History of the Taliban

[8] Although no documentation which proves that the CIA directly supported the Taliban has surfaced, it has been argued that military support was indirectly provided to the Taliban because, in the 1980s, the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency provided arms to Afghans resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets.

[13] Zia and Akhtar Abdur Rahman, the leader of ISI, supported the construction of madrassas, Islamic religious schools, along the border to educate young Afghans, with their number in all of Pakistan increasing from 900 in 1971 to about 33,000 by 1988.

[29] A small Taliban militia first emerged near Kandahar in the spring and summer of 1994, committing vigilante acts against minor warlords, with a fund of US$250,000 being supplied to it by local businessmen.

[39] The students were mainly between the ages of 14 and 24, with little education other than Islamic subjects which were taught by "barely literate" teachers who were hired by mullahs or Pakistani fundamentalist political parties.

[41] Furthermore, they were ignorant of the tribal and cultural context of their country and community, its traditions and ethnic groups, having been orphaned and made rootless by the continuous war with little economic prospects, warfare, and puritanical Islam being the only sources of purpose available.

[42] The first major military action which was engaged in by the Taliban occurred in October–November 1994 when they marched from Maiwand in southern Afghanistan to capture Kandahar City and the surrounding provinces, only losing a few dozen men.

[24] It captured a weapons dump in mid-October with equipment for tens of thousands of soldiers in 17 tunnels created by Saudi and Pakistani intelligence near the border crossing of Spin Boldak by buying it from an Afghan commander supposedly loyal to Massoud.

[44] In the next three months this hitherto "unknown force" took control of twelve of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, with Mujahideen warlords often surrendering to them without a fight and the "heavily armed population" giving up their weapons.

[60] At the early stage, the then Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Robin Raphel, strongly supported efforts to engage with the Taliban.

[66] However, US policy was unclear, with Madeleine Albright denouncing the Taliban at the United Nations, while three weeks later Robin Raphel argued for engaging with the new government at the Security Council.

[77] In the areas under their rule, the Taliban disarmed the population, imposed Sharia law and brought order, as well as opening the roads to traffic, dropping food prices.

One Taliban list of prohibitions included: pork, pig, pig oil, anything made from human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, and equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCRs, television, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogs, pictures, Christmas cards.

[85] A sample Taliban edict issued after their capture of Kabul is one decreed in December 1996 by the "General Presidency of Amr Bil Maruf and Nahi Anil Munkar" (or Religious Police) banning a variety of things and activities: music, shaving of beards, keeping of pigeons, flying kites, displaying of pictures or portraits, western hairstyles, music and dancing at weddings, gambling, "sorcery", and not praying at prayer times.

These rules were issued by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice (PVSV) and enforced by its "religious police," a concept thought to be borrowed from the Saudis.

[51] In newly conquered towns hundreds of religious police beat offenders (typically men without beards and women who were not wearing their burqas properly) with long sticks.

Entering at 10 am on 8 August 1998, for the next two days the Taliban drove their pickup trucks "up and down the narrow streets of Mazar-i-Sharif shooting to the left and right and killing everything that moved – shop owners, cart pullers, women and children shoppers and even goats and donkeys.

[107] Contrary to the injunctions of Islam, which demands immediate burial, the Taliban forbade anyone to bury the corpses for the first six days while they rotted in the summer heat and were eaten by dogs.

[120] After the 1998 United States embassy bombings, the US struck Bin Laden's training camps in northeastern Afghanistan with cruise missiles, killing over 20 people.

[119] International pressure increased as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Russia met in Tashkent on 25 August 1998 to make shared plans to stop the Taliban from advancing further.

[121] The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on 8 December 1998 threatening with sanctions if the Taliban did not change its behaviour, including in harbouring terrorists.

[132] In the east, Taliban activity began again through local commanders, groups of foreign Al-Qaeda jihadists, as well as pro-Taliban networks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan.

[150] In late 2004, the then hidden Taliban leader Mohammed Omar announced an insurgency against "America and its puppets" (i.e. transitional Afghan government forces) to "regain the sovereignty of our country".

Following its rapid defeat across the country, the Afghan National Army was left in chaos, and only two units remained operational by mid-August: The 201st Corps and 111th Division, both based in Kabul.

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.

"[165] 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."

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.

[165] 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".

[165]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.

[168] 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.

[165] 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.