe Warlord's Tune: Afghanistan's war on children
at
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is ...
22 February 2010{{Cite news , date=29 January 2020 , title=Bacha bazi: the scandal of Afghanistan's abused boys , work=The Week , url=https://www.theweek.co.uk/105442/bacha-bazi-the-scandal-of-afghanistan-s-abused-boys , access-date=16 April 2020 A controversy arose during the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's rule, after allegations surfaced that US government forces in Afghanistan after the invasion of the country deliberately ignored ''bacha bazi''. The US military responded by claiming the abuse was largely the responsibility of the "local Afghan government".{{Cite news , last=Londoño , first=Ernesto , title=Afghanistan sees rise in 'dancing boys' exploitation , url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afganistans-dancing-boys-are-invisible-victims/2012/04/04/gIQAyreSwS_story.html?tid=pm_world_pop_b , access-date=24 September 2015 , newspaper=The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
The Taliban has criticized the US role in the abuse of Afghan children.
Attitudes towards other Muslim communities
Unlike other Islamic fundamentalist organizations, the Taliban are not Salafists. Although wealthy Arab nations had brought SalafistMadrasa
Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , ), sometimes Romanization of Arabic, romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any Educational institution, type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whet ...
s to Afghanistan during the Soviet war in the 1980s, the Taliban's strict Deobandi leadership suppressed the Salafi movement in Afghanistan after it first came to power in the 1990s. Following the 2001 US invasion, the Taliban and Salafists joined forces to wage a common war against NATO forces. Still, Salafists were relegated to small groups which were under the Taliban's command.
The Taliban are averse to debating doctrine with other Muslims and "did not allow even Muslim reporters to question heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
edicts or to discuss interpretations of the Qur'an
The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...
."{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, p=107.
Opposition to Salafism
Following the Taliban victory, a nationwide campaign was launched against influential Salafi factions suspected of past ties to the ISIS–K. The Taliban closed most Salafi mosques and seminaries in 16 provinces, including Nangarhar, and detainedclerics
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
it accused of supporting the Islamic State.
Shia Islam
During the period of the first Taliban rule (1996 to 2001), the Taliban attempted to sway Shias, particularlyHazaras
The Hazaras (; ) are an ethnic group and a principal component of Afghanistan’s population. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in Afghanistan, primarily residing in the Hazaristan (Hazarajat) region in central Afghanistan. Hazaras al ...
, to their side, making deals with a number of Shia political figures, as well as securing the support of some Shia religious scholars.{{Cite web , last=Moiz , first=Ibrahim , date=2021-06-14 , title=Niazi No More: The Life and Legacy of a Taliban Mutineer , url=https://afghaneye.org/2021/06/14/niazi-no-more-the-life-and-legacy-of-a-taliban-mutineer/ , access-date=3 June 2023 , website=The Afghan Eye , quote=Contrary to some understandable, but inflated, claims ..., the Taliban had not intended to either wipe out Hazaras or Shias from the land; in fact they canvassed the support of several Hazara commanders, seniormost a former enemy called Muhammad Akbari, and even obtained the approval of some Shia clerics. {{Dead link, date=June 2025 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes One of these was Ustad Muhammad Akbari, a Shia Hazara politician who separated from Abdul-Ali Mazari's Islamic Unity Party to form the National Islamic Unity Party, thereafter politically aligning himself and his group, which gained the support of the majority of Islamic Unity Party members in the Hazara hinterland, with the Taliban. Another significant Shia political figure in the administration of the first Islamic Emirate was Sayed Gardizi, a Sayed Hazara from Gardiz, who was appointed as the ''wuluswal'' (district governor) of Yakawlang district, being the only Shia to hold the position of district governor during the period of the first Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
At the same time, however, certain incidents caused distrust between the Taliban and Afghan Shias. The 1998 Mazar-i-Sharif massacre was the most significant, having taken place in response to ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdur-Rashid Dustum's betrayal and subsequent massacre of Taliban fighters, as well as false rumors that Hazaras had beheaded senior Taliban leader Mawlawi Ihsanullah Ihsan at the grave of Abdul-Ali Mazari, which led to the massacre of a significant number of Hazaras. The commander responsible for the massacre, Abdul-Manan Niazi, later became notable for his opposition to the Taliban's leadership, having formed the rebellious High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 2015, before being killed, reportedly by the Taliban themselves.{{Cite news , last=Ali , date=26 May 2021 , title=Assassination of Taliban splinter group leader exposes internal divisions , website=Salaam Times , url=https://afghanistan.asia-news.com/en_GB/articles/cnmi_st/features/2021/05/26/feature-02 , access-date=2022-05-12
The desire of the Taliban leadership to expand the group's relations with Afghan Shias continued after the American invasion of Afghanistan and the group's return to insurgency. Some time following the American Invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Taliban published "A Message to the Mujahid People of Iraq and Afghanistan" by Mullah Omar, in which he condemned sectarianism whilst jointly addressing the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, saying:"It's incumbent upon all Muslims to thwart all the cursed plots of the cunning enemy, and to not give him the opportunity to light the fires of disagreement amongst the Muslims. A major component of American policy is to categorize the Muslims in Iraq with the labels of Shī’ah and Sunnī, and in Afghanistan with the labels of Pashtun, Tājīk, Hazārah and Uzbek, in order to decrease the severity and strength of the popular uprisings and the accompanying armed resistance. ��As such, I request the brothers in Iraq to put behind them the differences that exist in the name of Shī’ah and Sunnī, and to fight in unity against the occupying enemy, for victory is not possible without unity."Multiple Hazara Shia Taliban commanders took part in the Taliban insurgency, primarily from Bamyan and Daikundi provinces. Among the Qarabaghi tribe of Shia Hazaras, a number of fighters voluntarily joined the Taliban due to their close relations with the nearby Taliban-supporting Sunni Pashtun population. Additionally, a pro-government Shia Hazara militia from Gizab district of Daikundi province, called Fedayi, defected and pledged allegiance to the Taliban a few years before 2016, with a reported size of 50 fighters. In reaction to the 2011 Afghanistan Ashura bombings, which targeted Shia Afghans in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, the Taliban published "Sectarian Killings; A Dangerous Enemy Conspiracy" by Taliban official Abdul-Qahhar Balkhi, in which he stated:
"In Afghanistan, Sunnis and Shias have co-existed for centuries. They live communal lives and participate in their mutual festivities. And for centuries they have fought shoulder to shoulder against foreign invaders. ..The majority of Shia populations in Bamyan, Daikundi and HazarajatIn recent years, the Taliban have once again attempted to court Shiites, appointing a Shia cleric as a regional governor and recruiting Hazaras to fight against ISIS–K, in order to distance themselves from their past reputation and improve their relations with the Shia-ledave is a Latin word, used by the Roman Empire, Romans as a salutation (greeting), salutation and greeting, meaning 'wikt:hail, hail'. It is the singular imperative mood, imperative form of the verb , which meant 'Well-being, to be well'; thus on ...actively aided and continue to support the Mujahideen against the foreigners and their puppets. The foreign occupiers seek to ignite the flames of communal hatred and violence between Sunnis and Shias in Afghanistan. ..The followers of Islam will only ever reclaim their rightful place in this world if they forgo their petty differences and unite as a single egalitarian body."
Government of Iran
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (), known simply as ''Nezam'' (), is the ruling State (polity), state and current political system in Iran, in power since the Iranian Revolution and fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979.
Its Const ...
. After the 2021 Taliban offensive, which led to the restoration of the Islamic Emirate, senior Taliban officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi
Abdul Salam Hanafi is an Afghan Uzbek political and Deobandi-Islamic religious leader who is a senior leader of the Taliban, an acting second deputy prime minister, alongside Abdul Ghani Baradar and Abdul Kabir, of Afghanistan since 2021, and ...
and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, have stressed the importance of unity between Shiites and Sunnis in Afghanistan and promised to protect the Shiite community. The Ministry of Virtue and Vice have also agreed to hire Shia Ulama
In Islam, the ''ulama'' ( ; also spelled ''ulema''; ; singular ; feminine singular , plural ) are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam.
"Ulama ...
in order to implement the ministry's religious edicts. In general, the Taliban has maintained peace with most Muslims in the Shiite community, although the 2022 Balkhab uprising resulted in the deaths of some Hazaras.
Consistency of the Taliban's ideology
The Taliban's ideology is not static. Before its capture of Kabul, members of the Taliban talked about stepping aside once a government of "good Muslims" took power and once law and order were restored. The decision-making process of the Taliban in Kandahar was modelled on the Pashtun tribal council (''jirga
A jirga (, ''jərga'') is an assembly of leaders that makes decisions by consensus according to Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code. It is conducted in order to settle disputes among the Pashtuns, but also by members of other ethnic groups who ...
''), together with what was believed to be the early Islamic model. Discussion was followed by the building of a consensus by the believers.{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, p=95.
As the Taliban's power grew, Mullah Omar made decisions without consulting the ''jirga'' or visiting other parts of the country. He visited the capital, Kabul, only twice while in power. Taliban spokesman Mullah Wakil explained:
{{blockquote, Decisions are based on the advice of the ''Amir-ul Momineen''. For us consultation is not necessary. We believe that this is in line with the ''Sharia''. We abide by the Amir's view even if he alone takes this view. There will not be a head of state. Instead there will be an Amir al-Mu'minin. Mullah Omar will be the highest authority and the government will not be able to implement any decision to which he does not agree. General elections are incompatible with ''Sharia'' and therefore we reject them.Interview with Taliban spokesman Mullah Wakil in Arabic magazine ''Al-Majallah'', 1996-10-23.
Another sign that the Taliban's ideology was evolving was Mullah Omar's 1999 decree in which he called for the protection of the Buddha statues at Bamyan and the destruction of them in 2001.
Evaluations and criticisms
The author Ahmed Rashid suggests that the devastation and hardship which resulted from the Soviet invasion and the period which followed it influenced the Taliban's ideology.{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, p=32. It is said that the Taliban did not include scholars who were learned in Islamic law and history. The refugee students brought up in a totally male society had no education in mathematics, science, history, or geography, no traditional skills of farming, herding, or handicraft-making, or even knowledge of their tribal and clan lineages. In such an environment, war meant employment, peace meant unemployment. Dominating women affirmed manhood. For their leadership, rigidfundamentalism
Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that are characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguis ...
was a matter of principle and political survival. Taliban leaders "repeatedly told" Rashid that "if they gave women greater freedom or a chance to go to school, they would lose the support of their rank and file."
The Taliban have been criticized for their strictness towards those who disobeyed their imposed rules, and Mullah Omar has been criticized for titling himself Amir al-Mu'minin
() or Commander of the Faithful is a Muslims, Muslim title designating the supreme leader of an Ummah, Islamic community.
Name
Although etymology, etymologically () is equivalent to English "commander", the wide variety of its historical an ...
.
Mullah Omar was criticized for calling himself Amir al-Mu'minin because he lacked scholarly learning, tribal pedigree, or connections to the Prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...
