Taliban

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Taliban
طَالِبَانْ (ṭālibān)
Founders
Supreme leaders
Governing bodyLeadership Council
Dates of operation
Group(s)Primarily Pashtuns;[1][2] minority Tajiks and Uzbeks[3][4]
HeadquartersKandahar (1994–2001; 2021–present)
Active regionsAfghanistan
IdeologyMajority:
SizeCore strength
  • 45,000 (2001 est.)[18]
  • 11,000 (2008 est.)[19]
  • 36,000 (2010 est.)[20]
  • 60,000 (2014 est.)[21]
  • 60,000 (2017 est. excluding 90,000 local militia and 50,000 support elements)[22]
  • 75,000 (2021 est.)[23][24][25]

130,000 (2022 self-claim)[26]

168,000 soldiers and 210,121 police forces and pro-Taliban militia (2024 self-claim)[27]
AlliesSubgroups State allies
Non-state allies
OpponentsState and intergovernmental opponents Non-state opponents
Battles and wars
Designated as a terrorist group by Canada[67]
 Kyrgyzstan[68]
 New Zealand[69]
 Russia[70]
 Tajikistan[71]
 United Arab Emirates[72][73]
Websitealemarahenglish.af

The Taliban (

Deobandi current of Islamic fundamentalism.[83][84][85][8][9] It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country from 1996 to 2001, before being overthrown following the American invasion. It recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 following the departure of most coalition forces, after nearly 20 years of insurgency, and currently controls all of the country. Its government is not recognized by any country. The Taliban government has been internationally condemned for restricting human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women and girls to work and to have an education.[86]

The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as one of the prominent factions in the

warlords. In 1996, the group administered roughly three-quarters of the country, and established the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban's government was opposed by the Northern Alliance militia, which seized parts of northeast Afghanistan and largely maintained international recognition as a continuation of the interim Islamic State of Afghanistan. The Taliban held control of most of the country until being overthrown after 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 and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the War in Afghanistan. In May 2002, exiled members formed the Council of Leaders (Rahbarī Shūrā) based in the city of Quetta in Pakistan. Under Hibatullah Akhundzada's leadership, in May 2021, the Taliban launched a military offensive, that culminated in the Fall of Kabul on 15 August 2021 and the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan. The Islamic Republic was dissolved and the Islamic Emirate was reestablished.

During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban enforced a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law,[87] 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.[88] The Taliban committed a cultural genocide against the Afghan people by destroying their historical and cultural texts, artifacts and sculptures.[89] Following their return to power in 2021, the Afghanistan government budget lost 80% of its funding and food insecurity became widespread.[88] 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, blocking women from travelling without male guardians, and banning all education for girls.[90][91][92]

Etymology

The word Taliban is Pashto, طَالِباَنْ (ṭālibān), meaning 'students', the plural of ṭālib. This is a loanword from Arabic طَالِبْ (ṭālib), using the Pashto plural ending -ān اَنْ.[93] (In Arabic طَالِبَانْ (ṭālibān) means not 'students' but rather 'two students', as it is a dual form, the Arabic plural being طُلَّابْ (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 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'.[94]

In English, the spelling Taliban has gained predominance over the spelling Taleban.

Pakistani Taliban
. 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 گرُوهْ طَالِبَانْ (Goroh-e Taleban),

determiner
is normally used and as a result, the group is normally referred to as per Pashto grammar: دَ طَالِبَانْ (Da Taliban) or دَ طَالِبَانُو (Da Talibano).

Background

Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1978–1992)

Afghan Mujahideen
leaders in the Oval Office in 1983

After

Harakat-i Inqilab-e Islami factions of the Mujahideen.[101]

Pakistan's President

General Intelligence Directorate (GID) funnelled funding and equipment through the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) to the Afghan mujahideen.[102] About 90,000 Afghans, including Mohammed Omar, were trained by Pakistan's ISI during the 1980s.[102]

Afghan Civil War (1992–1996)

In April 1992, after the fall of the Soviet-backed régime of

better source needed
]

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.[104] Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from Pakistan's ISI.[105] With that help, Hekmatyar's forces were able to destroy half of Kabul.[106] Iran assisted the Hezbe Wahdat forces of Abdul-Ali Mazari. Saudi Arabia supported the Ittihad-i Islami faction.[104][106][107] 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.[citation needed] Atrocities were committed by individuals inside different factions.[citation needed] Ceasefires, negotiated by representatives of the Islamic State's newly appointed Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud, President Sibghatullah Mojaddedi and later President Burhanuddin Rabbani (the interim government), or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commonly collapsed within days.[104] 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] 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

1994

The Taliban emerged in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar around September 1994.

The Taliban are a movement of religious students (talib) from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan who were educated in Pakistani traditional Islamic schools.[10] There were also Tajik and Uzbek students, demarking them from the more ethnic-centric mujahideen groups "which played a key role in the Taliban's rapid growth and success."[108]

Education and motivation

In September 1994, Mullah Mohammad Omar and 50 students founded the group in his hometown of Kandahar.[10][109][110] Since 1992, Omar had been studying in the Sang-i-Hisar madrassa in Maiwand (northern Kandahar Province). He was unhappy because Islamic law had not been installed in Afghanistan after the ousting of communist rule, and now he and his group pledged to rid Afghanistan of warlords and criminals.[10] Many of the students involved in the formation of Taliban were former commanders in the Afghan-Soviet War.[10][11][111][112]

Within months, 15,000 students in Pakistan, mostly Afghan refugees who were studying in religious schools or

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run madrasas[109]
) joined the group.

