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Taliban

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mustaqbal (talk | contribs) at 08:47, 29 November 2006 (the "-e-" is a feature not found in arabic. it is persian in origin and is used in urdu as well.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Taliban redirects here. For other uses, see Taliban (disambiguation).
Flag flown by the Taliban. It is white, with the shahadah, or Islamic creed, written in black.
Armed Taliban in pickup truck in Herat, July 2001.

The Taliban Movement (often shortened to Taliban or Taleban) is a Sunni Islamist fundamentalist movement which effectively ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001.

The word Taliban is the Pashtu plural form of the Arabic طالب Template:ArabDIN, "seeker". The phrase "طالبِ علم" or "Thaalib-e-Ilm", literally "seeker of knowledge", is the Persian and Urdu phrase for "student". The group gets its name from the fact that its membership is drawn from the students of religious seminaries, or madrasahs, in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Taliban Movement gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Beneath Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the movement, were village mullahs (junior Islamic religious scholars), most of whom had studied in madrassas in Pakistan. The Taliban movement derived mainly from Pashtun of Afghanistan and Pakistanis, but also included many non-Afghan volunteers from the Arab world, as well as Eurasia and South Asia.

Rise to power

Main article: Afghan Civil War (1992-1996)

The Taliban originated around 1993-1994. Farhatullah Babar, a member of Pakistan senate, struck a deal with exiled Afghan communist general Shahnawaz Tanai to break the chaos that had engulfed Afghanistan with the fall of its communist government of Mohammad Najibullah; ironically, as a result of Pakistan's sponsorhip of Tanai's failed coup to gain control of the collapsing communist regime.

The first recorded appearance of the Taliban was as an escort to a "trade delegation" sent by Babar from Quetta to Kabul. This escort was able to defeat all warlord opposition it encountered in its path. The Taliban then quickly swept across Afghanistan, absorbing or eliminating most rivals.

The lone holdouts who refused to accept the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban were northern Tajik mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Masoud and Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum from the communist regime that had collapsed due to the coup attempt, as well as Herat warlord Ismail Khan and Hazara Hezbe Wahdat. A protracted battle then ensued between Taliban and the Northern Alliance, primarily around the northern outskirts of Kabul, but also raging far and wide across the North, including Herat and Kunduz.

With its attempt to break the impasse in Afghanistan and reach the resource wealth of Central Asia beyond, Pakistan soon received endorsement from Saudi Arabia to aid, mobilize and expand the Taliban. A steady outflux of graduates from Pakistani madrassas, gave the Taliban an steady supply of new recruits. Through certain Pakistani madrassas, the Taliban may have also been influenced by the Deobandi School of thought which emphasizes piety, austerity, and the family obligations of men. They emerged from the ethnically Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. Many of the Taliban grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan.

As their ranks swelled, the original core body of Pakistan and Afghan soldiers assumed more specialized roles. Pakistan supported Mullah Omar, in order to put a more public face on what, up until then, had been a largely faceless movement.[citation needed] The mullah-ization of the Taliban became Pakistan's means of ensuring total control of the militia, with independent-thinking non-fundamentalists quickly being subordinated or marginalized. With Mullah Omar at the helm, more and more fundamentalists swelled Taliban's ranks, rapidly weakening Pakistan's control over the organizaiton.

Mullah Omar, who was proclaimed the Amir-ul-Momineen, was proud of the fact that he had only spoken with two western journalists in his whole life period. It was alleged that Pakistan chose Mullah Omar because they knew he could easily be influenced and controlled and that his own Islamic education was very limited making him easily swayed by the state-funded muftis of Pakistan. [citation needed]

