Taliban's rise to power

This is a timeline of the background of the Taliban's rise to power. It details the Taliban
movement's origins in Pashtun nationalism, and briefly relates its ideological underpinnings with
that of broader Afghan society. It details the Taliban's consolidation of power, listing persecutions
by the Taliban officials during its five years in power in Afghanistan and during its war with the
Northern Alliance.

Contents
Contact with Pakistan's ISI
Allegations of connection to 'The West' or to the United States (CIA)
Emergence in Afghanistan
Consolidation of power
Treatment of women
Prohibitions on culture
Buddhas of Bamiyan
Ethnic massacres and persecution
Conscription
See also
References
Bibliography
External links
Status of women

Contact with Pakistan's ISI

During the power vacuum created by the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the
country was torn apart by warring mujahideen groups and the ISI of Pakistan grasped the chance
to wield power in the region by fostering a previously unknown Kandahari student movement.[1]
They continued to support the Taliban, as Pakistani allies, in their push to conquer Afghanistan in
the 1990s.[2]

The Taliban were based in the Helmand, Kandahar, and Uruzgan regions and were
overwhelmingly ethnic Pashtuns and predominantly Durrani Pashtuns.[3]

Taliban initially enjoyed enormous good will from Afghans weary of the corruption, brutality, and
the incessant fighting of Mujahideen warlords.[4] One story is that the rape and murder of boys
and girls from a family traveling to Kandahar or a similar outrage by Mujahideen bandits sparked
Mohammed Omar (Mullah Omar) and his students to vow to rid Afghanistan of these criminals.[5]
Another motivation was that the Pakistan-based truck shipping mafia known as the "Afghanistan
Transit Trade" and their allies in the Pakistan government, trained, armed, and financed the
Taliban to clear the southern road across Afghanistan to the Central Asian Republics of
extortionate bandit gangs.[6]
Many senior leaders of the Afghanistan Taliban were closely associated with and had attended the
Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary in Akora Khattak in Pakistan, including Mullah Omar, and its
role in supporting the Taliban.[7][8] The seminary is run by Maulana Sami ul Haq of the Jamiat
Ulema-e-Islam who is often referred to as the "Father of the Taliban".[7][9]

Allegations of connection to 'The West' or to the United

States (CIA)
After the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan in 1979, Islamic mujahideen fighters engaged in
war with those Soviet forces. Some of those Islamic fighters would later transform into the Taliban
according to Professor Carole Hillenbrand who stated: "The West helped the Taliban to fight the
Soviet takeover of Afghanistan".[10]

Although no documentation has officially surfaced that the CIA directly supported the Taliban or
Al Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s,
the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence 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.[11] Osama Bin Laden was one of the
key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Arab volunteers, although his
organization, Maktab al-Khidamat, was exclusively Saudi funded.[12][13]

Ahmed Rashid states that the US indirectly supported the Taliban through its ally in Pakistan
between 1994 and 1996 because Washington viewed the Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia and
pro-Western. For example, it made no comment when the Taliban captured Herat in 1995, and
expelled thousands of girls from schools.

At this early stage, the then Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Robin
Raphel, strongly supported efforts to engage with the Taliban. She also supported a Unocal-led,
Taliban-supported pipeline project on trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in April and August 1996.
She was one of the first senior American officials to meet personally with Taliban[14], including its
leader, Mohammed Omar[15]. She called on the international community to "engage the Taliban."
Raphel was instrumental in coordinating the State Department's establishment of diplomatic
relations with the Taliban shortly after its takeover of Kabul[16]:300. She welcomed their taking of
Kabul in September 1996 as a "positive step".[17][18] Her consistent support for the Taliban from its
earliest days earned her the sobriquet "Lady Taliban" and "Godmother to the Taliban" in some
circles.[19][20]

In late 1997, American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright began to distance the US from the
Taliban, and Unocal withdrew from negotiations on pipeline construction from Central Asia.

Emergence in Afghanistan
The first major military activity of the Taliban was in October–November 1994 when they marched
from Maiwand in southern Afghanistan to capture Kandahar City and the surrounding provinces,
losing only a few dozen men.[21] Starting with the capture of a border crossing and a huge
ammunition dump from warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a few weeks later they freed "a convoy
trying to open a trade route from Pakistan to Central Asia" from another group of warlords
attempting to extort money.[22] 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.[23] By
September 1996 they had captured Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.