In an effort to aid the anti-Soviet insurgency and inculcate a hatred of foreign invaders in Afghan children, the US government covertly distributed schoolbooks which promoted militant Islamic teachings and included images of weapons and soldiers. The Taliban used the American textbooks but they scratched out the images of human faces which were contained in them in keeping with their strict

University of Nebraska at Omaha in the 1980s; the university used the money to fund the writing and publishing of the textbooks in local languages.[113]

The early Taliban were motivated by the suffering of the Afghan people, which they believed was being caused by the power struggles which were being waged by rival Afghan groups which were not adhering to the moral code of Islam; in their religious schools, they had been taught to believe that they should strictly adhere to Islamic law.[10][11][111]

Pakistani involvement

The Government of Pakistan has repeatedly denied that it provides any military assistance to the Taliban in its diplomacy but the Sources state that Pakistan was heavily involved, already in October 1994, in "creating" of the Taliban.

Jama’at-e Islami and growing Wahhabism".[117]

The conquest of Kandahar

On 3 November 1994, the Taliban, in a surprise attack, conquered Kandahar City.[10] Before 4 January 1995, they controlled 12 Afghan provinces.[10] Militias controlling the different areas often surrendered without a fight. Omar's commanders were a mixture of former small-unit military commanders and madrassa teachers.[118][119][120][121][122] At these stages, the Taliban were popular because they stamped out corruption, curbed lawlessness, and made the roads and area safe.[10]

1995 – September 1996

Map showing political control in Afghanistan in late 1996, following the capture of Kabul by the Taliban

In a bid to establish their rule over all Afghanistan, the Taliban expanded from their Kandahar base sweeping large territories. In early 1995 the movement moved towards Kabul, but they suffered a devastating defeat by government forces of the Islamic State of Afghanistan under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud. While retreating from Kabul, Taliban fighters started shelling the city,[123] killing many civilians. The media reported in March 1995 that, following the Taliban's shelling, they lost much respect from Afghans and were seen as just another "power-hungry" militia.[124]

After a series of setbacks, the Taliban managed to take control of the western city of

attacked the Pakistani embassy in Kabul the day after.[125]

On 26 September 1996, as the Taliban prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul to continue anti-Taliban resistance in the northeastern Hindu Kush mountains instead of engaging in street battles in Kabul. The Taliban entered Kabul on 27 September 1996 and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Analysts described the Taliban then as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests.[106][120][123][126][127][128]

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001)

The military goal of the Taliban during the period 1995 to 2001 was to return the order of

Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence and the religious edicts of Mullah Omar, upon the entire land of Afghanistan.[87] By 1998, the Taliban's Emirate controlled 90% of Afghanistan.[10]

In December 2000, the UNSC in Resolution 1333, recognising humanitarian needs of the Afghan people, condemning the use of Taliban territory for training of "terrorists" and Taliban providing safe haven to Osama bin Laden, issued severe sanctions against Afghanistan under Taliban control.[130] In October 2001, the United States, with allies including the Afghan Northern Alliance, invaded Afghanistan and routed the Taliban régime. The Taliban leadership fled to Pakistan.[10]

Afghanistan during Taliban rule

When the Taliban took power in 1996, twenty years of continuous warfare had devastated Afghanistan's infrastructure and economy. There was no running water, little electricity, few telephones, functioning roads or regular energy supplies. Basic necessities like water, food, housing and others were in desperately short supply. In addition, the clan and family structure that provided Afghans with a social/economic safety net was also badly damaged. Afghanistan's infant mortality was the highest in the world. A full quarter of all children died before they reached their fifth birthday, a rate several times higher than most other developing countries.[131][132][133]

International charitable and/or development organisations (non-governmental organisations or NGOs) were extremely important to the supply of food, employment, reconstruction, and other services, but the Taliban proved highly suspicious towards the 'help' those organisations offered (see § United Nations and NGOs). With over a million deaths throughout the years of war, the number of families headed by widows had reached 98,000 by 1998. In Kabul, where vast portions of the city had been devastated by rocket attacks, more than half of its 1.2 million people benefited in some way from NGO activities, even for drinking water. The civil war and its never-ending refugee stream continued throughout the Taliban's reign. The Mazar, Herat, and Shomali valley offensives displaced more than three-quarters of a million civilians, using "scorched earth" tactics to prevent them from supplying the enemy with aid.[134][135][136] The historical Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed on Omar Mujahid's orders.[137][138][139][140]

Taliban decision-makers, particularly Mullah Omar, seldom if ever talked directly to non-Muslim foreigners, so aid providers had to deal with intermediaries whose approvals and agreements were often reversed.[141] Around September 1997 the heads of three UN agencies in Kandahar were expelled from the country after protesting when a female attorney for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was forced to talk from behind a curtain so her face would not be visible.[142]

When the UN increased the number of Muslim women staff to satisfy Taliban demands, the Taliban then required all female Muslim UN staff travelling to Afghanistan to be chaperoned by a mahram or a blood relative.[143] In July 1998, the Taliban closed "all NGO offices" in Kabul by force after those organisations refused to move to a bombed-out former Polytechnic College as ordered.[144] One month later, the UN offices were also shut down.[145] As food prices rose and conditions deteriorated, Planning Minister Qari Din Mohammed explained the Taliban's indifference to the loss of humanitarian aid:

We Muslims believe God the Almighty will feed everybody one way or another. If the foreign NGOs leave then it is their decision. We have not expelled them.[146]

The few organisations active in Kandahar were not subjected to the same demands and continued their operations.