's family. The sanction for the title traditionally required the support of all of the country's ulema
In Islam, the ''ulama'' ( ; also spelled ''ulema''; ; singular ; feminine singular , plural ) are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam.
"Ulama ...
, whereas only some 1,200 Pashtun Taliban-supporting Mullahs had declared that Omar was the Amir. According to Ahmed Rashid, "no Afghan had adopted the title since 1834, when King Dost Mohammed Khan assumed the title before he declared jihad against the Sikh
Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Si ...
kingdom in Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district p ...
. But Dost Mohammed was fighting foreigners, while Omar had declared jihad against other Afghans."
Another criticism was that the Taliban called their 20% tax on truckloads of opium "zakat
Zakat (or Zakāh زكاة) is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Zakat is the Arabic word for "Giving to Charity" or "Giving to the Needy". Zakat is a form of almsgiving, often collected by the Muslim Ummah. It is considered in Islam a relig ...
," which is traditionally limited to 2.5% of the zakat payers' disposable income (or wealth).{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, pp=41–42.
The Taliban have been compared to the 7th-century Kharijites
The Kharijites (, singular ) were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the conflict with his challeng ...
who developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...
and Shiʿa Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to ''takfir
''Takfir'' () is an Arabic language, Arabic and Glossary of Islam, Islamic term which denotes excommunication from Islam of one Muslim by another, i.e. accusing another Muslim of being an Apostasy in Islam, apostate. The word is found neither ...
'', whereby they declared that other Muslims were unbelievers and deemed them worthy of death.
In particular, the Taliban have been accused of ''takfir'' towards Shia. After the August 1998 slaughter of 8,000 mostly Shia Hazara non-combatants in Mazar-i-Sharif, Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, the Taliban commander of the attack and the new governor of Mazar, who the Taliban later killed after forming the rebellious High Council of the Islamic Emirate, declared from Mazar's central mosque:
Last year you rebelled against us and killed us. From all your homes you shot at us. Now we are here to deal with you. The Hazaras are not Muslims and now have to kill Hazaras. You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan. Wherever you go we will catch you. If you go up we will pull you down by your feet; if you hide below, we will pull you up by your hair.Carter Malkasian, in one of the first comprehensive historical works on the Afghan war, argues that the Taliban are oversimplified in most portrayals. While Malkasian thinks that "oppressive" remains the best word to describe them, he points out that the Taliban managed to do what multiple governments and political players failed to: bring order and unity to the "ungovernable land". The Taliban curbed the atrocities and excesses of the Warlord period of the civil war from 1992{{En dash1996. Malkasian further argues that the Taliban's imposing of Islamic ideals upon the Afghan tribal system was innovative and a key reason for their success and durability. Given that traditional sources of authority had been shown to be weak during the long period of civil war, only religion had proved decisive in Afghanistan. In a period of 40 years of constant conflict, the traditionalist Islam of the Taliban proved to be far more stable, even if the order they brought was "an impoverished peace".{{Cite book, last=Malkasian, first=Carter, url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1240264784, title=The American war in Afghanistan: a history, date=2021, publisher=
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=978-0-19-755077-9, location=New York, oclc=1240264784{{Rp, 50–51
Condemned practices
{{See also, Human rights in Afghanistan, Persecution of Hazara people#Afghanistan, War crimes in Afghanistan#TalibanThe Taliban have been internationally condemned for their harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic ''Sharia'' law, which has resulted in their brutal treatment of many Afghans. During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban enforced a strict interpretation of ''Sharia'', or Islamic law.{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, pages=37, 42–43 The Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to 160,000 starving civilians, and conducted a policy ofscorched earth
A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...
, burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes. While the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, they banned activities and media including paintings, photography, and movies that depicted people or other living things. They also prohibited music with instrumental accompaniments, with the exception of the daf, a type of frame drum
A frame drum is a drum that has a drumhead width greater than its depth. It is one of the most ancient musical instruments, and perhaps the first drum to be invented. It has a single drumhead that is usually made of rawhide, but man-made mat ...
.{{Cite news , title=Ethnomusicologist Discusses Taliban Vs. Musicians , url=https://www.rferl.org/a/British_Ethnomusicologist_Discusses_Talibans_Campaign_Against_Musicians/1753865.html , access-date=13 August 2021 , newspaper=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, date=23 June 2009 The Taliban prevented girls and young women from attending school, banned women from working jobs outside of healthcare (male doctors were prohibited from treating women), and required that women be accompanied by a male relative and wear a burqa
A burqa or burka (; ) is an enveloping outer garment worn by some Muslim women which fully covers the body and the face. Also known as a chadaree (; ) or chaadar (Dari: چادر) in Afghanistan, or a ''paranja'' (; ; ) in Central Asia, the Ara ...
at all times when in public. If women broke certain rules, they were publicly whipped or executed
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...
. The Taliban harshly discriminated against religious and ethnic minorities during their rule and they have also committed a cultural genocide
Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept first described by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the same book that coined the term ''genocide''. The destruction of culture was a central component in Lemkin's formulation of genocide ...
against the people of Afghanistan by destroying numerous monuments, including the famous 1500-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan. According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 76% of Afghan civilian casualties
A civilian casualty occurs when a civilian is killed or injured by non-civilians, mostly law enforcement officers, military personnel, rebel group forces, or terrorists. Under the law of war, it refers to civilians who perish or suffer wounds ...
in 2010, and 80% in 2011 and 2012. The group is internally funded by its involvement in the illegal drug trade which it participates in by producing and trafficking in narcotic
The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "I make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiates ...
s such as heroin,{{Cite web , last=O’Donnell , first=Lynne , title=The Taliban Are Breaking Bad , date=19 July 2021 , url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-trade-meth-heroin/{{Cite web , author=Bureau of Public Affairs, Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information , title=The Taliban, Terrorism, and Drug Trade , url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/inl/rls/rm/sep_oct/5210.htm , website=2001-2009.state.gov extortion, and kidnapping for ransom.{{Cite web , title=Where Are the Taliban Getting Their Money? , url=https://www.voanews.com/a/us-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal_where-are-taliban-getting-their-money/6209559.html , website=Voice of America, date=13 August 2021 They also seized control of mining operations in the mid-2010s that were illegal under the previous government.{{Cite news , date=27 August 2021 , title=Afghanistan: How do the Taliban make money? , work=BBC News , url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-46554097
Massacre campaigns
According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematicmassacre
A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...
s against civilians. UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001. They also said, that " ese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the alibanMinistry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself." "These are the same type of war crimes as were committed in Bosnia and should be prosecuted in international courts", one UN official was quoted as saying. The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings. Bin Laden's so-called 055 Brigade was responsible for mass-killings of Afghan civilians. The report by the United Nations quotes "eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people". The Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, in late 2011 stated that cruel behaviour under and by the Taliban had been "necessary".{{Cite news , last=Gargan , first=Edward A , date=October 2001 , title=Taliban massacres outlined for UN , work=Chicago Tribune , url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2001/10/12/taliban-massacres-outlined-for-un/{{Cite web , year=2001 , title=Confidential UN report details mass killings of civilian villagers , url=http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/massacre.htm , url-status=usurped , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021118162327/http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/massacre.htm , archive-date=18 November 2002 , access-date=12 October 2001 , website=Newsday , publisher=newsday.org{{Cite news , date=11 September 2001 , title=Afghanistan resistance leader feared dead in blast , publisher=Ahmed Rashid in the Telegraph , location=London , url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1340244/Afghanistan-resistance-leader-feared-dead-in-blast.html , archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1340244/Afghanistan-resistance-leader-feared-dead-in-blast.html , archive-date=10 January 2022 , url-access=subscription , url-status=live{{cbignore
In 1998, the United Nations accused the Taliban of denying emergency food by the UN's World Food Programme
The World Food Programme (WFP) is an international organization within the United Nations that provides food assistance worldwide. It is the world's largest humanitarian organization and the leading provider of school meals. Founded in 1961 ...
to 160,000 hungry and starving people "for political and military reasons". The UN said the Taliban were starving people for their military agenda and using humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war.{{Cite book , last=Skaine , first=Rosemarie , title=Women of Afghanistan in the Post-Taliban Era: How Lives Have Changed and Where They Stand Today , publisher=McFarland , year=2009 , isbn=978-0-7864-3792-4 , page=41{{Cite book , last=Shanty , first=Frank , title=The Nexus: International Terrorism and Drug Trafficking from Afghanistan , publisher=Praeger , year=2011 , isbn=978-0-313-38521-6 , pages=86–88{{Cite news , date=9 March 2011 , title=Citing rising death toll, UN urges better protection of Afghan civilians , work=United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan , url=http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1783&ctl=Details&mid=1882&ItemID=12602 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726085402/http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1783&ctl=Details&mid=1882&ItemID=12602 , archive-date=26 July 2011{{Cite news , last=Haddon , first=Katherine , date=6 October 2011 , title=Afghanistan marks 10 years since war started , agency=Agence France-Presse , url=https://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-marks-10-years-since-war-started-211711851.html , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111010055026/http://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-marks-10-years-since-war-started-211711851.html , archive-date=10 October 2011{{Cite news , date=10 August 2010 , title=UN: Taliban Responsible for 76% of Deaths in Afghanistan , work=The Weekly Standard , url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/taliban-responsible-76-deaths-afghanistan-un , url-status=dead , access-date=30 December 2010 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110102054938/http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/taliban-responsible-76-deaths-afghanistan-un , archive-date=2 January 2011
On 8 August 1998, the Taliban launched an attack on Mazar-i-Sharif. Of 1500 defenders only 100 survived the engagement. Once in control the Taliban began to kill people indiscriminately. At first shooting people in the street, they soon began to target Hazaras. Women were raped, and thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate. This ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...
left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people dead. At this time ten Iranian diplomats and a journalist were killed. Iran assumed the Taliban had murdered them, and mobilised its army, deploying men along the border with Afghanistan. By the middle of September there were 250,000 Iranian personnel stationed on the border. Pakistan mediated and the bodies were returned to Tehran towards the end of the month. The killings of the diplomats had been carried out by Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Pakistani Sunni group with close ties to the ISI. They burned orchards, crops and destroyed irrigation systems, and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes with hundreds of men, women and children still unaccounted for.{{Cite book , last=Armajani , first=Jon , title=Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics , publisher=Wiley-Blackwell , year=2012 , isbn=978-1-4051-1742-5 , page=207{{Cite book , last=Riedel , first=Bruce , title=The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future , publisher=Brookings Institution , year=2010 , isbn=978-0-8157-0451-5 , edition=2nd Revised , pages=66–67{{Cite book , last=Clements , first=Frank , title=Conflict in Afghanistan: a historical encyclopedia , publisher=ABC-CLIO , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-85109-402-8 , page=106{{Cite book , last=Gutman , first=Roy , url=https://archive.org/details/howwemissedstory00gutm/page/142 , title=How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan , publisher=Institute of Peace Press , year=2008 , isbn=978-1-60127-024-5 , pag142
}{{Cite book , last=Tripathi , first=Deepak , title=Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism , publisher=Potomac , year=2011 , isbn=978-1-59797-530-8 , page=116 In a major effort to retake the Shomali Plains to the north of Kabul from the United Front, the Taliban indiscriminately killed civilians, while uprooting and expelling the population. Among others, Kamal Hossein, a special reporter for the UN, reported on these and other
war crime
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...