Conspiracy theory

Some have concluded that Pakistani government was successful in obtaining the support of the United States by posing the Taliban as a temporary solution to rid the "Jihadi" groups out of the picture. The US had come to believe that the Taliban would bring back the old monarch Zahir Shah of Afghanistan to power upon their success in gaining control of Afghanistan.[citation needed] Some members of the Taliban, particularly Mullah Mohammad Rabbani (not to be confused with Burhanuddin Rabbani from the Northern Alliance) and a few others were actually active supporters of Zahir Shah and wanted to bring back the old monarch into power after they had taken control of Kabul. According to analysts, Washington was sold on the idea that the old monarch would eventually return to Afghanistan due to powerful lobbying by Unocal Corporation (American oil company) and Pakistan. [citation needed] With the funding of Saudi Arabia, the intelligence of UK and US, and the hand picked Talibs by Pakistan, a successful force emerged and gained control of an estimated 80% of Afghanistan in less than 2 years. However, soon after the conquest of Kabul, it became evident that the Taliban would under no circumstances transfer power and control to Zahir Shah.

In 1996, the Taliban were in discussion with Unocal in the USA and with Argentina oil company Bridas regarding a proposal to build a gas pipeline to run from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. [1] In 1997, a delegation from the Taliban spent several days at the UNOCAL headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas. [2]

War with the Northern Alliance

Main article: Afghan Civil War (1996-2001)

In the early stages around 1996-1997, General Abdul Malik (Dostom’s third-in-command) overthrew Dostum, took over Mazari Sharif and temporarily sided with the Taliban. Soon afterwards, he switched sides again only to betray the Talibs and participate in the killings of thousand of them by Hezbe Wahdat. Later the Taliban captured Mazari Sharif and killed thousands of people to avenge themselves.

In 1997, Ahmad Shah Masoud devised a guerrilla tactics in the Shamali plains to defeat the Taliban advances. Masoud was very successful in propagating an ethnic war and making the ethnic Tajiks of the north believe that the Taliban would slaughter them if the Taliban gained control of the north. In collaboration with the locals, Masoud had deployed his forces to be stationed at civilian dwellings and other hidden places. Upon the arrival of the Taliban, some locals, who had vowed pacts of peace with the Taliban, as well as Masoud's forces came out of hiding and in a surprise attack killed thousands of Talibs. Soon after, the Taliban put a major effort into taking control of the Shamali plains, indiscriminately killing young men, uprooting and expelling population. Kamal Hossein, a special reporter for the UN, had written a full report on these and other war crimes that further insinuated and inflamed the issue of ethnicity.

Life under Taliban government

The Taliban made some progress in three areas: centralizing the government, national security, and a de-weaponized Afghanistan. Another issue the Taliban addressed was drug issues. Some Afghans supported the Taliban because they brought relative peace.

Islamic law

Once in power, the Taliban instituted a form of Shari'ah (Islamic law) which closely followed the traditionalist Deobandi school of Islam. Among the laws applied were Islamic punishments, administered by a religious police force, including amputation of one or both hands for theft and stoning for adultery.

The Taliban banned all forms of television, imagery, music and sports. In response to this ban, the International Olympic Committee suspended Afghanistan from participation in the 2000 Summer Olympics. Men were required to keep their beards at a specified length: women were obliged to wear the burqa (a long cloak-like piece of clothing) when appearing in public, and failure to do so could attract a public beating. [3]

Drugs

Afghanistan had been producing opium for a number of years, and with the war shattering other sectors of the economy, it became the number one export of the country. Opium cultivation continued to thrive during most of the Taliban period, despite attempts to ban it. From 2000, however, a concerted crackdown led to a dramatic drop in production.

The Taliban banned opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in late 1997. But by 2000, Afghanistan's opium production still accounted for 75% of the world's supply. On July 27, 2000, the Taliban again issued a decree banning opium poppy cultivation. By February 2001, production had been reduced by 98%. [4] Following the fall of the Taliban regime, the areas controlled by the Northern Alliance resumed opium production [5] and by 2005 production was 87% of the world's opium supply.[6]

Women

File:Talibanbeating.jpg
A member of the Taliban's religious police beating a woman in Kabul on August 26, 2001; photograph taken from footage filmed by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) [1]. The footage can be seen here.

The Taliban government has been severely criticised for not respecting the human rights of women. Women were prohibited from leaving their homes, unless they were completely covered; no part of their faces, hair or body was to be shown out in the public. Religious police patrols were forcing women to wear burqa of a specified length, and even minor deviations could result in public punishment, as women were beaten with thin sticks at the ankles for wearing burqas that were "too short". The education of women suffered too, and women were deprived even of elementary education.