Pakistani military's role during Taliban rule

The Taliban were largely founded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence beginning in 1994; the ISI used the Taliban to establish a régime in Afghanistan which would be favourable to Pakistan, as they were trying to gain strategic depth. Since the creation of the Taliban, the ISI and the Pakistani military have given financial, logistical and military support.[162]

According to Pakistani Afghanistan expert Ahmed Rashid, "between 1994 and 1999, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan" on the side of the Taliban. Peter Tomsen stated that up until 9/11 Pakistani military and ISI officers along with thousands of regular Pakistani armed forces personnel had been involved in the fighting in Afghanistan.[163][164]

During 2001, according to several international sources, 28,000–30,000 Pakistani nationals, 14,000–15,000 Afghan Taliban and 2,000–3,000

US State Department confirms that "20–40 percent of [regular] Taliban soldiers are Pakistani." According to the State Department report and reports by Human Rights Watch, the other Pakistani nationals fighting in Afghanistan were regular Pakistani soldiers, especially from the Frontier Corps but also from the army providing direct combat support.[171]

Human Rights Watch wrote in 2000:

Of all the foreign powers involved in efforts to sustain and manipulate the ongoing fighting [in 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.[33]

On 1 August 1997, the Taliban launched an attack on Sheberghan, the main military base of Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum has said the reason the attack was successful was due to 1500 Pakistani commandos taking part and that the Pakistani air force also gave support.[172]

In 1998, Iran accused Pakistan of sending its air force to bomb

Bamiyan". The same year, Russia said Pakistan was responsible for the "military expansion" of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan by sending large numbers of Pakistani troops, some of whom had subsequently been taken as prisoners by the anti-Taliban United Front.[173][174]

During 2000, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo against military support to the Taliban, with UN officials explicitly singling out Pakistan. The UN secretary-general implicitly criticized Pakistan for its military support and the Security Council stated it was "deeply distress[ed] over reports of involvement in the fighting, on the Taliban side, of thousands of non-Afghan nationals". In July 2001, several countries, including the United States, accused Pakistan of being "in violation of U.N. sanctions because of its military aid to the Taliban". The Taliban also obtained financial resources from Pakistan. In 1997 alone, after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, Pakistan gave $30 million in aid and a further $10 million for government wages.[175][176][177] From 1996 to 2001 the Al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a state within the Taliban state. Bin Laden sent Arab and Central Asian Al-Qaeda militants to join the fight against the United Front, among them his Brigade 055.[178][179]

The role of the Pakistani military has been described by international observers as well as by the anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud as a "creeping invasion".[163]

Anti-Taliban resistance under Massoud

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance
in early 2000, when the Taliban was at the height of its power

In late 1996,

Massoud Khalili. From the Taliban conquest of Kabul in September 1996 until November 2001 the United Front controlled roughly 30% of Afghanistan's population in provinces such as Badakhshan, Kapisa, Takhar and parts of Parwan, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Samangan, Kunduz, Ghōr and Bamyan
.

After longstanding battles, especially for the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Junbish forces were defeated by the Taliban and their allies in 1998. Dostum subsequently went into exile. Ahmad Shah Massoud remained the only major anti-Taliban leader inside Afghanistan who was able to defend vast parts of his territory against the Taliban.

In the areas under his control Massoud set up democratic institutions and signed the

Women's Rights
Declaration. In the area of Massoud, women and girls did not have to wear the Afghan burqa. They were allowed to work and to go to school. In at least two known instances, Massoud personally intervened against cases of forced marriage.

It is our conviction and we believe that both men and women are created by the Almighty. Both have equal rights. Women can pursue an education, women can pursue a career, and women can play a role in society – just like men.[166]

— Ahmad Shah Massoud, 2001

Massoud is adamant that in Afghanistan women have suffered oppression for generations. He says that the cultural environment of the country suffocates women, but the Taliban exacerbate this with oppression. His most ambitious project is to shatter this cultural prejudice and so give more space, freedom and equality to women – they would have the same rights as men.[166]

— Pepe Escobar, Massoud: From Warrior to Statesman

Afghan traditions would need a generation or more to overcome and could only be challenged by education, he said. Humayun Tandar, who took part as an Afghan diplomat in the 2001 International Conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, said that "strictures of language, ethnicity, region were [also] stifling for Massoud. That is why ... he wanted to create a unity which could surpass the situation in which we found ourselves and still find ourselves to this day." This applied also to strictures of religion. Jean-José Puig describes how Massoud often led prayers before a meal or at times asked his fellow Muslims to lead the prayer but also did not hesitate to ask a Christian friend Jean-José Puig or the Jewish Princeton University Professor Michael Barry: "Jean-José, we believe in the same God. Please, tell us the prayer before lunch or dinner in your own language."[166]