s. In Istalif, a town famous for handmade potteries and which was home to more than 45,000 people, the Taliban gave 24 hours' notice to the population to leave, then completely razed the town leaving the people destitute.{{Cite news , date=1 August 2002 , title=Re-Creating Afghanistan: Returning to Istalif , publisher=NPR , url=https://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/aug/afghanistan/ , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023072254/http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/aug/afghanistan/ , archive-date=23 October 2013{{Cite book , last=Coburn , first=Noah , title=Bazaar Politics: Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town , publisher=Stanford University Press , year=2011 , isbn=978-0-8047-7672-1 , page=13
In 1999, the town of Bamian was taken, hundreds of men, women and children were executed. Houses were razed and some were used for forced labour. There was a further massacre at the town of Yakaolang in January 2001. An estimated 300 people were murdered, along with two delegations of Hazara elders who had tried to intercede.{{Cite book , last=Maley , first=William , title=The Afghanistan wars , publisher=Palgrave Macmillan , year=2002 , isbn=978-0-333-80290-8 , page=240{{Cite book , last=Clements , first=Frank , title=Conflict in Afghanistan: a historical encyclopedia , publisher=ABC-CLIO , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-85109-402-8 , page=112
By 1999, the Taliban had forced hundreds of thousands of people from the Shomali Plains and other regions conducting a policy of scorched earth burning homes, farm land and gardens.
Human trafficking
Several Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders ran a network of human trafficking, abducting ethnic minority women and selling them intosex slavery
Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership right over one or more people with the intent of coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in sexual activities. This includes forced labor that results in sexual ...
in Afghanistan and Pakistan.{{Cite magazine , date=10 February 2002 , title=Lifting The Veil On Taliban Sex Slavery , magazine=Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
, url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,201892,00.html , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110602140825/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,201892,00.html , archive-date=2 June 2011 , access-date=16 July 2021 ''Time'' magazine writes: "The Taliban often argued that the restrictions they placed on women were actually a way of revering and protecting the opposite sex. The behavior of the Taliban during the six years they expanded their rule in Afghanistan made a mockery of that claim."
The targets for human trafficking were especially women from the Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara and other non-Pashtun ethnic groups in Afghanistan. Some women preferred to commit suicide over slavery, killing themselves. During one Taliban and al-Qaeda offensive in 1999 in the Shomali Plains alone, more than 600 women were kidnapped. Arab and Pakistani al-Qaeda militants, with local Taliban forces, forced them into trucks and buses. ''Time'' magazine writes: "The trail of the missing Shomali women leads to Jalalabad, not far from the Pakistan border. There, according to eyewitnesses, the women were penned up inside Sar Shahi camp in the desert. The more desirable among them were selected and taken away. Some were trucked to Peshawar with the apparent complicity of Pakistani border guards. Others were taken to Khost, where bin Laden had several training camps." Officials from relief agencies say, the trail of many of the vanished women leads to Pakistan where they were sold to brothels or into private households to be kept as slaves.
Oppression of women
{{Main, Treatment of women by the Taliban {{further, Women in Afghanistan
{{blockquote, To PHR's knowledge, no other régime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest
House arrest (also called home confinement, or nowadays electronic monitoring) is a legal measure where a person is required to remain at their residence under supervision, typically as an alternative to imprisonment. The person is confined b ...
, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment.{{Cite web , title=The Taliban's War on Women , url=http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/talibans-war-on-women.pdf , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070702234326/http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/talibans-war-on-women.pdf , archive-date=2007-07-02 , access-date=2007-03-04, Physicians for Human Rights, August 1998., Physicians for Human Rights, 1998
Brutal repression of women was widespread under the Taliban and it received significant international condemnation.{{Cite book , last=Forsythe , first=David P. , title=Encyclopedia of human rights , publisher=Oxford University Press , year=2009 , isbn=978-0-19-533402-9 , edition=Volume 1 , page=2 , quote=In 1994 the Taliban was created, funded and inspired by PakistanDupree Hatch, Nancy. "Afghan Women under the Taliban" in Maley, William. ''Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban''. London: Hurst and Company, 2001, pp. 145–166.{{Cite book , last=Wertheime , first=Molly Meijer , title=Leading Ladies of the White House: Communication Strategies of Notable Twentieth-Century First Ladies , publisher=Rowman & Littlefield , year=2004 , isbn=978-0-7425-3672-2 , page=253{{Cite book , last=Cooke , first=Miriam , url=https://archive.org/details/terrorculturepol0000unse/page/177 , title=Terror, Culture, Politics: 9/11 Reconsidere , publisher=Indiana University Press , year=2006 , isbn=978-0-253-34672-8 , editor-last=Sherman , editor-first=Daniel J. , pag177
}{{Cite book , last=Moghadam , first=Valentine M. , url=https://archive.org/details/modernizingwomen0000mogh_x1r1/page/266 , title=Modernizing women: gender and social change in the Middle East , publisher=Lynne Rienner , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-58826-171-7 , edition=2nd Revised , pag
266
}{{Cite book , last=Massoumi , first=Mejgan , title=The fundamentalist city?: religiosity and the remaking of urban space , publisher=Routledge , year=2010 , isbn=978-0-415-77935-7 , editor-last=AlSayyad , editor-first=Nezar , page=223{{Cite book , last=Skaine , first=Rosemarie , title=Women of Afghanistan in the Post-Taliban Era: How Lives Have Changed and Where They Stand Today , publisher=McFarland , year=2009 , isbn=978-0-7864-3792-4 , page=57{{Cite book , last=Skain , first=Rosemarie , title=The women of Afghanistan under the Taliban , publisher=McFarland , year=2002 , isbn=978-0-7864-1090-3 , page=41 Abuses were myriad and violently enforced by the
religious police
Religious police are any Police, police force responsible for the enforcement of religious norms and associated religious laws. Nearly all religious police organizations in modern society are Islamic and can be found in countries with a large Mu ...
. For example, the Taliban issued edicts forbidding women from being educated, forcing girls to leave schools and colleges.{{Cite web , date=25 November 2014 , title=Women in Afghanistan: the back story , url=https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history , url-status=live , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200614193030/https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history , archive-date=14 June 2020 , access-date=16 July 2020 , publisher=Amnesty International{{Cite web , date=17 November 2001 , title=Report on the Taliban's War Against Women , url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/6185.htm , url-status=live , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200711010830/https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/6185.htm , archive-date=11 July 2020 , access-date=16 July 2020 , website=U.S. Department of State , publisher=Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor{{Cite book , last=Rashid , first=Ahmed , title=Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia , publisher=I.B. Tauris , year=2002 , isbn=978-1-86064-830-4 , page=253 Women who were leaving their houses were required to be accompanied by a male relative and were obligated to wear the ''burqa
A burqa or burka (; ) is an enveloping outer garment worn by some Muslim women which fully covers the body and the face. Also known as a chadaree (; ) or chaadar (Dari: چادر) in Afghanistan, or a ''paranja'' (; ; ) in Central Asia, the Ara ...
'', a traditional dress covering the entire body except for a small slit out of which to see. Those women who were accused of disobedience were publicly beaten. In one instance, a young woman named Sohaila was charged with adultery after she was caught walking with a man who was not a relative; she was publicly flogged in Ghazi Stadium, receiving 100 lashes. Female employment was restricted to the medical sector, where male medical personnel were prohibited from treating women and girls. This extensive ban on the employment of women further resulted in the widespread closure of primary schools, as almost all teachers prior to the Taliban's rise had been women, further restricting access to education not only to girls but also to boys. Restrictions became especially severe after the Taliban took control of the capital. In February 1998, for instance, religious police forced all women off the streets of Kabul and issued new regulations which ordered people to blacken their windows so that women would not be visible from outside.
Ban on women's participation in the healthcare sector
In December 2024, the Taliban's health ministry banned women from being trained innursing
Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...
and midwifery
Midwifery is the health science and health profession that deals with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period (including care of the newborn), in addition to the sexual and reproductive health of women throughout their lives. In many cou ...
, according to media reports confirmed by ''The Guardian''.{{cite web, last1=Kumar, first1=Ruchi, last2=Joya, first2=Zahra, url=https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/06/taliban-afghanistan-ban-women-training-nurses-midwives-outrageous-act-ignorance-human-rights-healthcare, title=Taliban move to ban women training as nurses and midwives 'an outrageous act of ignorance', work=The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
, date=2024-12-06, accessdate=2024-12-08 This was a reversal of an earlier February 2024 decision to permit basic medical training for women.{{cite web, last=Kumar, first=Ruchi, url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/12/04/g-s1-36765/afghanistan-taliban-women-nurses-midwives, title=Rights Group: Afghan women barred from studying nursing and midwifery, work=NPR
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
, date=2024-12-04, accessdate=2024-12-08 According to ''NPR
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
'', the health ministry had lobbied for an exemption from the general ban on women's education in the healthcare sector because "in some provinces, the Taliban does not allow women to seek treatment from male medical professionals." The Taliban's ban on basic medical training for women was widely condemned by human rights organizations as a danger to the health and well-being of Afghan women and children, with Afghanistan already having among the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world according to 2020 data, before the Taliban's 2021 seizure of power. For example, Heather Barr of Human Right Watch stated: "If you ban women from being treated by male healthcare professionals, and then you ban women from training to become healthcare professionals, the consequences are clear: women will not have access to healthcare and will die as a result." The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat that works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Univers ...
(OHCHR) stated that the ban "is profoundly discriminatory, short-sighted and puts the lives of women and girls at risk in multiple ways."