Buddhas of Bamiyan

Main article: Buddhas of Bamiyan

In March 2001, the Taliban ordered the demolition of two statues of Buddha carved into cliffsides at Bamiyan, one 38 metres tall and about 1800 years old, the other 53 metres tall and about 1500 years old. The act was condemned by UNESCO and many countries around the world.

The intentions of the destruction remain unclear. Mullah Omar initially supported the preservation of Afghanistan's heritage, and Japan offered to pay for the preservation of the statues. [citation needed] However, after a few years, a decree was issued claiming all representations of humans, including those in museums, must be destroyed as per Islamic law which prohibits any form of idol worship.

Locals claim that Pakistani and Saudi engineers were on site as volunteers to help with the statues' destruction, and that Afghanistan's museum treasures were ferried across the border to be plundered by private collectors. The government of Pakistan (itself host to one of the richest and most antiquated collections of Buddhist art) implored the Taliban to spare the statues. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates later denounced the act as savage.

During a visit to the US in March, 2000, Syed Rahmatullah Hashemi, a senior representative of the Taliban designated as the roving Ambassador, projected the Taliban's action not as an act of irrationality, but as an act of rage over the refusal of the UNESCO and some western governments to permit the Taliban to use for drought relief the funds sanctioned by them for repairing the war-damaged statues of the Buddha.

Relationship with Osama bin Laden

In 1996, Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan from Sudan. When the Taliban came to power, bin Laden was able to forge an alliance between the Taliban and his Al-Qaeda organization. It is understood that al-Qaeda-trained fighters known as the 055 Brigade were integrated with the Taliban army between 1997 and 2001. The Taliban and bin Laden had very close connections, which were formalized by a marriage of one of bin Laden's sons to Omar's daughter. During Osama bin Laden's stay in Afghanistan, he had helped finance the Taliban. [7]

After the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, Osama bin Laden and several al Qaeda members were indicted in U.S. criminal court. [8] The Taliban protected Osama bin Laden from extradition requests by the U.S., variously claiming that bin Laden had "gone missing" in Afghanistan [9] or that Washington “cannot provide any evidence or any proof” that bin Laden is involved in terrorist activities and that “without any evidence, bin Laden is a man without sin... he is a free man.” [10] Evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony and satellite phone records but no physical 'proof' at the time linked bin Laden to allegations made by US intelligence and government channels. [11][12]

The Taliban continued to harbor bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks, protesting his innocence [13], yet also offering to hand him over to a third nation. In 2004 bin Laden took personal responsibility for ordering the attacks on New York and Washington in a videotape broadcast on Al Jazeera.

U.S.-led invasion and displacement of the Taliban

Main article: 2001 war in Afghanistan

On September 20, 2001 after an investigation by the FBI the U.S. concluded that Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were behind the September 11, 2001 attacks. The U.S. made a five point ultimatum to the Taliban:

  1. Deliver to the US all of the leaders of Al Qaeda;
  2. Release all imprisoned foreign nationals;
  3. Close immediately every terrorist training camp;
  4. Hand over every terrorist and their supporters to appropriate authorities;
  5. Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps for inspection. [14]

The Taliban rejected this ultimatum on September 21, 2001, stating there was no evidence in their possession linking Bin Laden to the September 11 attacks. [15]

On September 22, 2001, the United Arab Emirates and later Saudi Arabia withdrew their recognition of the Taliban as the legal government of Afghanistan, leaving neighboring Pakistan as the only remaining country with diplomatic ties. On October 4, 2001, it is believed that the Taliban covertly offered to turn bin Laden over to Pakistan for trial in an international tribunal that operated according to Islamic Sharia law. [16] Pakistan is believed to have rejected the offer. On October 7, 2001, before the onset of military operations, the Taliban made an open offer to try bin Laden in Afghanistan in an Islamic court. [17] This counter offer was immediately rejected by the U.S. as insufficient.