Human Rights Watch cites no human rights crimes for the forces under direct control of Massoud for the period from October 1996 until the assassination of Massoud in September 2001. 400,000 to one million Afghans fled from the Taliban to the area of Massoud.[170][180][181] National Geographic concluded in its documentary Inside the Taliban: "The only thing standing in the way of future Taliban massacres is Ahmad Shah Massoud."[170]

The Taliban repeatedly offered Massoud a position of power to make him stop his resistance. Massoud declined. He explained in one interview:

The Taliban say: "Come and accept the post of prime minister and be with us", and they would keep the highest office in the country, the presidentship – but at what cost?! The difference between us concerns mainly our way of thinking about the very principles of the society and the state. We can not accept their conditions of compromise, or else we would have to give up the principles of modern democracy. We are fundamentally against the system called "the Emirate of Afghanistan".[182]

— Ahmad Shah Massoud, 2001

The United Front in its Proposals for Peace demanded the Taliban to join a political process leading towards nationwide democratic elections.[183] In early 2001, Massoud employed a new strategy of local military pressure and global political appeals. Resentment was increasingly gathering against Taliban rule from the bottom of Afghan society, including the Pashtun areas. Massoud publicised their cause of "popular consensus, general elections and democracy" worldwide. At the same time he was very wary not to revive the failed Kabul government of the early 1990s. Already in 1999, he started the training of police forces which he trained specifically in order to keep order and protect the civilian population in case the United Front would be successful.[166][182][184] Massoud stated:

The Taliban are not a force to be considered invincible. They are distanced from the people now. They are weaker than in the past. There is only the assistance given by Pakistan, Osama bin Laden and other extremist groups that keep the Taliban on their feet. With a halt to that assistance, it is extremely difficult to survive.[185]

— Ahmad Shah Massoud, 2001

From 1999 onwards, a renewed process was set into motion by the Tajik Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Pashtun Abdul Haq to unite all the ethnicities of Afghanistan. While Massoud united the Tajiks, Hazara and Uzbeks as well as some Pashtun commanders under his United Front command, the famed Pashtun commander

Zahir Shah. International officials who met with representatives of the new alliance, which Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll referred to as the "grand Pashtun-Tajik alliance", said, "It's crazy that you have this today ... Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara ... They were all ready to buy in to the process ... to work under the king's banner for an ethnically balanced Afghanistan." Senior diplomat and Afghanistan expert Peter Tomsen wrote: "The 'Lion of Kabul' [Abdul Haq] and the 'Lion of Panjshir' [Ahmad Shah Massoud] ... Haq, Massoud, and Karzai, Afghanistan's three leading moderates, could transcend the Pashtun–non-Pashtun, north–south divide." The most senior Hazara and Uzbek leader were also part of the process. In late 2000, Massoud officially brought together this new alliance in a meeting in Northern Afghanistan to discuss, among other things, "a Loya Jirga, or a traditional council of elders, to settle political turmoil in Afghanistan". That part of the Pashtun–Tajik–Hazara–Uzbek peace plan did eventually materialise. An account of the meeting by author and journalist Sebastian Junger says: "In 2000, when I was there ... I happened to be there in a very interesting time. ... Massoud brought together Afghan leaders from all ethnic groups. They flew from London, Paris, the USA, all parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. He brought them all into the northern area where he was. He held a council of ... prominent Afghans from all over the world, brought there to discuss the Afghan government after the Taliban. ... we met all these men and interviewed them briefly. One was Hamid Karzai; I did not have any idea who he would end up being".[184][186][187][188][189]

In early 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud with ethnic leaders from all of Afghanistan addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan. He stated that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda had introduced "a very wrong perception of Islam" and that without the support of Pakistan and Bin Laden the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year. On this visit to Europe he also warned that his intelligence had gathered information about a large-scale attack on US soil being imminent. The president of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, called him the "pole of liberty in Afghanistan".[190][191][192][193]

On 9 September 2001, Massoud, then aged 48, was the target of a suicide attack by two Arabs posing as journalists at Khwaja Bahauddin, in the Takhar Province of Afghanistan. Massoud, who had survived countless assassination attempts over a period of 26 years, died in a helicopter taking him to a hospital. The first attempt on Massoud's life had been carried out by Hekmatyar and two Pakistani ISI agents in 1975, when Massoud was only 22 years old. In early 2001, Al-Qaeda would-be assassins were captured by Massoud's forces while trying to enter his territory.[107][184][194][195] The funeral, though in a rather rural area, was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourning people.

The assassination of Massoud is believed to have a connection to the

South Tower collapsed.[196][197]

After

9/11, Massoud's United Front troops and United Front troops of Abdul Rashid Dostum (who returned from exile) ousted the Taliban from power in Kabul with American air support in Operation Enduring Freedom
. From October to December 2001, the United Front gained control of much of the country and played a crucial role in establishing the post-Taliban interim government under Hamid Karzai.