Consolidation of power
Under the Taliban regime, Sharia law was interpreted to ban a wide variety of activities hitherto
lawful in Afghanistan: employment, education and sports for women, movies, television, videos,
music, dancing, hanging pictures in homes, clapping during sports events, kite flying, and beard
trimming. 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.[24]

Men were required to have a beard extending farther than a fist clamped at the base of the chin.
On the other hand, they had to wear their head hair short. Men were also required to wear a head
covering.[25]

Possession was forbidden of depictions of living things, whether drawings, paintings or

photographs, stuffed animals, and dolls.[25]

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
Wahhabis. 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.[26]

Theft was punished by the amputation of a hand, rape and murder by public execution. Married
adulterers were stoned to death. In Kabul, punishments were carried out in front of crowds in the
city's former soccer stadium.

Treatment of women
Women in particular were targets of the Taliban's
restrictions. They were prohibited from working;
from wearing clothing regarded as "stimulating
and attractive," including the "Iranian chador,"
(viewed as insufficiently complete in its covering);
from taking a taxi without a "close male relative"
(mahram); washing clothes in streams; or having
their measurements taken by tailors.[27]

Employment of women was restricted to the

medical sector because male medical personnel
were not allowed to examine women. One result of A member of the Taliban's religious police beating
the Taliban's ban on employment of women was a woman in Kabul on 13 September 2001. The
footage, which was filmed by RAWA.
the closing down of many primary schools, in places such as Kabul, not only for girls but for boys
too, because almost all the teachers there were women.[28]

Women were also not permitted to attend co-educational schools; in practice, this prevented the
vast majority of young women and girls in Afghanistan from receiving even a primary
education.[29][30]

Women were made to wear the burqa, a traditional dress covering the entire body, with a small
screen covering the face through which the wearer could see. Taliban restrictions became more
severe after they took control of the capital. In February 1998, religious police forced all women off
the streets of Kabul and issued new regulations ordering "householders to blacken their windows,
so women would not be visible from the outside."[31] Home schools for girls, which had been
allowed to continue, were forbidden.[32] In June 1998, the Taliban stopped all women from
attending general hospitals,[33] leaving the use of one all-women hospital in Kabul. There were
many reports of Muslim women being beaten by the Taliban for violating the Taliban
interpretation of the Sharia.

Prohibitions on culture
Movie theaters were closed and music was banned. Hundreds of cultural artifacts that were
deemed polytheistic were also destroyed including a major museum and countless private art
collections.[34]

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.[27] In February 2001, Taliban used sledgehammers to
destroy representational works of art at the National Museum of Afghanistan.[35]

Local festivities were not exempt from prohibitions. The Taliban banned the traditional Afghan
New Year's celebrations and "for a time they also banned [Ashura] the Shia Islamic month of
mourning and even restricted any show of festivity at Eid."[36] The Afghan people were not allowed
to have any cultural celebrations if women were present. If there were only men at the celebration
it would be allowed, so long as it ended by 7:00 p.m, a set time.

Many Taliban officials were slightly opposed to the idea of no entertainment, but even they wanted
it to follow many of the religious restrictions.

Buddhas of Bamiyan
In March 2001, the Taliban ordered the demolition of two statues of Buddhas carved into cliffsides
at Bamiyan, one 38 metres (125 ft) tall and carved in 507 CE, the other 53 metres (174 ft) tall and
carved in 554 CE. 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 linked financial aid to the preservation of the
statues.[37] However, after a few years, a decree was issued claiming all representations of humans
and idols, including those in museums, must be destroyed in accordance with Islamic law which
prohibits any form of idol worship.
The government of Pakistan (itself host to one of the richest and most ancient collections of
Buddhist art) implored the Taliban to spare the statues. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates later denounced the act as savage.

Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, a senior representative of the Taliban designated as the roving
Ambassador, visited the US in March, 2001. He portrayed the Taliban's action not as an act of
irrationality, but as an act of rage over UNESCO and some western governments denying the
Taliban use of the funds meant for the repairs of the war-damaged statues of the Buddha. He
contended that the Taliban intended to use the money for drought relief.[38] However, the Taliban
spent much money and effort on destroying the statues, resources which they could have instead
used for drought relief.

Ethnic massacres and persecution

The worst attack on civilians came in summer of 1998 when the Taliban swept north from Herat to
the predominantly Hazara and Uzbek city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city in the north. 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."[39] More than 8000 noncombatants were reported killed in Mazar-i-Sharif and later in
Bamiyan.[40] 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.[41] In addition to this indiscriminate slaughter, the Taliban sought out and
massacred members of the Hazara, a mostly Shia ethnic group, while in control of Mazar-i-Sharif.