Violence against civilians
According to the United Nations, the Taliban and its allies were responsible for 76% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2009, 75% in 2010 and 80% in 2011.{{Cite book , last1=Kegley , first1=Charles W. , title=World Politics: Trend and Transformation , first2=Shannon L. , last2=Blanton , publisher=Cengage , year=2011 , isbn=978-0-495-90655-1 , page=230 According to Human Rights Watch, the Taliban's bombings and other attacks which have led to civilian casualties "sharply escalated in 2006" when "at least 669 Afghan civilians were killed in at least 350 armed attacks, most of which appear to have been intentionally launched at non-combatants."{{Cite web , date=17 April 2007 , title=Human Rights News, Afghanistan: Civilians Bear Cost of Escalating Insurgent Attacks , url=http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/04/16/afghan15688.htm , access-date=2 September 2012 , publisher=Human Rights Watch The United Nations reported that the number of civilians killed by both the Taliban and pro-government forces in the war rose nearly 50% between 2007 and 2009. The high number of civilians killed by the Taliban is blamed in part on their increasing use ofimprovised explosive device
An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional warfare, conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached t ...
s (IEDs), "for instance, 16 IEDs have been planted in girls' schools" by the Taliban.{{Cite journal , last=Arnoldy , first=Ben , date=31 July 2009 , title=In Afghanistan, Taliban kills more civilians than US , url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0731/p06s15-wosc.html , journal=The Christian Science Monitor
In 2009, Colonel Richard Kemp, formerly Commander of British forces in Afghanistan and the intelligence coordinator for the British government, drew parallels between the tactics and strategy of Hamas
The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
in Gaza to those of the Taliban. Kemp wrote:
{{blockquote, Like Hamas in Gaza, the Taliban in southern Afghanistan are masters at shielding themselves behind the civilian population and then melting in among them for protection. Women and children are trained and equipped to fight, collect intelligence, and ferry arms and ammunition between battles. Female suicide bombers are increasingly common. The use of women to shield gunmen as they engage NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
forces is now so normal it is deemed barely worthy of comment. Schools and houses are routinely booby-trapped. Snipers shelter in houses deliberately filled with women and children.Israel and the New Way of War{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101226163948/https://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2010/18/kemp.php , date=26 December 2010 , ''The Journal of International Security Affairs'', Spring 2010 – Number 18, Richard Kemp, Commander of British forces in Afghanistan
Discrimination against Hindus and Sikhs
Hindus
Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
and Sikhs
Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Sikh'' ...
have lived in Afghanistan since historic times and they were prominent minorities in Afghanistan, well-established in terms of academics and businesses. After the Afghan Civil War they started to migrate to India and other nations. After the Taliban established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, they imposed strict ''Sharia'' laws which discriminated against Hindus and Sikhs and caused the size of Afghanistan's Hindu and Sikh populations to fall at a very rapid rate because they emigrated from Afghanistan and established diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...
s in the Western world. The Taliban issued decrees that forbade non-Muslims from building places of worship but allowed them to worship at existing holy sites, forbade non-Muslims from criticizing Muslims, ordered non-Muslims to identify their houses by placing a yellow cloth on their rooftops, forbade non-Muslims from living in the same residence as Muslims, and required that non-Muslim women wear a yellow dress with a special mark so that Muslims could keep their distance from them (Hindus and Sikhs were mainly targeted).{{Sfn, Rashid, 2000, pp=231–234 The Taliban announced in May 2001 that it would force Afghanistan's Hindu population to wear special badges, which has been compared to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
.Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
(22 May 2001)"Taliban to Enforce Hindu 'Badges.'"
''
Wired
Wired may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976
* ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993
* ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017
* "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street''
* "Wired ...
''. Retrieved 22 July 2020. In general, the Taliban treated the Sikhs better than Afghan Shiites, Hindus and Christians.
Relationship with other religious groups
{{further, Attacks on humanitarian workers, Christianity in Afghanistan Along with Hindus, the small Christian community was also persecuted by the Taliban. Violence against Western aid workers and Christians was common during the Afghan conflict. On several occasions between 2008 and 2012, the Taliban claimed that they assassinated Western and Afghani medical or aid workers in Afghanistan, because they feared that the polio vaccine would make Muslim children sterile, because they suspected that the 'medical workers' were really spies, or because they suspected that the medical workers wereproselytizing
Proselytism () is the policy of attempting to convert people's religious or political beliefs. Carrying out attempts to instill beliefs can be called proselytization.
Proselytism is illegal in some countries. Some draw distinctions between Chris ...
Christianity.
In August 2008, three Western women (British, Canadian, US) who were working for the aid group 'International Rescue Committee
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 1 ...
' were murdered in Kabul. The Taliban claimed that they killed them because they were foreign spies.{{Cite news , date=20 October 2008 , title=UK charity worker killed in Kabul , work=BBC News , url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7679212.stm , access-date=7 October 2017 In October 2008, the British woman Gayle Williams working for Christian UK charity ' SERVE Afghanistan' – focusing on training and education for disabled persons – was murdered near Kabul. Taliban claimed they killed her because her organisation "was preaching Christianity in Afghanistan". In all 2008 until October, 29 aid workers, 5 of whom non-Afghanis, were killed in Afghanistan.
In August 2010, the Taliban claimed that they murdered 10 medical aid workers while they were passing through Badakhshan Province
Badakhshan Province (Dari: بدخشان) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan in the north and the Pakistani regions of Lower and Upper C ...
on their way from Kabul to Nuristan Province
Nuristan, also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan (Pashto: ; Katë: ), is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province, with a ...
– but the Afghan Islamic party/militia Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin
The Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (; abbreviated HIG), also referred to as Hezb-e-Islami or Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is an Afghan political party and paramilitary organization, originally founded in 1976 as Hezb-e-Islami and led by Gulbuddin H ...
has also claimed responsibility for those killings. The victims were six Americans, one Briton, one German and two Afghanis, working for a self-proclaimed "non-profit, Christian organization" which is named 'International Assistance Mission'. The Taliban stated that they murdered them because they were proselytizing Christianity and possessing which were translated into the Dari language when they were encountered. IAM contended that they "were not missionaries".
In December 2012, unidentified gunmen killed four female UN polio-workers in Karachi
Karachi is the capital city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Sindh, Pakistan. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, largest city in Pakistan and 12th List of largest cities, largest in the world, with a popul ...
in Pakistan; the Western news media suggested that there was a connection between the outspokenness of the Taliban and objections to and suspicions of such ' polio vaccinations'. Eventually in 2012, a Pakistani Taliban commander in North Waziristan
North Waziristan District (, ) is a Districts of Pakistan, district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It is the northern part of Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and covering . The capital ...
in Pakistan banned polio vaccinations, and in March 2013, the Afghan government was forced to suspend its vaccination efforts in Nuristan Province
Nuristan, also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan (Pashto: ; Katë: ), is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province, with a ...
because the Taliban was extremely influential in the province. However, in May 2013, the Taliban's leaders changed their stance on polio vaccinations, saying that the vaccine is the only way to prevent polio and they also stated that they will work with immunization volunteers as long as polio workers are "unbiased" and "harmonized with the regional conditions, Islamic values and local cultural traditions."{{Cite news , last1=Babakarkhail , first1=Z. , last2=Nelson , first2=D. , date=13 May 2013 , title=Taliban renounces war on anti-polio workers , work=The Telegraph , location=London , url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/10053981/Taliban-renounces-war-on-anti-polio-workers.html , archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/10053981/Taliban-renounces-war-on-anti-polio-workers.html , archive-date=10 January 2022 , url-access=subscription , url-status=live , access-date=27 May 2013{{cbignore
{{further, History of the Jews in Afghanistan
During the first period of Taliban rule, only two known Jews were left in Afghanistan, Zablon Simintov and Isaac Levy (c. 1920–2005). Levy relied on charity to survive, while Simintov ran a store selling carpets and jewelry until 2001. They lived on opposite sides of the dilapidated Kabul synagogue. They kept denouncing each other to the authorities, and both spent time in jail for continuously "arguing". The Taliban also confiscated the synagogue's Torah scroll
A Sephardic Torah scroll rolled to the first paragraph of the Shema
An Ashkenazi Torah scroll rolled to the Decalogue
file:Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Interior, Tora Cases.jpg">Torah cases at Knesset Eliyahoo Synagogue, Mumbai, India ...
. However, the two men were later released from prison when Taliban officials became annoyed by their arguing. After August 2021, the last Jew Simintov and his relative left Afghanistan, ended centuries of Jewish presence in the country.{{Cite web, date=2021-10-29, title=Woman now thought to be Afghanistan's last Jew flees country, url=https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-lifestyle-canada-religion-middle-east-893baa3e2849b0081882d06d1da07535, access-date=2021-11-12, website=AP NEWS
Restrictions on modern education
Before the Taliban came to power, education was highly regarded in Afghanistan andKabul University
Kabul University (KU; ) is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd District of the capital Kabul near the Ministry of Higher Education. It was founded in 1931 by King Mohammed Nadir Shah, wh ...
attracted students from Asia and the Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
. However, the Taliban imposed restrictions on modern education, banned the education of females, only allowed Islamic religious schools to stay open and only encouraged the teaching of the Qur'an. Around half of all of the schools in Afghanistan were destroyed. The Taliban have carried out brutal attacks on teachers and students and they have also threatened parents and teachers.{{Cite web , date=11 July 2006 , title=Lessons in Terror Attacks on Education in Afghanistan , url=https://www.hrw.org/report/2006/07/10/lessons-terror/attacks-education-afghanistan , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221022001101/https://www.hrw.org/report/2006/07/10/lessons-terror/attacks-education-afghanistan , archive-date=22 October 2022 , access-date=5 January 2021 , publisher=Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
As per a 1998 UNICEF report, 9 out of 10 girls and 2 out of 3 boys did not enroll in schools. By 2000, fewer than 4–5% of all Afghan children were being educated at the primary school level and even fewer of them were being educated at higher secondary and university levels.{{Cite news , title=Case Study: Education in Afghanistan , publisher=BBC , url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/ihavearightto/four_b/casestudy_art26.shtml
Attacks on educational institutions, students and teachers and the forced enforcement of Islamic teachings have even continued after the Taliban were deposed from power. In December 2017, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is a United Nations (UN) body established in December 1991 by the General Assembly to strengthen the international response to complex emergencies and natural disaster ...
(OCHA) reported that over 1,000 schools had been destroyed, damaged or occupied and 100 teachers and students had been killed by the Taliban.{{Cite web , date=11 May 2018 , title=Education Under Attack 2018 – Afghanistan , url=https://www.refworld.org/docid/5be94317a.html , access-date=5 January 2021 , publisher=Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack
Cultural genocide
The Taliban have committed acultural genocide
Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept first described by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the same book that coined the term ''genocide''. The destruction of culture was a central component in Lemkin's formulation of genocide ...
against the Afghan people by destroying their historical and cultural texts, artifacts and sculptures.{{Cite web, title=Afghan Taliban leader orders destruction of ancient statues, url=http://www.rawa.org/statues.htm, access-date=10 January 2022, website=www.rawa.org
In the early 1990s, the National Museum of Afghanistan was attacked and looted numerous times, resulting in the loss of 70% of the 100,000 artifacts of Afghan culture and history
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
which were then on display.{{Cite news , last=Burns , first=John F. , date=30 November 1996 , title=Kabul's Museum: The Past Ruined by the Present , work=The New York Times , url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/30/world/kabul-s-museum-the-past-ruined-by-the-present.html
On 11 August 1998, the Taliban destroyed the Puli Khumri
Puli Khumrī (), also spelled Pul-i-Khumri or Pol-e Khomri, is a city in northern Afghanistan. Puli Khumri is the capital and largest city of Baghlan Province, whose name comes from the other major town in the province, Baghlan. Puli Khumri has ...
