Taliban

Taliban 

• Young Koranic students from the madrassas that had been set up in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan
• With Zia's encouragement, Saudi charities built along the Afghan frontier hundreds of madrassas, or Islamic schools, where they taught young Afghan refugees to memorize the Koran.
• Drawn from the majority Pashtun ethnic group which accounts for some 40% of Afghanistan's 20 million population
• The Pashtuns had ruled Afghanistan for 300 years but had recently lost power to the country's other smaller ethnic groups
• The Taliban form of Islamic law sometimes is a mixture of Sharia law and Pashtun tribal code of behavior
• Northern Alliance backed by: Iran, Turkey, India, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and Tajikstan
• Capital in Mazar-e-Sharif
• Taliban backed by: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
• Afghanistan
• 245,000 square miles
• Split by a north-south divide along the Hindu Kush mountain range
• Majority of Pashtuns and some Persian-speaking ethnic groups live to the south
• Persian and Turkish ethnic groups live to the north
• King Zahir Shah, who had ruled since 1933 was deposed by his cousin Sardar Mohammed Daud in 1973
• Afghanistan was declared a Republic with Daud as president
• Daud was helped by leftist officers in the army and the small, urban-based Parcham party led by Babrak Karmal
• Crushed a nascent Islamic fundamentalist movement, who were supported by Pakistan's prime minister
• Leaders of crushed movement were Gulbuddin Hikmetyar, Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Masud
• Daud was massacred in April 1978 by Marxist sympathizers in the army, who had been trained in the Soviet Union
• The Soviets invaded in 1979 and put in Babrak Karmal as president
• The Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989
• In 1994 the Taliban first emerged to conquer Kandahar and then swept north to capture Kabul in September 1996
• President Najibullah, the ex-communist strongman who for four years had been living in a UN compound was tortured and then publicly hanged

Mujhadeen

• Seven members of the Islamic Alliance of Afghanistan
• Fought against the Soviets and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
• Mohammad Yunus Khalis
• Jalaluddin Haqqani
• Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
• Burhanuddin Rabbani
• Ahmad Shah Massoud
• Abdul Rasul Sayyad
• Ahmed Gailani
• Amin Wardak
• Sibghatullah Mojaddedi
• Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi

 Kandahar 1994: The Origins of the Taliban

• Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed
• One of the holiest places in Afghanistan
• In 1996 Mullah Omar wore the cloak in front of a large crowd of Taliban in order to legitimize his role as the Leader of the Faithful
• Taliban's goals: restore peace, disarm the population, enforce Sharia law and defend the integrity and Islamic character or Afghanistan
• A talib is an Islamic student, one who seeks knowledge compared to the mullah who is one who gives knowledge
• Taliban wanted to cleanse society rather than grab power, like the Mujahedeen
• Many were born in Pakistani refugee camps, educated in Pakistani madrassas, barely knew the history of their own country, but had been taught about the ideal Islamic society created by Mohammed
• Pakistan had backed Hikmetyar but in 1994, with Hikmetyar losing his power, Pakistan decided to look for other Pashtun proxies to back
• Pakistan decided to back the Taliban
• The Taliban began to attack Hikmetyar
• During the fall of Kandahar, the Taliban captured dozens of tanks, armoured cars, military vehicles, weapons and six Mig-21 fighters, left-over from the Soviet occupation
• After this victory, thousands of Afghan and Pakistani students left Pakistan to join the Taliban
• The Taliban then began marching towards Kabul

 Herat 1995: God's Invincible Soldiers

• The Mujhadeen knew their tribal and clan lineages, remembered their abandoned farms and valleys, and could recount their Afghan history
• The Taliban had never seen their country at peace and didn't know their ethnic history
• They had no memories of the past, no plans for the future while the present was everything 
• They didn't know how to live with women since they had grown up in all male madrassas
• Islam was not just a religion, but a way of live