Overthrow and a renewed war

Prelude

Taliban border guard in 2001

On 20 September 2001, US president George W. Bush, speaking to a joint session of Congress, tentatively blamed Al-Qaeda for the 11 September attacks, stating that the "leadership of Al Qaeda ha[d] great influence in Afghanistan and support[ed] the Taliban régime in controlling most of that country". Bush said, "We condemn the Taliban régime", and went on to state, "Tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban", which he said were "not open to negotiation or discussion":[198][199]

  1. Deliver to the US all of the leaders of Al-Qaeda
  2. Release all foreign nationals that have been unjustly imprisoned
  3. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats, and aid workers
  4. Close immediately every terrorist training camp
  5. Hand over every terrorist and their supporters to appropriate authorities
  6. Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps for inspection

The US petitioned the international community to back a military campaign to overthrow the Taliban. The UN issued two resolutions on terrorism after the 11 September attacks. The resolutions called on all states to "[increase] cooperation and full implementation of the relevant international conventions relating to terrorism" and specified consensus recommendations for all countries.[200][201] According to a research briefing by the House of Commons Library, although the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did not authorise the US-led military campaign, it was "widely (although not universally) perceived to be a legitimate form of self-defense under the UN Charter", and the council "moved quickly to authorize a military operation to stabilize the country" in the wake of the invasion.[202] Moreover, on 12 September 2001, NATO approved a campaign against Afghanistan as self-defense against armed attack.[203]

The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salem Zaeef, responded to the ultimatum by demanding "convincing evidence" that Bin Laden was involved in the attacks, stating "our position is that if America has evidence and proof, they should produce it". Additionally, the Taliban insisted that any trial of Bin Laden be held in an Afghan court. Zaeef also claimed that "4,000 Jews working in the Trade Center had prior knowledge of the suicide missions, and 'were absent on that day'." This response was generally dismissed as a delaying tactic, rather than a sincere attempt to cooperate with the ultimatum.[204][205][206][207][208][209] [check quotation syntax] On 22 September, the United Arab Emirates, and later Saudi Arabia, withdrew recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan's legal government, leaving neighbouring Pakistan as the only remaining country with diplomatic ties. On 4 October, the Taliban agreed to turn bin Laden over to Pakistan for trial in an international tribunal that operated according to Islamic Sharia law, but Pakistan blocked the offer as it was not possible to guarantee his safety. On 7 October, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan offered to detain bin Laden and try him under Islamic law if the US made a formal request and presented the Taliban with evidence. A Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected the Taliban offer, and stated that the US would not negotiate their demands.[210][211][212]

Coalition invasion

US air support
.
A Northern Alliance fighter wraps a bandolier around his body while assisting US forces at a compound in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, January 2002.

On 7 October 2001, less than one month after the 11 September attacks, the US, aided by the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries including several from the NATO alliance, initiated military action, bombing Taliban and Al-Qaeda-related camps.[213] The stated intent of military operations was to remove the Taliban from power, and prevent terrorists from using Afghanistan as a base of operations.[214]

The CIA's elite

Special Forces combined to overthrow the Taliban with minimal coalition casualties, and without the use of international conventional ground forces. The Washington Post
stated in an editorial by John Lehman in 2006:

What made the Afghan campaign a landmark in the US Military's history is that it was prosecuted by Special Operations forces from all the services, along with

Marine force was employed.[215]

On 14 October, the Taliban offered to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country in return for a bombing halt, but only if the Taliban were given evidence of bin Laden's involvement.

Ustad Atta Mohammad Noor
and Abdul Rashid Dostum on 9 November, triggering a cascade of provinces falling with minimal resistance.

In November 2001, before the

Airlift of Evil by US military forces around Kunduz, and subsequently used as a term in media reports.[217][218][219][220][221][222]

On the night of 12 November, the Taliban retreated south from Kabul. On 15 November, they released eight Western

aid workers after three months in captivity. By 13 November, the Taliban had withdrawn from both Kabul and Jalalabad. Finally, in early December, the Taliban gave up Kandahar, their last stronghold, dispersing without surrendering.[citation needed
]

Targeted killings

The United States has conducted

Special Forces, and sometimes unmanned aerial vehicles. British forces also used similar tactics, mostly in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. During Operation Herrick, British special forces carried out targeted killings against at least fifty high and local Taliban commanders in Helmand Province.[citation needed
]

The Taliban have also used targeted killings. In 2011 alone, they killed notable anti-Taliban leaders, such as former Afghan President

undercover operations, including targeted killings.[223]

Resurgence after 2001

Development of an initially small Taliban insurgency in 2002 until 2006, when an escalation in Taliban attacks occurred

Pakistan has been accused of continuing to support the Taliban after the

Quetta Shura in the Pakistani city of Quetta.[226][227][228][229]

With the fall of Kabul to anti-Taliban forces in November 2001, ISI forces worked with and helped Taliban militias who were in full retreat. Taliban, Al-Qaeda combatants and ISI operatives

Richard Armitage, the former US deputy secretary of state, said Pakistan would be "bombed back to the stone-age" if it continued to support the Taliban, although Armitage has since denied using the "stone age" phrase.[230][231][232][217][233][234][235][236][237]

UN negotiator Lakhdar Brahimi admitted in 2006 that not inviting the Taliban to Bonn was "our original sin".[240]