Public Library. The library contained a collection of over 55,000 books and old manuscripts, one of the most valuable and beautiful collections of Afghanistan's cultural works according to the Afghan people.{{Cite web , last=Civallero , first=Edgardo , year=2007 , title=When memory is turn into ashes , url=https://www.aacademica.org/edgardo.civallero/113.pdf , access-date=2 January 2021 , publisher=Acta AcademiaCensorship of historical thought: a world guide, 1945–2000
', Antoon de Baets On 2 March 2001, the Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed with dynamite, on orders from the Taliban's leader Mullah Omar. In October of the same year, the Taliban "took sledgehammers and axes to thousands of years’ worth of artifacts" in the National Museum of Afghanistan, destroying at least 2,750 ancient works of art. Afghanistan has a rich musical culture, where
music
Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
plays an important part in social functions like births and marriages and it has also played a major role in uniting an ethnically diverse country. However, since it came to power and even after it was deposed, the Taliban has banned most music, including cultural folk music, and it has also attacked and killed a number of musicians.{{Cite news , date=26 September 2005 , title=Afghanistan: Seven musicians killed by gunmen , work=Free Muse , url=https://freemuse.org/news/afghanistan-seven-musicians-killed-by-gunmen/ , access-date=6 January 2021 , archive-date=8 January 2021 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210108071800/https://freemuse.org/news/afghanistan-seven-musicians-killed-by-gunmen/ , url-status=dead {{Cite news , last=Rasmussen , first=Sune Engel , date=25 May 2015 , title=He was the saviour of Afghan music. Then a Taliban bomb took his hearing , work=The Guardian , url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/he-was-the-saviour-of-afghan-music-then-a-taliban-bomb-took-his-hearing{{Cite news , date=15 June 2009 , title=Taliban Attacks Musicians At Afghan Wedding , publisher=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , url=https://www.rferl.org/a/Taliban_Attacks_Musicians_At_Afghan_Wedding/1754647.html
Ban on entertainment and recreational activities
During their first rule of Afghanistan which lasted from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban banned many recreational activities and games, such asassociation football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
, kite flying
A kite is a tethered heavier than air flight, heavier-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create Lift (force), lift and Drag (physics), drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have ...
, and chess
Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...
. Mediums of entertainment such as televisions, cinemas
A movie theater (American English) or cinema (Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business that contains auditoriums for viewing fi ...
, music with instrumental accompaniments, VCRs
A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other AV sources and can play back the recording after rewinding. The use of a VCR to re ...
and satellite dish
A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive or transmit information by radio waves to or from a communication satellite. The term most commonly means a dish which receives direct-broadcast satellite televisio ...
es were also banned. Also included on the list of banned items were "musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...
s and accessories" and all visual representation of living creatures.{{Cite news , last=Wroe , first=Nicholas , date=13 October 2001 , title=A culture muted , work=The Guardian , url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/13/afghanistan.books However, the daf, a type of frame drum
A frame drum is a drum that has a drumhead width greater than its depth. It is one of the most ancient musical instruments, and perhaps the first drum to be invented. It has a single drumhead that is usually made of rawhide, but man-made mat ...
, wasn't banned.
It was reported that when Afghan children were caught kiting, a highly popular activity, they were beaten.{{Cite news , title=Artistry In The Air – Kite Flying Is Taken To New Heights In Afghanistan , url=https://www.rferl.org/a/1101400.html , url-status=live , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170203180908/https://www.rferl.org/a/1101400.html , archive-date=3 February 2017 , access-date=21 February 2021 , website=RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, last1=Podelco , first1=Grant When Khaled Hosseini learned through a 1999 news report that the Taliban had banned kite flying, a restriction he found particularly cruel, the news "struck a personal chord" for him, as he had grown up with the sport while living in Afghanistan. Hosseini was motivated to write a 25-page short story about two boys who fly kites in Kabul that he later developed into his first novel, '' The Kite Runner''.
Forced conscription and conscription of children
{{Main, Taliban conscription According to the testimony of Guantanamo captives before theirCombatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as " enemy combatants". The CSRTs were establi ...
s, the Taliban, in addition to conscripting men to serve as soldiers, also conscripted men to staff its civil service – both done at gunpoint.{{Cite news, last=Dixon, first=Robyn, author-link=Robyn Dixon (journalist), date=13 October 2001, title=Afghans in Kabul Flee Taliban, Not U.S. Raids, work=Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
, location=Shirkat, url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-13-mn-56835-story.html, access-date=11 December 2012 Set 33 2302-2425 Revised.pdf Summarized transcripts (.pdf) from Nasrullah's ''Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as " enemy combatants". The CSRTs were establi ...
'', p. 40Summarized transcripts (.pdf){{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060731084124/http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/Set_43_2811-2921.pdf , date=31 July 2006 , from Shabir Ahmed's ''
Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as " enemy combatants". The CSRTs were establi ...
'', pp. 80–90
According to a report from Oxford University, the Taliban made widespread use of the conscription of children in 1997, 1998 and 1999.{{Cite web , first1=Jo , last1=Boyden , first2=Jo , last2=de Berry , first3=Thomas , last3=Feeny , first4=Jason , last4=Hart , date=January 2002 , title=Children Affected by Armed Conflict in South Asia: A review of trends and issues identified through secondary research , url=http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/workingpaper7.pdf , url-status=dead , publisher=University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
Refugee Studies Centre
The Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) was established in 1982, as part of the University of Oxford's Department of International Development (Queen Elizabeth House), in order to promote the understanding of the causes and consequences of forced migrati ...
, access-date=5 January 2008 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070728112528/http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/workingpaper7.pdf , archive-date=28 July 2007 The report states that during the civil war that preceded the Taliban régime, thousands of orphaned boys joined various militia for "employment, food, shelter, protection and economic opportunity." The report said that during its initial period, the Taliban "long depended upon cohorts of youth". Witnesses stated that each land-owning family had to provide one young man and $500 in expenses. In August of that year 5000 students aged between 15 and 35 left madrassas in Pakistan to join the Taliban.
Leadership and organization
{{Main, Government of Afghanistan, List of Taliban insurgency leaders ;Kandahar faction and Haqqani network According to Jon Lee Anderson the Taliban government is "said to be profoundly divided" between the Kandahar faction and theHaqqani network
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanis ...
, with a mysterious dispearance of deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar
Abdul Ghani Baradar (born 29 September 1963 known by the honorific ''mullah'') is an Afghan politician and religious leader who is the acting first Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan, deputy prime minister, alongside Abdul Salam Hanafi, of the ...
for "several days" in mid-September 2021 explained by rumours of injury after a brawl with other Taliban. The Kandahar faction is named for the city that Mullah Omar came from and where he founded the Taliban, and is described as "insular" and "rural", interested "primarily" with "ruling its home turf". It includes Haibatullah Akhundzada, Mullah Yaqoob, Abdul Ghani Baradar
Abdul Ghani Baradar (born 29 September 1963 known by the honorific ''mullah'') is an Afghan politician and religious leader who is the acting first Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan, deputy prime minister, alongside Abdul Salam Hanafi, of the ...
(see below).
The family-based Haqqani network
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanis ...
, by contrast are "closely linked to Pakistan's secret services", "interested in global jihad", with its founder (Jalaluddin Haqqani) "connected" the Taliban with Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...
. It is named for its founder Jalaluddin Haqqani and is currently led by Sirajuddin Haqqani
Sirajuddin Haqqani (, ; aliases '' Khalifa'' and Siraj Haqqani; born December 1979) is an Afghan leader who is the first deputy leader of Afghanistan and the acting interior minister in the post-2021 Taliban regime. He has been a deputy lead ...
, and includes Khalil Haqqani, Mawlawi Mohammad Salim Saad.
With Sirajuddin Haqqani as acting interior minister, as of February 2022, the network has control of "a preponderance of security positions in Afghanistan".
Taliban leadership have denied tension between factions. Suhail Shaheen states "there is ''one'' Taliban", and Zabihullah Mujahid (acting Deputy Minister of Information and Culture), even maintains "there is no Haqqani network."
Current leadership
The top members of the Taliban as an insurgency, as of August 2021, are: * Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban's Supreme Leader since 2016, a religious scholar from Kandahar province. *Abdul Ghani Baradar
Abdul Ghani Baradar (born 29 September 1963 known by the honorific ''mullah'') is an Afghan politician and religious leader who is the acting first Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan, deputy prime minister, alongside Abdul Salam Hanafi, of the ...
, co-founder of the movement alongside Mullah Omar, was deputy Prime Minister as of March 2022. From Uruzgan province, he was imprisoned in Pakistan before his release at the request of the United States.
* Mullah Yaqoob, the son of the Taliban's founder Mullah Omar and leader of the group's military operations.
*Sirajuddin Haqqani
Sirajuddin Haqqani (, ; aliases '' Khalifa'' and Siraj Haqqani; born December 1979) is an Afghan leader who is the first deputy leader of Afghanistan and the acting interior minister in the post-2021 Taliban regime. He has been a deputy lead ...
, leader of the Haqqani network
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanis ...
is acting interior minister as of February 2022, with authority over police and intelligence services. He oversees the group's financial and military assets between the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The U.S. government has a $10 million bounty for his arrest brought on by several terrorist attacks on hotels and the Indian Embassy.
* Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, former head of the group's political office in Doha. From Logar province, he holds a university master's degree and trained as a cadet at the Indian Military Academy.
* Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, chief negotiatior of the group's political office in Doha, replacing Stanikzai in 2020. Heads the Taliban's powerful council of religious scholars.
* Suhail Shaheen, Taliban nominee for Ambassador to the U.N.; former spokesperson of the Taliban's political office in Doha. University educated in Pakistan, he was editor of the English language '' Kabul Times'' in the 1990s and served as a deputy ambassador to Pakistan at the time.
* Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's spokesperson since 2007. He revealed himself to the public for the first time after the group's capture of Kabul in 2021.
All the top leadership of the Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns, more specifically those belonging of the Ghilzai
The Ghiljī (, ; ) also spelled Khilji, Khalji, or Ghilzai and Ghilzay (), are one of the largest Pashtun tribes. Their traditional homeland is Ghazni and Qalati Ghilji in Afghanistan but they have also settled in other regions throughout the ...
confederation.{{Cite web, url = https://www.ctc.usma.edu/tribal-dynamics-of-the-afghanistan-and-pakistan-insurgencies/, title = Tribal Dynamics of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Insurgencies, date = 15 August 2009, access-date = 21 October 2021, archive-date = 21 October 2021, archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211021132110/https://www.ctc.usma.edu/tribal-dynamics-of-the-afghanistan-and-pakistan-insurgencies/, url-status = dead
Overview
Until his death in 2013, Mullah Omar was the supreme commander of the Taliban. Mullah Akhtar Mansour was elected as his replacement in 2015,* {{cite news, url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/144382.stm , title=Analysis: Who are the Taleban? , date=20 December 2000 , work=BBC News * {{Cite web , title=From the article on the Taliban in Oxford Islamic Studies Online , url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2325?_hi=34&_pos=4 , access-date=27 August 2010 , publisher=Oxford Islamic StudiesMullah Omar: Taliban choose deputy Mansour as successor
BBC News, 30 July 2015 and following Mansour's killing in a May 2016 US drone strike, Mawlawi
Hibatullah Akhundzada
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada (born 19 October 1967), also spelled Haibatullah Akhunzada, is an Afghan cleric who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan in the internationally unrecognized Taliban regime. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and ...
became the group's leader.{{Cite web , date=26 May 2015 , title=Afghan Taliban announce successor to Mullah Mansour , url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36375975 , access-date=26 May 2016 , website=BBC News
The Taliban initially enjoyed goodwill from Afghans weary of the warlords' corruption, brutality, and incessant fighting.