Kabul 1996: Commander of the Faithful 

• Aim of the Taliban was to live life as the Prophet lived 1,400 years ago
• Jihad was their right
• In 1996, Pakistan worried about President Rabanni's successes and they attempted to woo the same warlords to join the Taliban to form an anti-Kabul alliance
• The Taliban refused to meet with the Mujhadeen warlords and spurned Pakistan's offers
• Pakistan's failure to create a united front against Kabul, emboldened Rabbani
• The US unofficially backed the Taliban cuz the Taliban were against Iran, but the Taliban were highly fractionalized, inexperienced, lacking strong leadership and inept at administration
• The Taliban rocketed Kabul mercilessly throughout 1996
• Ahmad Shah Massoud was the military leader protecting Kabul
• The Taliban continued to refuse to cut deals with the other warlords
• In August 1996, the Taliban launched a surprise offensive on Jalalabad, rather than continuing to attack Kabul
• The Taliban then focused on Kabul
• On September 26, 1996, the Taliban entered into Kabul
• Massoud fled to the north and surrendered the city without a fight
• The Taliban tortured and killed President Najibullah who had basically been abandoned by his UN protectors
• The Taliban received international condemnation for the murder
• Within 24 hours of taking Kabul, the Taliban imposed the strictest Islamic system in the world
• On October 10, 1996, deposed President Rabbani, Massoud and Dostum formed a "Supreme Council for the Defense of the Motherland" to counter the Taliban
• They took over a large portion to the north of Kabul but were later repelled as the Taliban reclaimed most of Afghanistan

Mazar-E-Sharif 1997: Massacre in the North

• Mazar-E-Sharif was the last stronghold of the NA under control of General Rashid Dostum and Uzbeks
• Low rations due to Taliban blockade
• Viewed as last hope against the Taliban
• Uzbeks are fierce warriors
• Mazar was a very liberal city
• Dostum had a bitter feud with his second-in-command General Malik Pahlawan
• Malik aligned with the Taliban and forced Dostum to flee to Turkey
• The Taliban entered Malik but rather than sharing power with Malik, they imposed their strict form of Sharia law 
• On May 28, 1997, the Hazaras in Malik revolted against and massacring many of the Taliban 
• Malik quickly took over Malik
• Massoud was able to takeover muck of the area around Kabul
• Overall it was the worst ever Taliban defeat
• Many students in the Pakistani madrassas left to join the Taliban
• Iran, India, Russia and the Central Asian states sent more support to the anti-Taliban alliance
• On June 13, 1997 the anti-Taliban alliance cemented their unity by creating the 'United Islamic and National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan' and setting up Mazar as its capital
• Rabbani was elected president and Massoud was the new Defense Minister
• The pact was doomed to fail cuz of differences between Malik, Massoud and Khalili
• In September 1997, Dostum returned to Mazar and forced Malik to flee to Turkmenistan
• Country was now divided by the Pashtun Taliban and the non-Pashtuns
• Nobody trusted the UN and nobody listened to it
• Western enthusiasm for funding aid to Afghanistan again began to waiver
• The UN and US criticized the Taliban cuz of their despicable treatment of women and lack of respect for human dignity
• The warlords were also criticized for failure to rise above their factional interests and start working together for national reconciliation

Bamiyan 1989-99: The Never-Ending War

• The Hazaras live in Bamiyan
• They were instrumental in fighting the Taliban in Mazar in May and October 1997
• They were the third and weakest link in the Uzbek-Tajik-Hazara alliance
• The Uzbeks were divided, the Tajiks in a stalemate in Kabul, the Hazaras were left to protect the north
• In July 1998, the Taliban routed Dostum's forces and slaughtered many Uzbek soldiers
• Other Uzbeks took bribes and let the Taliban into Mazar
• On August 8, 1998, the Taliban entered Mazar and killed civilians indiscriminately for several days
• The Taliban's goal was to cleanse the north of the Shia 
• On September 13, 1998, the Taliban entered Bamiyan
• The Taliban desecrated many archaeological sites including two large Buddhists
• Iran moved its troops to the Iranian-Afghan border and threatened to wage war against the Taliban
• Massoud gathered the remaining Uzbek and Hazara fighters and attacked the Taliban
• He was later named military commander of all of the anti-Taliban forces
• On December 8, 1998, the US Security Council threatened the Taliban with severe sanctions
• Pakistan was the sole remaining supporter of the Taliban and was isolated internationally
• Throughout 2000 there were growing signs of splits and dissent within the Taliban leadership

Challenging Islam: The New-Style Fundamentalism of the Taliban