American attack

Shortly afterward, on October 7, 2001, the United States, aided by the United Kingdom and supported by a coalition of other countries including several from the NATO alliance, initiated military actions, code named Operation Enduring Freedom, and bombed Taliban and Al Qaeda related camps. [18][19] The stated intent of military operations was to remove the Taliban from power because of the Taliban's refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his involvement in the September 11 attacks, and disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations[20]. On October 14 the Taliban openly counteroffered to hand bin Laden over to a third country for trial, but only if the Taliban were given evidence of bin Laden's involvement in 9/11. [21] The U.S. rejected this offer as an insufficient public relations ploy and continued military operations.

The ground war was mainly fought by the Northern Alliance, the remaining elements of the anti-Taliban forces which the Taliban had routed over the previous years but had never been able to entirely destroy. Mazari Sharif fell to U.S.-Northern Alliance forces on November 9, leading to a cascade of provinces falling with minimal resistance, and many local forces switching loyalties from the Taliban to the Northern Alliance. On the night of November 12, the Taliban retreated south in an orderly fashion from Kabul. This was sufficiently orderly, that on November 15, they released eight Western aid workers after three months in captivity (see Attacks on humanitarian workers). By November 13 the Taliban had withdrawn from both Kabul and Jalalabad. Finally, in early December, the Taliban gave up their last city stronghold of Kandahar and retired to the hilly wilderness along the Afghanistan - Pakistan border, where they remain today as a guerrilla warfare operation, drawing new recruits and developing plans for a restoration of power.

Resurgence of Taliban

Main article: Taliban insurgency

As of late 2006, the insurgency, in the form of a Taliban guerrilla war, continues. However, the Pashtun tribal group, with over 40 million members, has a long history of resistance to occupation forces in the region so the Taliban themselves may comprise only a part of the insurgency. Most of the post-invasion Taliban fighters are new recruits, drawn again from that region's madrassas. The more traditional Qur'anic schools are the primary source of the new fighters.

Before the summer 2006 offensive began, indications existed that NATO peacekeepers in Afghanistan had lost influence and power to other groups, including potentially the Taliban. The most notable sign was the rioting in May after a street accident in the city of Kabul. 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, lead to the observation that Taliban forces and leaders are surviving and will have some influence over the future of Afghanistan. A new introduction is suicide attacks and terrorist methods not used in 2001.

In September 2006, the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, an association of Wazirstani cheiftains with close ties to the Taliban, were recognized by the Government of Pakistan as the de facto security force in charge of North and South Waziristan. This recognition was part of the agreement to end the Waziristan War which had extracted a heavy toll on the Pakistan Army since early 2004. Some commentators viewed Islamabad's shift from war to diplomacy as implicit recognition of the growing power of the resurgent Taliban relative to American influence, with the US distracted by the threat of looming crises in Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran. [22]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/s/w_asia/44521.stm BBC report
  2. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm
  3. ^ Video of Talib official beating a woman
  4. ^ Afghanistan, Opium and the Taliban
  5. ^ Victorious warlords set to open the opium floodgates
  6. ^ Afghanistan: Addicted To Heroin
  7. ^ http://www.lebarmy.gov.lb/article.asp?ln=en&id=1328
  8. ^ PDF of indictments
  9. ^ CNN report
  10. ^ BBC article stating that bin Laden in "a man without sin"
  11. ^ CNN records of evidence against bin Laden
  12. ^ Cooperative Research records of evidence against bin Laden
  13. ^ CBS News
  14. ^ United States ultimatum
  15. ^ Talib refusal of the U.S. ultimatum
  16. ^ JNV briefing
  17. ^ Taliban offers to try bin Laden in an Islamic court
  18. ^ The United States declares war on the Taliban
  19. ^ Operation Enduring Freedom
  20. ^ Intentions of U.S. military operation
  21. ^ Taliban offers to hand bin Laden to a neutral nation for trial
  22. ^ Shahzad, Syed Saleem (2006-09-08). "Pakistan: Hello al-Qaeda, goodbye America". Asia Times Online. Retrieved 2006-09-12.
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