This popularity was not universal, particularly among non-Pashtuns.
In 2001, the Taliban, ''de jure
In law and government, ''de jure'' (; ; ) describes practices that are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. The phrase is often used in contrast with '' de facto'' ('from fa ...
'', controlled 85% of Afghanistan. ''De facto'' the areas under its direct control were mainly Afghanistan's major cities and highways. Tribal khans and warlords had ''de facto'' direct control over various small towns, villages, and rural areas.
Rashid described the Taliban government as "a secret society run by Kandahar
Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...
is ... mysterious, secretive, and dictatorial." They did not hold elections, as their spokesman explained:
{{blockquote, The ''Sharia
Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...
'' does not allow politics or political parties. That is why we give no salaries to officials or soldiers, just food, clothes, shoes, and weapons. We want to live a life like the Prophet lived 1400 years ago, and jihad is our right. We want to recreate the time of the Prophet, and we are only carrying out what the Afghan people have wanted for the past 14 years.
They modelled their decision-making process on the Pashtun tribal council (''jirga
A jirga (, ''jərga'') is an assembly of leaders that makes decisions by consensus according to Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code. It is conducted in order to settle disputes among the Pashtuns, but also by members of other ethnic groups who ...
''), together with what they believed to be the early Islamic model. Discussion was followed by a building of a consensus by the "believers". Before capturing Kabul, there was talk of stepping aside once a government of "good Muslims" took power, and law and order were restored.
As the Taliban's power grew, decisions were made by Mullah Omar without consulting the ''jirga'' and without consulting other parts of the country. He visited the capital, Kabul, only twice while in power. Instead of an election, their leader's legitimacy came from an oath of allegiance ("Bay'ah
''Bayʿah'' (, "Pledge of allegiance"), in Islamic terminology, is an oath of allegiance to a leader. It is known to have been practiced by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. In Bedouin culture it was a procedure for choosing the leader of the trib ...
"), in imitation of the Prophet and the first four Caliph
A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...
s. On 4 April 1996, Mullah Omar had "the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed" taken from its shrine for the first time in 60 years. Wrapping himself in the relic, he appeared on the roof of a building in the center of Kandahar while hundreds of Pashtun mullah
Mullah () is an honorific title for Islam, Muslim clergy and mosque Imam, leaders. The term is widely used in Iran and Afghanistan and is also used for a person who has higher education in Islamic theology and Sharia, sharia law.
The title h ...
s below shouted "Amir al-Mu'minin
() or Commander of the Faithful is a Muslims, Muslim title designating the supreme leader of an Ummah, Islamic community.
Name
Although etymology, etymologically () is equivalent to English "commander", the wide variety of its historical an ...
!" (Commander of the Faithful), in a pledge of support. Taliban spokesman Mullah Wakil explained:
{{blockquote, Decisions are based on the advice of the Amir-ul Momineen. For us consultation is not necessary. We believe that this is in line with the ''Sharia''. We abide by the Amir's view even if he alone takes this view. There will not be a head of state. Instead there will be an Amir al-Mu'minin. Mullah Omar will be the highest authority, and the government will not be able to implement any decision to which he does not agree. General elections are incompatible with ''Sharia'' and therefore we reject them.
The Taliban were very reluctant to share power, and since their ranks were overwhelmingly Pashtun they ruled as overlords over the 60% of Afghans from other ethnic groups. In local government, such as Kabul city council{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, p=98. or Herat,{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, pp=39–40. Taliban loyalists, not locals, dominated, even when the Pashto-speaking Taliban could not communicate with the roughly half of the population who spoke Dari or other non-Pashtun tongues. Critics complained that this "lack of local representation in urban administration made the Taliban appear as an occupying force."
Organization and governance
Consistent with the governance of the early Muslims was the absence of state institutions and the absence of "a methodology for command and control", both of which are standard today, even in non-Westernized states. The Taliban did not issue press releases or policy statements, nor did they hold regular press conferences. The basis for this structure wasGrand Mufti
A Grand Mufti (also called Chief Mufti, State Mufti and Supreme Mufti) is a title for the leading Faqīh, Islamic jurist of a country, typically Sunni, who may oversee other muftis. Not all countries with large Sunni Muslim populations have Gra ...
Rashid Ahmed Ludhianvi's ''Obedience to the Amir,'' as he served as a mentor to the Taliban's leadership. The outside world and most Afghans did not even know what their leaders looked like, because photography was banned. The "regular army" resembled a lashkar or traditional tribal militia
A militia ( ) is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or se ...
force with only 25,000 men (of whom 11,000 were non-Afghans).
Cabinet ministers and deputies were mullahs with a "madrasah
Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , ), sometimes romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary education or higher learning ...
education". Several of them, such as the Minister of Health and the Governor of the State bank, were primarily military commanders who left their administrative posts and fought whenever they were needed. Military reverses that trapped them behind enemy lines or led to their deaths increased the chaos in the national administration. At the national level, "all senior Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara bureaucrats" were replaced "with Pashtuns, whether qualified or not". Consequently, the ministries "by and large ceased to function".{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, pp=101–102.
The Ministry of Finance did not have a budget nor did it have a "qualified economist or banker". Mullah Omar collected and dispersed cash without bookkeeping.
Economic activities
{{See also, Economy of Afghanistan The Kabul money markets responded positively during the first weeks of the Taliban occupation (1996). But the Afghani soon fell in value. They imposed a 50% tax on any company operating in the country, and those who failed to pay were attacked. They also imposed a 6% import tax on anything brought into the country, and by 1998 had control of the major airports and border crossings which allowed them to establish a monopoly on all trade. By 2001, the per capita income of the 25 million population was under $200, and the country was close to total economic collapse. As of 2007 the economy had begun to recover, with estimated foreign reserves of three billion dollars and a 13% increase in economic growth.{{Cite book , last=Lansford , first=Tom , title=9/11 and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Chronology and Reference Guide , publisher=ABC-CLIO , year=2011 , isbn=978-1-59884-419-1 , page=147{{Cite book , last=Marsden , first=Peter , url=https://archive.org/details/talibanwarreligi0000mars/page/51 , title=The Taliban: war, religion and the new order in Afghanistan , publisher=Zed Books , year=1998 , isbn=978-1-85649-522-6 , pag51
}{{Cite book , last1=Pugh , first1=Michael C. , title=War Economies in a Regional Context: Challenges of Transformation , first2=Neil , last2=Cooper , first3=Jonathan , last3=Goodhand , publisher=Lynne Rienner , year=2004 , isbn=978-1-58826-211-0 , page=48{{Cite book , author-link=Graciana del Castillo , first=Graciana , last=del Castillo , title=Rebuilding War-Torn States: The Challenge of Post-Conflict Economic Reconstruction , publisher=Oxford University Press , year=2008 , isbn=978-0-19-923773-9 , page=167{{Cite book , last=Skaine , first=Rosemarie , title=Women of Afghanistan in the Post-Taliban Era: How Lives Have Changed and Where They Stand Today , publisher=McFarland , year=2009 , isbn=978-0-7864-3792-4 , page=58
Under the Transit treaty between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a massive network for smuggling developed. It had an estimated turnover of 2.5 billion dollars with the Taliban receiving between $100 and $130 million per year. These operations along with the trade from the Golden Crescent financed the war in Afghanistan and also had the side effect of destroying start up industries in Pakistan. Ahmed Rashid also explained that the Afghan Transit Trade agreed on by Pakistan was "the largest official source of revenue for the Taliban."{{Cite book , last=Nojum , first=Neamatollah , url=https://archive.org/details/riseoftalibani00neam/page/178 , title=The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War and the Future of the Region , publisher=St Martin's Press , year=2002 , isbn=978-0-312-29584-4 , pag178
}{{Cite book , last=Nojum , first=Neamatollah , url=https://archive.org/details/riseoftalibani00neam/page/186 , title=The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War and the Future of the Region , publisher=St Martin's Press , year=2002 , isbn=978-0-312-29584-4 , pag
186
}{{Cite book , last=Chouvy , first=Pierre-Arnaud , title=Opium: uncovering the politics of the poppy , publisher=Harvard University Press , year=2010 , pages=52ff Between 1996 and 1999, Mullah Omar reversed his opinions on the drug trade, apparently as it only harmed kafirs. The Taliban controlled 96% of Afghanistan's poppy fields and made opium its largest source of taxation. Taxes on opium exports became one of the mainstays of Taliban income and their war economy. According to Rashid, "drug money funded the weapons, ammunition and fuel for the war." In ''The New York Times'', the Finance Minister of the United Front, Wahidullah Sabawoon, declared the Taliban had no annual budget but that they "appeared to spend US$300 million a year, nearly all of it on war." He added that the Taliban had come to increasingly rely on three sources of money: "
poppy
A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, '' Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug ...
, the Pakistanis and bin Laden."
In an economic sense it seems he had little choice, as the war of attrition continued with the Northern Alliance the income from continued opium production was all that prevented the country from starvation. By 2000, Afghanistan accounted for an estimated 75% of the world's supply and in 2000 grew an estimated 3276 tonnes of opium from poppy cultivation on 82,171 hectares. At this juncture Omar passed a decree banning the cultivation of opium, and production dropped to an estimated 74 metric tonnes from poppy cultivation on 1,685 hectares. Many observers say the ban – which came in a bid for international recognition at the United Nations – was only issued in order to raise opium prices and increase profit from the sale of large existing stockpiles. 1999 had yielded a record crop and had been followed by a lower but still large 2000 harvest. The trafficking of accumulated stocks by the Taliban continued in 2000 and 2001. In 2002, the UN mentioned the "existence of significant stocks of opiates accumulated during previous years of bumper harvests." In September 2001 – before the 11 September attacks against the United States – the Taliban allegedly authorised Afghan peasants to sow opium again.{{Cite book , last=Shaffer , first=Brenda , url=https://archive.org/details/limitsofculturei0000unse/page/283 , title=The limits of culture: Islam and foreign policy , publisher=MIT Press , year=2006 , isbn=978-0-262-69321-9 , pag283
}{{Cite book , last=Thourni , first=Francisco E. , title=The Organized Crime Community: Essays in Honor of Alan A. Block , publisher=Springer , year=2006 , isbn=978-0-387-39019-2 , editor-last=Bovenkerk , editor-first=Frank , page=130{{Cite book , last=Lyman , first=Michael D. , url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_2901437744506/page/309 , title=Drugs in Society: Causes, Concepts and Control , publisher=Elsevier , year=2010 , isbn=978-1-4377-4450-7 , pag
309
} There was also an environmental toll to the country, heavy deforestation from the illegal trade in timber with hundreds of acres of pine and cedar forests in
Kunar Province
Kunar (Pashto: ; Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. Its capital is Asadabad. Its population is estimated to be 508,224. Kunar's major political groups include Wahhabis or Ahl-e- ...
