Origin of Taliban
According to Wikipedia, the Taliban emerged in 1994 together of the prominent factions within the Afghan war and largely consisted of scholars (talib) from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools, and fought during the Soviet–Afghan War.
Last Sunday, they entered the presidential palace, retaking Afghanistan 20 years after they were driven out of power.
Last week, the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan after a couple of weeks of stunning military victories.
The armed group had been toppled during a US-led invasion in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks on US soil, but it gradually regained strength, completing numerous attacks on foreign also as Afghan forces within the past 20 years.
What Does Taliban Means?
Their very name meant “students.” The Taliban, they called themselves.
The Taliban, which suggests “students” within the Pashto language, is trying to project a more moderate image this point around, but observers in Afghanistan and internationally remain sceptical. On Tuesday, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid promised to guard women’s rights and press freedom within the first press conference since the takeover.
The beginning
Many leaders of the Taliban before the formation of the armed group in early 1990s, fought alongside the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet occupation within the 1980s.
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The Mujahideen received weapons and money from the US as a part of its policy against its conflict foe.
At the time, the Soviets were backing the communist leaders who had staged a bloody coup against the nation’s first president, Mohammad Daoud Khan, in 1978.
After the Soviets pulled call at 1989, chaos reigned and, by 1992, there was a full-blown war with Mujahideen commanders fighting for power and dividing the capital city of Kabul, which was showered daily with many rockets from all directions.
Taliban armed group emerged as a considerable player in early 1990s. Many of its members had studied in conservative religious schools in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan.
They made quick military gains, winning control of Kandahar, the most important city after Kabul, and promising to form the cities safe.
After years of war, people generally welcomed them, uninterested with the Mujahideen commanders and their forces who were accused of rights abuses and war crimes in their struggle for power.
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By 1996, the Taliban seized the capital and hanged the nation’s last communist president, Najibullah Ahmadzai, during a public square.
It declared Afghanistan an Islamic emirate and began imposing its ultra-strict interpretation of shariah .
It was recognised by only three countries – Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Pakistan.
The group managed to bring a semblance of normalcy and decided to tackle endemic corruption, winning some initial popularity.
But the Taliban never eased the restrictions it initially imposed to, it said, make sure that the civil war’s crimes couldn’t be repeated.
The restrictions included banning women from education and employment, apart from female doctors. Anyone who didn’t obey might be jailed or beaten publicly.
Its six-year rule was marked by abuse of ethnic and non secular minorities and curbs on seemingly innocuous activities and pastimes like music and tv .
Even sports were highly regulated, as male athletes were told what to wear and matches were paused during the five daily prayers.
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In 1999, the United Nations imposed sanctions on the Taliban over its links to al-Qaeda, which was blamed for the 9/11 attacks within the US.
In March 2001, the Taliban decided to destroy the historic Buddha statues in Bamiyan province, an act that drew global condemnation.
The 2001 Invasion
The US invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, after the Taliban refused handy over al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama Bin Laden, who was hiding in Afghanistan after being initially invited back to the country by former Mujahideen commander Abdul Rab Rassool Sayyaf.
Bin Laden was considered the mastermind behind the deadliest attacks on US soil.
In the lead-up to the US invasion, the group had asked the US President George W Bush administration to supply proof of bin Laden’s role within the 9/11 attacks and later for negotiations with Washington. Bush rejected both.
The Taliban was toppled within a few of months of the beginning of a bombing campaign by the US and its allies, a replacement interim government headed by Hamid Karzai was formed in December 2001.
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Three years later, a replacement constitution was declared; it took its cues from the reformed constitution of the 1960s during which women and ethnic minorities were formally granted their rights by the nation’s last king, Mohammad Zahir Shah.
But by 2006, the toppled Taliban had regrouped and was ready to mobilise fighters in its battle against foreign occupiers and its allies.
A Devastated Nation
The 20 years of conflict devastated Afghanistan, with quite 40,000 civilians killed in attacks by both the Taliban and therefore the US-led forces. A minimum of 64,000 Afghan military and police and quite 3,500 international soldiers were also killed.
US has spent almost $1 trillion on the war and reconstruction projects but the country still remains poor and its infrastructure in tatters.
In 2011, the Obama administration allowed a gaggle of Taliban officials to maneuver to Qatar, where they might be charged with laying the groundwork for face-to-face negotiations with the govt of then-President Karzai.
In the year 2013, the Taliban’s Doha office was formally opened. In 2018, the Trump administration began formal, direct talks with the group. The Afghan government wasn’t invited.
The head of the Taliban political office in Doha, Abdul Ghani Baradar, signed an agreement with the US on leap day , 2020, that paved way for the withdrawal of the US and other foreign forces. The Taliban promised to not attack US-led foreign forces.
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The agreement also launched peace talks between the Taliban and therefore the Afghan leadership within the Qatari capital. But the Taliban continued its military offensive on the bottom while participating within the talks.
Last Sunday, they entered the presidential palace, retaking Afghanistan 20 years after they were driven out of power.
A quarter-century later, after outlasting a world military coalition during a war that cost tens of thousands of lives, the onetime students are now rulers of the land again.
A 20-Year War:
How did the U.S. war in Afghanistan start, and the way is it ending?
Here may be a check out the origin of the Taliban; how they managed to require over Afghanistan not once, but twice; what they did once they first took control — and what which may reveal about their plans for this point .
When Did The Taliban First Emerge?
They arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989.
The group was rooted in rural areas of Kandahar Province, within the country’s ethnic-Pashtun heartland within the south.
The Soviet Union had invaded in 1979 to prop the Communist government in Afghanistan, and eventually met the fate of massive powers past and present that have tried to impose their will on the country: it had been driven out.
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They were defeated by Islamic fighters referred to as the mujahedeen, a patchwork of insurgent factions supported by a U.S. government all too happy to wage a war against its conflict rival.
But the enjoyment over that victory was short-lived, because the various factions fell out and commenced fighting for control. The country fell into warlordism, and a brutal war .
Against this backdrop, the Taliban, with their promise to place Islamic values first and to battle the corruption that drove the warlords’ fighting, quickly attracted a following. Over months of intense fighting, they took over most of the country.
Taliban fighters within the Char Asyab district, south of Kabul, in 1995.
Credit…Peter Greste/Reuters
How did the Taliban rule?
In 1996, the Taliban declared an Islamic Emirate, imposing a harsh interpretation of the Quran and enforcing it with brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions. and that they strictly curtailed the role of girls , keeping them out of faculties .
They also made clear that rival religious practices wouldn’t be tolerated: In early 2001, the Taliban destroyed towering statues referred to as the good Buddhas of Bamiyan, objects of awe round the globe.
The Taliban considered them blasphemous, and boasted that their destruction was holy. “It is simpler to destroy than to create ,” observed the militants’ minister of data and culture.
There was a framework of a contemporary government, including ministries and a bureaucracy. But at the road level, it had been religious edict, and therefore the whim of individual commanders, that dictated lifestyle for Afghans.
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They didn’t control the whole country, however. The north, where many of the mujahedeen commanders had haunted occupancy, remained a bastion of resistant.
A Taliban member, right, on a Kabul street in 1996.
Credit…Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
What does Taliban Rule Mean For Women
The Taliban were founded in an ideology dictating that ladies should play only the foremost circumscribed roles in society.
The last time they ruled, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or maybe getting to school. and ladies caught outside the house with their faces uncovered risked severe punishment. Unmarried women and men seen together also faced punishment.