U.S. Navy SEALs searching for Taliban and Al-Qaeda members in February 2002

In May and June 2003, high Taliban officials proclaimed the Taliban regrouped and ready for guerrilla war to expel US forces from Afghanistan.[241][242] In late 2004, the then-hidden Mullah Omar announced an insurgency against "America and its puppets" (i.e. transitional Afghan government forces) to "regain the sovereignty of our country".[243]

On 29 May 2006, while – according to American website The Spokesman-Review – Afghanistan faced "a mounting threat from armed Taliban fighters in the countryside", a US military truck of a convoy in Kabul lost control and plowed into twelve civilian vehicles, killing one and injuring six people. The surrounding crowd got angry and a riot arose, lasting all day and resulting in 20 dead and 160 injured. When stone-throwing and gunfire had come from a crowd of some 400 men, the US troops had used their weapons "to defend themselves" while leaving the scene, a US military spokesman said. A correspondent for the Financial Times in Kabul suggested that this was the outbreak of "a ground swell of resentment" and "growing hostility to foreigners" that had been growing and building since 2004, and may also have been triggered by a US air strike a week earlier in southern Afghanistan killing 30 civilians, where she assumed that "the Taliban had been sheltering in civilian houses".[244][245]

The continued support from tribal and other groups in Pakistan, the drug trade, and the small number of NATO forces, combined with the long history of resistance and isolation, indicated that Taliban forces and leaders were surviving. Suicide attacks and other terrorist methods not used in 2001 became more common. Observers suggested that poppy eradication, which hurt the livelihoods of those Afghans who had resorted to their production, and civilian deaths caused by airstrikes, abetted the resurgence. These observers maintained that policy should focus on "hearts and minds" and on economic reconstruction, which could profit from switching from interdicting to diverting poppy production to make medicine.[246][247]

Other commentators viewed Islamabad's shift from war to diplomacy as an effort to appease growing discontent.[248] Because of the Taliban's leadership structure, Mullah Dadullah's assassination in May 2007 did not have a significant effect, other than to damage incipient relations with Pakistan.[249]

Negotiations had long been advocated by then-Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, as well as reportedly the British and Pakistani governments, but resisted by the American government. Karzai offered peace talks with the Taliban in September 2007, but this was swiftly rejected by the insurgent group citing the presence of foreign troops.[250]

On 8 February 2009, US commander of operations in Afghanistan General

Stanley McChrystal and other officials said that the Taliban leadership was in Quetta, Pakistan.[251]
By 2009, a strong insurgency had coalesced, known as Operation
long history
of resistance to occupation forces, so the Taliban may have comprised only a part of the insurgency. Most post-invasion Taliban fighters were new recruits, mostly drawn from local madrasas.

In December 2009, Asia Times Online reported that the Taliban had offered to give the US "legal guarantees" that it would not allow Afghanistan to be used for attacks on other countries, and that the US had given no response.[255]

As of July 2016, the US Time magazine estimated 20% of Afghanistan to be under Taliban control with southernmost Helmand Province as their stronghold,[256] while US and international Resolute Support coalition commander General Nicholson in December 2016 likewise stated that 10% was in Taliban hands while another 26% of Afghanistan was contested between the Afghan government and various insurgency groups.[257]

US representative Zalmay Khalilzad (left) meeting with Taliban delegation in Doha, Qatar on 21 November 2020

On 7 August 2015, the Taliban killed about 50 people in Kabul. In August 2017, reacting to a hostile speech by US President Trump, a Taliban spokesman retorted that they would keep fighting to free Afghanistan of "American invaders".[258]

In January 2018, a Taliban suicide bomber killed over 100 people in Kabul using a

bomb in an ambulance
.

By 2020, after the

Institute for Economics & Peace considered the Taliban to have overtaken ISIL as the most dangerous terrorist group in the world due to their recent campaigns for territorial expansion.[259]

On 29 May 2020, it was reported that Mullah Omar's son

Quetta Shura members were infected with COVID-19.[260] It was previously confirmed on 7 May 2020 that Yaqoob had become head of the Taliban military commission, making him the insurgents' military chief.[261] Among those infected in the Quetta Shura, which continued to hold in-person meetings, were Hibatullah Akhundzada and Sirajuddin Haqqani, then commanders of the Taliban and Haqqani network respectively.[260]

Diplomatic negotiations

The Taliban's co-founder and then-second-in-command,

Hezb-i Islami Gulbuddin, who were both invited by Karzai as a gesture of goodwill, did not attend the conference.[264]

A mindset change and strategy occurred within the Obama administration in 2010 to allow possible political negotiations to solve the war.

Quetta Shura") had left their haven in Pakistan and been safely escorted to Kabul by NATO aircraft for talks, with the assurance that NATO staff would not apprehend them.[266] After those talks concluded, it emerged that the leader of this Taliban delegation, who claimed to be Akhtar Mansour, the second-in-command of the Taliban, was actually an imposter who had duped NATO officials.[267]

Karzai confirmed in June 2011 that secret talks were taking place between the US and the Taliban,

government in exile.[271] In July 2015, Pakistan hosted the first official peace talks between Taliban representatives and the Afghan government. U.S. and China attended the talks brokered by Pakistan in Murree as two observers.[272] In January 2016, Pakistan hosted a round of four-way talks with Afghan, Chinese and American officials, but the Taliban did not attend.[273] The Taliban did hold informal talks with the Afghan government in 2016.[274]