and Paktya being cleared. Throughout the country millions of acres were denuded to supply timber to the Pakistani markets, with no attempt made at reforestation, which has led to significant environmental damage. By 2001, when the Afghan Interim Administration
The Afghan Interim Administration (AIA), also known as the Afghan Interim Authority, was the first administration of Afghanistan after the fall of the first Taliban regime and was the highest authority of the country from 22 December 2001 until ...
took power the country's infrastructure was in ruins, Telecommunications had failed, the road network was destroyed and Ministry of Finance buildings were in such a state of disrepair some were on the verge of collapse. On 6 July 1999, then president Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
signed into effect executive order 13129. This order implemented a complete ban on any trade between America and the Taliban régime and on 10 August they froze £5,000,000 in Ariana assets. On 19 December 2000, UN resolution 1333 was passed. It called for all assets to be frozen and for all states to close any offices belonging to the Taliban. This included the offices of Ariana Afghan Airlines. In 1999, the UN had passed resolution 1267 which had banned all international flights by Ariana apart from preapproved humanitarian missions.{{Cite book , last=Griffin , first=Michael , url=https://archive.org/details/reapingwhirlwind00grif , title=Reaping the whirlwind: the Taliban movement in Afghanistan , publisher=Pluto Press , year=2000 , isbn=978-0-7453-1274-3 , pag147
, url-access=registration{{Cite book , last=Wehr , first=Kevin , url=https://archive.org/details/greencultureatoz0000unse/page/223 , title=Green Culture: An A-to-Z Guide , publisher=Sage , year=2011 , isbn=978-1-4129-9693-8 , pag
223
}{{Cite book , last=Rashid , first=Ahmed , title=Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in central Asia , publisher=I.B.Tauris , year=2002 , isbn=978-1-86064-830-4 , page=187{{Cite book , last=Clements , first=Frank , title=Conflict in Afghanistan: a historical encyclopedia , publisher=ABC-CLIO , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-85109-402-8 , page=148{{Cite book , last=Bennett , first=Adam , title=Reconstructing Afghanistan , publisher=International Monetary Fund , year=2005 , isbn=978-1-58906-324-2 , edition=illustrated , page=29{{Cite book , last1=Farah , first1=Douglas , title=Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible , last2=Braun , first2=Stephen , publisher=Wiley , year=2008 , isbn=978-0-470-26196-5 , page=146{{Cite book , last=Askari , first=Hossein , title=Economic sanctions: examining their philosophy and efficacy , publisher=Potomac , year=2003 , isbn=978-1-56720-542-8 , page=56{{Cite book , last=Pillar , first=Paul R. , title=Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy , publisher=Brookings Institution , year=2003 , isbn=978-0-8157-7077-0 , page=77 According to the lawsuit, filed in December 2019 in the D.C. District Court on behalf of Gold Star families, some US
defense contractors
Defense or defence may refer to:
Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups
* Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare
* Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks
* Defense indust ...
involved in Afghanistan made illegal "protection payments" to the Taliban, funding a "Taliban-led terrorist insurgency" that killed or wounded thousands of Americans in Afghanistan. In 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the "protection money" was "one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban."
It is estimated that in 2020 the Taliban had an income of $1.6 billion, mostly from drugs, mining, extortion and taxes, donations and exports.{{Cite news , last=Sufizada , first=Hanif , date=8 December 2020 , title=The Taliban are megarich – here's where they get the money they use to wage war in Afghanistan , work=The Conversation
''The Conversation'' is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who faces a moral dilemma when his recordings reveal a potential ...
, url=https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-are-megarich-heres-where-they-get-the-money-they-use-to-wage-war-in-afghanistan-147411 , access-date=19 August 2021
On 2 November 2021, the Taliban required that all economic transactions in Afghanistan use Afghanis and banned the use of all foreign currency.
In 2022 construction on the Qosh Tepa Canal began in northern Afghanistan.
On 20 April 2024, the Taliban decided to abolish Afghanistan's pension system as Hibatullah Akhundzada
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada (born 19 October 1967), also spelled Haibatullah Akhunzada, is an Afghan cleric who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan in the internationally unrecognized Taliban regime. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and ...
claimed it was “un-Islamic”, which prompted protests by retirees and older veterans of the Afghan Armed Forces
The Afghan Armed Forces, officially the Armed Forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (, ) and also referred to as the Islamic Emirate Armed Forces, is the military of Afghanistan, commanded by the Taliban government from 1997 to 2001 and a ...
in Kabul
Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...
. The protest was dispersed by the Taliban.
International relations
{{main, International relations with the Taliban{{More sources, section, date=March 2025 During the war, the Taliban were supported by several militant outfits which include theHaqqani network
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanis ...
, Al-Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Several countries like China, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia allegedly support the Taliban.{{Citation needed, date=October 2023 However, all of their governments deny providing any support to the Taliban. Likewise, the Taliban also deny receiving any foreign support from any country. At its peak, formal diplomatic recognition
Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral declarative political act of a state that acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state (may be also a recognized state). Recognition can be acc ...
of the Taliban's government was acknowledged by three nations: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In the past, the United Arab Emirates and Turkmenistan were also alleged to have provided support to the Taliban. It is designated by some countries as a terrorist organization.
During its time in power (1996–2001), at its height ruling 90% of Afghanistan, the Taliban régime, or Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, all of which provided substantial aid. The most other nations and organizations, including the United Nations, recognised the government of the Islamic State of Afghanistan
The Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accords of 26 April 1992. Many Afghan mujahideen parties participated in its creation, after the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, socialist government. Its power was ...
(1992–2002) (parts of whom were part of the United Front, also called Northern Alliance) as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Regarding its relations with the rest of the world, the Taliban's Emirate of Afghanistan held a policy
Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an or ...
of isolationism
Isolationism is a term used to refer to a political philosophy advocating a foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality an ...
: "The Taliban believe in non-interference in the affairs of other countries and similarly desire no outside interference in their country's internal affairs".{{sfn, Matinuddin, 1999, page=42
Traditionally, the Taliban were supported by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, while Iran, Russia, Turkey, India, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan formed an anti-Taliban alliance and supported the Northern Alliance. After the fall of the Taliban régime at the end of 2001, the composition of the Taliban supporters changed. According to a study by scholar Antonio Giustozzi, in the years 2005 to 2015 most of the financial support came from the states Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, and Qatar, as well as from private donors from Saudi Arabia, from al-Qaeda and, for a short period of time, from the Islamic State. About 54 percent of the funding came from foreign governments, 10 percent from private donors from abroad, and 16 percent from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. In 2014, the amount of external support was close to $900 million.
Following the Taliban's ascension to power, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan's model of governance
Governance is the overall complex system or framework of Process, processes, functions, structures, Social norm, rules, Law, laws and Norms (sociology), norms born out of the Interpersonal relationship, relationships, Social interaction, intera ...
has been widely criticized by the international community, despite the government's repeated calls for international recognition and engagement. Acting Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund stated that his interim administration has met all conditions required for official recognition.{{Cite web , title=Afghan Acting PM Urges World to Recognize Taliban Government , url=https://www.voanews.com/a/afghan-acting-pm-urges-world-to-recognize-taliban-government/6403147.html , access-date=2022-05-25 , website=VOA , date=19 January 2022 In a bid to gain recognition, the Taliban sent a letter in September 2021 to the UN to accept Suhail Shaheen as Permanent Representative of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – a request that had already been rejected by the UN Credentials Committee in 2021.
With regards to international relations after the Taliban seizure of Afghanistan in 2021, Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen told the Russian news agency ''Sputnik
Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space progra ...
'': "Of course, we won't have any relations with Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. We want to have relations with other countries; Israel is not among these countries. We would like to have relations with all the regional countries and neighbouring countries as well as Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
n countries."
On 10 October 2021, Russia hosted the Taliban for talks in Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
in an effort to boost its influence across Central Asia
Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
. Officials from 10 different countries – Russia, China, Pakistan, India, Iran and five formerly Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia () was the part of Central Asia administered by the Russian SFSR and then the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1991, when the Central Asian Soviet republics declared independence. It is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkest ...
n states – attended the talks, which were held during the Taliban's first official trip to Europe since their return to power in mid-August 2021. The Taliban won backing from the 10 regional powers for the idea of a United Nations donor conference to help the country stave off economic collapse and a humanitarian catastrophe, calling for the UN to convene such a conference as soon as possible to help rebuild the country. Russian officials also called for action against Islamic State
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...
(IS) fighters, who Russia said have started to increase their presence in Afghanistan since the Taliban's takeover. The Taliban delegation, which was led by Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi
Abdul Salam Hanafi is an Afghan Uzbek political and Deobandi-Islamic religious leader who is a senior leader of the Taliban, an acting second deputy prime minister, alongside Abdul Ghani Baradar and Abdul Kabir, of Afghanistan since 2021, and ...
, said that "Isolating Afghanistan is in no one's interests," arguing that the extremist group did not pose any security threat to any other country. The Taliban asked the international community to recognize its government, but no country has yet recognized the new Afghan government.
On 23 January 2022, a Taliban delegation arrived in Oslo
Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...
, and closed-door meetings were held during the Taliban's first official trip to Western Europe and second official trip to Europe since their return to power. Western diplomats told the Taliban that humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material and Humanitarian Logistics, logistic assistance, usually in the short-term, to people in need. Among the people in need are the homelessness, homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. Th ...
to Afghanistan would be tied to an improvement in human rights
Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
. The Taliban delegation, led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, met senior French foreign ministry officials, Britain's special envoy Nigel Casey, EU Special Representative for Afghanistan and members of the Norwegian foreign ministry. This followed the announcement by the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee that the committee would extend a travel ban exemption until 21 March 2022 for 14 listed Taliban members to continue attending talks, along with a limited asset-freeze exemption for the financing of exempted travel. However, the Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said that the international community's call for the formation of an inclusive government was a political "excuse" after the 3-day Oslo visit.
At the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York on 26 January 2022, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said the Oslo talks appeared to have been "serious" and "genuine". Norway says the talks do "not represent a legitimisation or recognition of the Taliban". In the same meeting, the Russian Federation's delegate said attempts to engage the Taliban through coercion are counter-productive, calling on Western states and donors to return frozen funds. China's representative said the fact that aid deliveries have not improved since the adoption of UNSC 2615 (2021) proves that the issue has been politicized, as some parties seek to use assistance as a bargaining chip.
Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, the Russian Federation, and China were the first countries to accept the diplomatic credentials of Taliban-appointed envoys, although this is not equivalent to official recognition.
On 4 July 2024, the Russian president Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
stated that Taliban is an ally of Russia in the fight against terrorism.
In November 2024, Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry announced that Taliban officials would attend the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), marking the country's first participation since the Taliban regained control in 2021. Afghanistan had been unable to attend previous climate summits due to the lack of international recognition of the Taliban government. Despite this, the Taliban's environmental officials emphasized that climate change should be viewed as a humanitarian issue rather than a political one, arguing that addressing it transcends political disputes.