While the slaughter can be attributed to several factors – ethnic difference, suspicion of Hazara
loyalty to their co-religionists in Iran, fury at the loss of life suffered in an earlier unsuccessful
Taliban takeover of Mazar – the belief by some Sunni Taliban that the Shia Hazaras were guilty of
takfir (apostasy) may have been the principal motivation. It was expressed by Mullah Niazi, the
commander of the attack and governor of Mazar after the attack, in his declaration 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 we 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.[42]

Hazara also suffered a siege by the Taliban of their Hazarajat homeland in central Afghanistan and
the refusal by the Taliban to allow the UN to supply food to Hazara in the provinces of Bamiyan,
Ghor, Wardak and Ghazni.[43] A month after the Mazar slaughter, Taliban broke through Hazar
lines and took over Hazarajat. The number of civilians killed was not as great as in Mazar, but
occurred nevertheless.[44]

During the years that followed, massacres of Hazara by Taliban forces were documented by groups
such as Human Rights Watch.[45]

Conscription
According to the testimony of Guantanamo captives before their Combatant Status Review
Tribunals, the Taliban, in addition to conscripting men to serve as soldiers, also conscripted men
to staff its civil service.

See also
Talibanization
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Northern Alliance

References
1. Julian West (23 September 2001). "Pakistan's godfathers of the Taliban hold the key to the
hunt for Bin Laden" (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/1341405/Paki
stans-godfathers-of-the-Taliban-hold-the-key-to-hunt-for-bin-Laden.html). London: Daily
Telegraph.
2. Carlotta Gall (3 March 2010). "Former Pakistani officer embodies policy puzzle" (https://www.n
ytimes.com/2010/03/04/world/asia/04imam.html). New York Times.
3. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.98
4. Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim world / editor in chief, Richard C. Martin, Macmillan
Reference USA : Thomson/Gale, c2004
5. Matinuddin, Kamal, The Taliban Phenomenon, Afghanistan 1994-1997, Oxford University
Press, (1999), pp.25–6
6. Rashid, Taliban (2000), 25-29.
7. The Father of the Taliban: An Interview with Maulana Sami ul-Haq (http://www.jamestown.org/
programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4180&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=26&cHas
h=2feb32fe98) , Imtiaz Ali, Spotlight on Terror, The Jamestown Foundation, Volume 4, Issue 2,
May 23, 2007
8. The 'university of holy war' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3155112.stm), Haroon
Rashid, BBC Online, 2 October 2003
9. Inside Islam's "terror schools" (http://www.newstatesman.com/200503280010), William
Dalrymple, New Statesman, 28 March 2005
10. Hillenbrand 2015, p. 284
11. Fitchett, Joseph (26 September 2001). "What About the Taliban's Stingers?" (https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20161017145308/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/news/what-about-the-taliban
s-stingers.html). The International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original (https://www.nyti
mes.com/2001/09/26/news/what-about-the-talibans-stingers.html) on 17 October 2016.
Retrieved 11 November 2008.
12. "Did the U.S. "Create" Osama bin Laden?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20050310111109/htt
p://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-318760.html). U.S. Department of State. 14
January 2005. Archived from the original (http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-31
8760.html) on 10 March 2005. Retrieved 9 January 2007.
13. "Bergen: Bin Laden, CIA links hogwash" (http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/ber
gen.answers/index.html). CNN.com. 15 August 2006. Retrieved 9 January 2007.
14. Sanchez, Raf (7 November 2014). "FBI searches home of former envoy labelled 'Lady
Taliban' " (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/11217802/FBI-searches-
home-of-former-envoy-labelled-Lady-Taliban.html). Telegraph. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
15. Raman, Bahukutumbi. "Robin Raphel: Old Anti-India Hand To Join Holbrooke's Team?" (http://r
amanstrategicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/08/robin-raphel-old-anti-india-hand-to.html).
Raman's strategic analysis. Retrieved 29 September 2019.
16. Coll, Steve (2004). Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden,
from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001 (https://books.google.com/books/about/Ghost
_Wars.html?id=ToYxFL5wmBIC). Penguin Books. p. 300. ISBN 1594200076.
17. Swami, Praveen (18 January 2012). "Lead West's romancing of the Taliban" (https://www.thehi
ndu.com/opinion/lead/Wests-romancing-of-the-Taliban/article13379220.ece). The Hindu.
Retrieved 2 September 2019.
18. Dorronsoro, Gilles (June 2001). "The World Isolates the Taliban" (https://www.globalpolicy.org/t