On 27 February 2018, following an increase in violence, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani proposed unconditional peace talks with the Taliban, offering them recognition as a legal political party and the release of the Taliban prisoners. The offer was the most favorable to the Taliban since the war started. It was preceded by months of national consensus building, which found that Afghans overwhelmingly supported a negotiated end to the war.[275][276] Two days earlier, the Taliban had called for talks with the US, saying "It must now be established by America and her allies that the Afghan issue cannot be solved militarily. America must henceforth focus on a peaceful strategy for Afghanistan instead of war."[277]

US President Donald Trump twice accused Pakistan of harboring the Taliban and of inaction against terrorists, first in August 2017 then again in January 2018.[278][279]

Deal with the US

On 29 February 2020, the

US–Taliban deal, officially titled Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, was signed in Doha, Qatar.[280] The provisions of the deal included the withdrawal of all American and NATO troops from Afghanistan, a Taliban pledge to prevent al-Qaeda from operating in areas under Taliban control, and talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.[281] Akhundzada purportedly hailed the Doha Accords as a victory.[282]

Despite the peace agreement between the US and the Taliban, insurgent attacks against Afghan security forces were reported to have surged in the country. In the 45 days after the agreement (between 1 March and 15 April 2020), the Taliban conducted more than 4,500 attacks in Afghanistan, which showed an increase of more than 70% as compared to the same period in the previous year.[283] Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban began in Doha on 12 September 2020. The negotiations were set for March but have been delayed over a prisoner exchange dispute. Mawlavi Abdul Hakim led the initial negotiations for the Taliban. Abdullah Abdullah was one of the leading figures for the Afghan republic's negotiating team. The Afghan government team also comprised women's rights activists.[284]

2021 offensive and return to power

A map of Afghanistan showing the 2021 Taliban offensive

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.[285][286]

By mid-August 2021, the Taliban controlled every major city in Afghanistan; following the

UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on 18 August 2021.[289][290] Remaining Afghan forces under the leadership of Amrullah Saleh, Ahmad Massoud, and Bismillah Khan Mohammadi retreated to Panjshir to continue resistance.[291][292][293]

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (2021–present)

Taliban Humvee in Kabul, August 2021.
A Taliban member with chest flags in Kabul, September 2022.

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 the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949 or Iranian Revolution 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.[88]

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.[88]

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."[88] In late 2021, journalists from The New York Times embedded with a six-man Taliban unit tasked with protecting the Shi'ite Sakhi Shrine in Kabul from the Islamic State, 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."[294] 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.[88]

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.[88]

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".[88]

According to a Human Rights Watch'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.[295]

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.[88]

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,"[88] –?include that it did not expect to take over the country so quickly and still had "problems to work out among" their factions";[88] 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.[296] 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.[88] 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."[88]

After Taliban retook power in 2021, border clashes erupted between the Taliban with its neighbors includes Iran and Pakistan, leading to casualties on both sides.[297][298]

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 described their detention as "a sad reflection of the overall decline of press freedom and increasing attacks on journalists under Taliban rule."[299] The journalists were released after several days.[300] Subsequently, watchdog organizations have continued to document a number of arrests of local journalists, as well as barring access to international journalists.[301]

The country's small community of Sikhs - who form Afghanistan's second largest religion[302] - as well as Hindus, have reportedly been prevented from celebrating their holidays as of 2023 by the Taliban government.[303] Despite this, the Taliban in a later statement praised the communities and assured that their private land and property will be secured.[304] 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.[304]

Current education policy

In September 2021, the government ordered primary schools to reopen for both sexes and announced plans to reopen secondary schools for male students, without committing to do the same for female students.[305] While the Taliban stated that female college students will be able to resume higher education provided that they are segregated from male students (and professors, when possible),[306] The Guardian 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."[305] Higher Education Minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani said that female university students will be required to observe proper hijab, but did not specify if this required covering the face.[306]

Kabul University 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.[307] Female students were officially required to wear an abaya and a hijab to attend, although some wore a shawl instead. Attendance was reportedly low on the first day.[308]

In March 2022, the Taliban abruptly halted plans to allow girls to resume secondary school education even when separated from males.[309] 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.[310]

On December 20, 2022, in violation of their prior promises, the Taliban banned female students from attending higher education institutions with immediate effect.[311][312][313] 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.[314]

Ideology and aims

The Taliban's ideology has been described as an "innovative form of

anti-Soviet mujahideen rulers[clarification needed] and the radical Islamists[clarification needed] inspired by the Sayyid Qutb (Ikhwan).[317] 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.[318][319][320]

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.[321]

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 jirgas, so in rural areas, they did not enforce their ideology as stringently as they enforced it in cities.[322]

Ideological influences

The Taliban's religious/political philosophy, especially during its first régime from 1996 to 2001, was heavily advised and influenced by Grand Mufti Rashid Ahmed Ludhianvi and his works. Its operating political and religious principles since its founding, however, was modelled on those of Abul A'la Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami movement.[323]

Pashtun cultural influences

The Taliban, being largely Pashtun tribesmen, frequently follow a pre-Islamic cultural tribal code which is focused on preserving honour. Pashtunwali strongly influences decisions in regards to other social matters. It is best described as subconscious social values and attitudes which promote various qualities such as bravery, preserving honour, being hospitable to all guests, seeking revenge and justice if one has been wronged, and providing sanctuary to anyone who seeks refuge, even if it is 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.[324][325]

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."[326]

Islamic rules under Deobandi philosophy

Deobandi
movement began

Written works published by the group's Commission of Cultural Affairs including Islami Adalat, De Mujahid Toorah – 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.

Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence and the religious edicts of Mullah Omar.[87] The Taliban, Mullah Omar in particular, emphasised dreams as a means of revelation.[328][329]

Prohibitions

The Taliban forbade the consumption of pork and alcohol, the use of many types of consumer technology such as music with instrumental

Iranian New Years was also forbidden.[332] Taking photographs and displaying pictures and portraits were also forbidden, because the Taliban considered them forms of idolatry.[331] This extended even to "blacking out illustrations on packages of baby soap in shops and painting over road-crossing signs for livestock.[88]

Women were

Gambling was banned,[332] and the Taliban punished thieves by amputating their hands or feet.[331] In 2000, the Taliban's leader Mullah Omar officially banned opium cultivation and drug trafficking in Afghanistan;[336][337][338] the Taliban succeeded in nearly eradicating the majority of the opium production (99%) by 2001.[337][338][339] During the Taliban's governance of Afghanistan, drug users and dealers were both severely persecuted.[336]

Views on the Bamyan Buddhas

Taller Buddha in 1963 and in 2008 after destruction

In 1999, Mullah Omar issued a decree in which he called for the protection of the

Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat 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."[340]

Yahya Massoud, brother of the anti-Taliban and resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, recalls the following incident after the destruction of the Buddha statues at Bamyan:

It was the spring of 2001. I was in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, together with my brother Ahmad Shah Massoud, 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?'[341]

Views on bacha bazi

The Afghan custom of bacha bazi, a form of pederastic sexual slavery and pedophilia which is traditionally practiced in various provinces of Afghanistan, was also forbidden under the six-year rule of the Taliban régime.[342] Under the rule of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, bacha bazi, a form of child sexual abuse between older men and young adolescent "dancing boys", has carried the death penalty.[343][344]

The practice remained illegal during the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's rule, but the laws were seldom enforced against powerful offenders and

invasion of the country deliberately ignored bacha bazi.[349] The US military responded by claiming the abuse was largely the responsibility of the "local Afghan government".[350]
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 Salafist Madrasas 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 in order to wage a common war against NATO forces, but Salafists were relegated to small groups which were under the Taliban's command.[351]

The Taliban are averse to debating doctrine with other Muslims and "did not allow even Muslim reporters to question [their] edicts or to discuss interpretations of the

Qur'an."[131]

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 detained clerics it said supported the Islamic State.[352][353]

Shia Islam

During the period of the first Taliban rule (1996 to 2001), the Taliban attempted to sway Shias, particularly Hazaras, to their side, making deals with a number of Shia political figures, as well as securing the support of some Shia religious scholars.[354] 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,[355] with the Taliban.[356] 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.[357]

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.[358] 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.[359][354]

The desire of the Taliban leadership to expand the group's relations with Afghan Shias continued after 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 prior to 2016, with a reported size of 50 fighters.[361]

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:[362]

"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 Hazarajat [have] 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."

In 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-led Government of Iran.[363] After the 2021 Taliban offensive, which led to the restoration of the Islamic Emirate, senior Taliban officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi 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.[364][365] The Ministry of Virtue and Vice have also agreed to hire Shia Ulama in order to implement the ministry's religious edicts.[366] In general, the Taliban has maintained peace with most Muslims in the Shiite community,[367][368] although the 2022 Balkhab uprising resulted in the deaths of some Hazaras.[369]

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), together with what was believed to be the early Islamic model. Discussion was followed by the building of a consensus by the believers.[370]

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 he was in power. Taliban spokesman Mullah Wakil explained:

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.[371]

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.[372]

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.[373] 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, not only had no education in mathematics, science, history or geography, but also had no traditional skills of farming, herding, or handicraft-making, nor even knowledge of their tribal and clan lineages.[373] In such an environment, war meant employment, peace meant unemployment. Dominating women simply affirmed manhood. For their leadership, rigid fundamentalism was a matter not only of principle, but also of 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."[374]

November 1999 public execution in Kabul of a mother of five who was found guilty of killing her husband with an axe while he slept.[375][376][377]

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.

Mullah Omar was criticized for calling himself Amir al-Mu'minin on the grounds that he lacked scholarly learning, tribal pedigree, or connections to the

Sikh kingdom in Peshawar. But Dost Mohammed was fighting foreigners, while Omar had declared jihad against other Afghans."[378]

Another criticism was that the Taliban called their 20% tax on truckloads of opium "zakat", which is traditionally limited to 2.5% of the zakat-payers' disposable income (or wealth).[378]

The Taliban have been compared to the 7th-century Kharijites who developed extreme doctrines which set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shiʿa Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to takfir, whereby they declared that other Muslims were unbelievers and deemed them worthy of death.[379][380][381]

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 was later killed by the Taliban after forming the rebellious High Council of the Islamic Emirate,[359] 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.[382]

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 1992–1996. 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 in the long period of civil war, only religion had proved strong 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".[383]: 50–51 

Condemned practices