After the fall of the Assad regime
On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a 2024 Syrian opposition offensives, major offensive by Syrian opposition, opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supported mainly by the Turk ...
in Syria, the Taliban congratulated the Syrian opposition
Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...
and "the people of Syria", hoping for "a peaceful, unified and stable system".
In April 2025, Russia's supreme court
In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
lifts the Taliban's designation as a terrorist organization.
Designation as a terrorist organization
{{further, Islamic terrorism, List of designated terrorist groups, Religious terrorism The Taliban movement is officially illegal in the following countries to date: *{{CAN{{Cite web , title=Currently listed entities , url=http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-eng.aspx , access-date=23 October 2014 , publisher=Public Safety Canada *{{flag, New Zealand *{{flag, Tajikistan *{{flag, Turkey *{{flag, United Arab Emirates *{{flag, United States,{{cite web , title=928 I Office of Foreign Assets Control , url=https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/928 , publisher=United States Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the Treasury, national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current United States federal executive departments, U.S. government departments.
...
, access-date=October 15, 2024 , date=December 22, 2021 though not on the United States Department of State list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations
Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) is a designation for non-United States-based organizations deemed by the United States secretary of state, in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (INA), to be involved i ...
.
Former:
*{{KAZ (2005–2023)
*{{flag, Kyrgyzstan (2006–2024){{cite web, url=https://24.kg/english/48835_List_of_terrorist_and_extremist_organizations_banned_in_Kyrgyzstan_/, title=List of terrorist and extremist organizations banned in Kyrgyzstan, website=24.kg, access-date=3 March 2020, date=5 April 2017
*{{flag, Russia (2003–2025){{cite web, url=http://nac.gov.ru/page/4570.html, script-title=ru:Единый федеральный список организаций, признанных террористическими Верховным Судом Российской Федерации, trans-title=Single federal list of organizations recognized as terrorist by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, work=Russian Federation National Anti-Terrorism Committee, access-date=20 April 2014, url-status=dead, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502021516/http://nac.gov.ru/page/4570.html, archive-date=2 May 2014
United Nations and NGOs
Despite the aid of United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) given (see § Afghanistan during Taliban rule), the Taliban's attitude in 1996–2001 toward the UN and NGOs was often one of suspicion. The UN did not recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, most foreign donors and aid workers were non-Muslims, and the Taliban vented fundamental objections to the sort of 'help' the UN offered. As the Taliban's Attorney General Maulvi Jalil-ullah Maulvizada put it in 1997: {{blockquote, Let us state what sort of education the UN wants. This is a big infidel policy which gives such obscene freedom to women which would lead toadultery
Adultery is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept ...
and herald the destruction of Islam. In any Islamic country where adultery becomes common, that country is destroyed and enters the domination of the infidels because their men become like women and women cannot defend themselves. Anyone who talks to us should do so within Islam's framework. The Holy Koran cannot adjust itself to other people's requirements, people should adjust themselves to the requirements of the Holy Koran.
In July 1998, the Taliban closed "all NGO offices" by force after those organisations refused to move to a bombed-out former Polytechnic
A polytechnic is an educational institution that primarily focuses on vocational education, applied sciences, and career pathways. They are sometimes referred to as ''institutes of technology'', ''vocational institutes'', or ''universities of app ...
College as ordered.Aid agencies pull out of KabulThe building had neither electricity or running water. One month later the UN offices were also shut down.{{Harvnb, Rashid, 2000, pp=71–72. Around 2000, the UN drew up sanctions against officials and leaders of Taliban, because of their harbouring Osama bin Laden. Several of the Taliban leaders have subsequently been killed. In 2009, British Foreign Secretary
Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since July 2024. He has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for D ...
and US Secretary Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...
called for talks with 'regular Taliban fighters' while bypassing their top leaders who supposedly were 'committed to global jihad'. Kai Eide, the top UN official in Afghanistan, called for talks with Taliban at the highest level, suggesting Mullah Omar{{sndeven though Omar dismissed such overtures as long as foreign troops were in Afghanistan.
In 2010, the UN lifted sanctions on the Taliban, and requested that Taliban leaders and others be removed from terrorism watch lists. In 2010 the US and Europe announced support for President Karzai's latest attempt to negotiate peace with the Taliban.{{Cite news , last=Farmer , first=Ben , date=25 January 2010 , title=UN: lift sanctions on Taliban to build peace in Afghanistan , work=The Daily Telegraph , location=London , url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7067537/UN-lift-sanctions-on-Taliban-to-build-peace-in-Afghanistan.html , archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7067537/UN-lift-sanctions-on-Taliban-to-build-peace-in-Afghanistan.html , archive-date=10 January 2022 , url-access=subscription , url-status=live , access-date=9 April 2010{{cbignore
Designated terrorist organisations
Many designated terror groups have pledged their allegiance to the new Taliban government, these groups include:Al Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
, al Shabaab, Boko Haram
Boko Haram, officially known as Jama'at Ahl al-Sunna li al-Da'wa wa al-Jihad (), is a self-proclaimed jihadist militant group based in northeastern Nigeria and also active in Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. In 2016, the group spli ...
, Jemaah Islamiyah, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, Tehreek-e-Taliban, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
According to some reports Jaish-e-Mohammad
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is a Pakistani Deobandi jihadist Islamist militant group active in Kashmir.: "as soon as he was freed, Masood Azhar was back in Pakistan where he founded a new jihadist movement, Jaish-e-Mohammed, which became one of ...
and Lashkar-e-Taiba
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is a Pakistani Islamism, Islamist militant organization driven by a Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist ideology. The organisation's primary stated objective is to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan. It was founded in 19 ...
, which have allegedly close ties to Pakistan's intelligence agency, have joined ISIS-K and ended their allegiance to Mullah Hibatullah.
The East Turkestan Movement and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan both distanced themself from the Taliban and ended their allegiance after the Talibans Zabul operation against Uyghurs in 2014, however newer reports indicate that those groups still have good relations with the Taliban.
In popular media
The Taliban were portrayed in Khaled Hosseini's popular 2003 novel '' The Kite Runner'' and its 2007 film adaption. The Taliban have also been portrayed in American film, most notably in '' Lone Survivor'' (2013) which is based on a real-life story.{{citation needed, date=September 2024Hindi cinema
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...
have also portrayed the Taliban in ''Kabul Express
''Kabul Express'' is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language adventure thriller film written and directed by Kabir Khan in his feature directorial debut, produced by Aditya Chopra and starring John Abraham, Arshad Warsi, Salman Shahid, Hanif Humgaam, a ...
'' (2006), and '' Escape from Taliban'' (2003) which is based on a real-life novel ''A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife'', whose author Sushmita Banerjee was shot dead by the Taliban in 2013.{{Cite web , date=2021-08-17 , title=Real-Life Story Of Sushmita Banerjee Who Inspired Manisha Koirala's Film 'Escape From Taliban' , url=https://www.indiatimes.com/entertainment/celebs/real-life-story-of-sushmita-banerjee-who-inspired-manisha-koiralas-film-escape-from-taliban-547398.html , access-date=2023-01-09 , website=IndiaTimes
Notes
{{NotelistReferences
{{ReflistSources
{{refbegin * {{cite book, last=Matinuddin , first=Kamal , title=The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan 1994–1997 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BIyVMkjat2MC , year=1999 , place=Karachi , publisher=Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, isbn=0-19-579274-2 , author-link=Kamal Matinuddin
* {{cite book, last=Rashid , first=Ahmed , author-link=Ahmed Rashid , title=Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia , title-link=Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia , date=2000 , publisher=Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
, isbn=0-300-08902-3
{{refend
Further reading
{{refbegin, 30em * {{cite book, last=Griffiths , first=John C. , title=Afghanistan: A History of Conflict , year=2001 , place=London , publisher= Carlton Books , isbn=978-1-84222-597-4 * {{cite book, last=Hillenbrand , first=Carole , title=Islam: A New Historical Introduction , year=2015 , place=London , publisher=Thames & Hudson
Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...
, isbn=978-0-500-11027-0 , author-link=Carole Hillenbrand
* {{Citation , last1=Jackson , first1=Ashley , title=Insurgent Bureaucracy: How the Taliban Makes Policy , date=November 2019 , url=https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/pw_153-insurgent_bureaucracy_how_the_taliban_makes_policy.pdf , work=Peaceworks , volume=153 , pages=C1-44 , place=Washington, D.C. , publisher=United States Institute of Peace
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American independent, nonprofit, national institute funded by the U.S. Congress and tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. See alsPDF on USIP website. It provides rese ...
, isbn=978-1-60127-789-3 , access-date=26 March 2020 , last2=Amiri , first2=Rahmatullah , archive-date=17 August 2021 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210817172337/https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/pw_153-insurgent_bureaucracy_how_the_taliban_makes_policy.pdf , url-status=dead
* {{Citation , last=Moj , first=Muhammad , title=The Deoband Madrassah Movement: Countercultural Trends and Tendencies , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mbm2BgAAQBAJ , year=2015 , publisher=Anthem Press , isbn=978-1-78308-389-3
One Year of Taliban Rule Over Afghanistan
"Afghan Women and the Taliban: An Exploratory Assessment" (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague 2014)
* {{cite book, last=Rashid , first=Ahmed , author-link=Ahmed Rashid , date=2022 , title=Taliban: The Power of Militant Islam in Afghanistan and Beyond , edition=3rd , publisher=
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
, isbn=978-0-300-26682-5
* {{cite book, last=Wright , first=Lawrence , title=The looming tower : Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11 , date=2006 , isbn=978-0-375-41486-2 , publisher=Knopf , publication-place=New York
{{refend
External links
{{Sister project links, auto=1, d=1 *{{URL, http://alemarahenglish.af/, Official website *{{Aljazeera topic, organisation/taliban *{{Guardian topic *{{New York Times topic, organizations/t/taliban {{Taliban {{Islamism {{Pashtun {{US War on Terror {{Authority control Anti-anarchism Anti-Buddhism Anti-Christian sentiment in Afghanistan Anti-Hindu sentiment Anti-Zoroastrianism Anti-ISIL factions Anti-Israeli sentiment in Afghanistan Antisemitism in Asia Anti-Zionism in Asia Deobandi organisations Government of Afghanistan Al-Qaeda allied groups Anti-intellectualism Islam-related controversies 1994 establishments in Afghanistan Jihadist groups in Afghanistan Jihadist groups in Pakistan Violence against LGBTQ people in Asia Organizations designated as terrorist by Canada Organisations designated as terrorist by New Zealand Organizations designated as terrorist by Tajikistan Organizations designated as terrorist by Turkey Organizations designated as terrorist by the United Arab Emirates Organizations that oppose LGBTQ rights in Asia Sexism in Afghanistan Sunni Islamist groups Deobandi jihadist organizations Supraorganizations Totalitarianism Theocracies Pashtun nationalism Islamic nationalism Far-right politics in Afghanistan Far-right politics and Islam