he-dark-side-of-natural-resources-st/water-in-conflict/41438.html). Global Policy Forum.
Retrieved 2 September 2019.
19. Porter, Tom (21 November 2014). "FBI Investigates US Diplomat Dubbed 'Lady Taliban' over
Secrets Leak" (https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/intercepted-conversation-led-investigation-former-us-
diplomat-lady-taliban-1475964). International Business Times. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
20. Raman, Bahukutumbi. "For Eyes of President-Elect Obama Only" (http://ramanstrategicanalysi
s.blogspot.com/2008/11/for-eyes-of-president-elect-obama-only.html). Raman's Strategic
Analysis. Retrieved 29 September 2019.
21. Rashid, Taliban, (2000) pp.27–9
22. "The Taliban —" (http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html). Infoplease.com. Retrieved
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23. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.1
24. Amy Waldman, `No TV, no Chess, No Kites: Taliban's Code, from A to Z,` New York Times, 22
November 2001
25. "US Country Report on Human Rights Practices - Afghanistan 2001" (https://2001-2009.state.g
ov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/sa/8222.htm). State.gov. 4 March 2002. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
26. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.105
27. Rashid, Taliban (2000), pp.218–9. See the full edict here: The Taliban In Their Own Words (htt
p://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/taliban_in_their_own_words.html)
28. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.106
29. "Taleban 'will kill school girls' " (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7799926.stm). BBC
News. 26 December 2008. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
30. "Taliban Threatening girls again" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s1oWlA3xeg). YouTube.
27 January 2009. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
31. Rashid, Taliban (2000) p.70
32. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.114
33. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.71.
34. Wright, Looming Towers (2006), p.231
35. Wright, Looming Towers (2006), p.337.
36. Rashid, Taliban, (2000), pp.115–116.
37. "Pakistan and Japan plead for Afghan statues" (http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/c
entral/03/09/afghanistan.destruction/). CNN.com. 9 March 2001. Retrieved 20 January 2007.
38. Transcript (http://www.robert-fisk.com/taliban_lecture.htm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20081025030742/http://www.robert-fisk.com/taliban_lecture.htm) October 25, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine
39. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.73.
40. Goodson, Afghanistan's Endless War, (2001), p.79.
41. THE MASSACRE IN MAZAR-I SHARIF, THE FIRST DAY OF THE TAKEOVER (https://www.hr
w.org/reports98/afghan/Afrepor0-02.htm#P114_24041).
42. "Human Rights Watch Report, `Afghanistan, the massacre in Mazar-e-Sharif`, November
1998. INCITEMENT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST HAZARAS BY GOVERNOR NIAZI" (https://ww
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43. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.68
44. Rashid, Taliban (2000), p.76.
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Bibliography
Rashid, Ahmed (2000). Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (http
s://archive.org/details/talibanmilitanti00rash). Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. ISBN 0-
300-08340-8., republished by Pan Books with the title Taliban: The story of the Afghan
warlords: including a new foreword following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001,
ISBN 0-330-49221-7. Page citations are to the Pan Books edition.
Goodson, Larry (2001). Afghanistan's Endless War (https://archive.org/details/afghanistansend
l00good). University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-98050-8.
Hosseini, Khaled (2001). The Kite Runner (https://archive.org/details/kiterunner00hoss).
Riverhead Books. ISBN 1-57322-245-3.
Berman, Eli (2009). Radical, religious, and violent: the new economics of terrorism (https://arch
ive.org/details/radicalreligious00berm/page/132). MIT Press. p. 132 (https://archive.org/details/
radicalreligious00berm/page/132). ISBN 978-0-262-02640-6.
Hillenbrand, Carole (2015), Islam: A New Historical Introduction, London: Thames & Hudson
Ltd, ISBN 978-0-500-11027-0

External links
CNN In-Depth Specials – Afghanistan under the Taliban (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/
taliban/)
US Country Report on Human Rights Practices – Afghanistan 2001 (https://2001-2009.state.g
ov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/sa/8222.htm)

Status of women
Feminist Majority Foundation – The Taliban & Afghan Women: Background (http://www.feminis
t.org/afghan/facts.html)
Prostitution Under the rule of Taliban (http://www.rawa.org/rospi.htm) – 1999 RAWA report on
prostitution

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