History of Modern Muslim World

Course code: EC/Hist/B.Eds-202

Ms Lubna Shahzadi
Bs-II (2018-2022)
Spring2020
 Topics to be discussed
• Transformation of Government to Afghan Mujahideen, Emergency of
Taliban, their ruling period
• End of Taliban regime, causes and impacts
 Afghan War
• The roots of the war lay in the overthrow of the centrist government of President Mohammad
Daud Khan in April 1978 by military officers led by Nur Mohammad Taraki. Power was
thereafter shared by two Marxist-Leninist political groups, the People’s (Khalq) Party and the
Banner (Parcham) Party, which had earlier emerged from a single organization, the People’s
Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and had reunited in an uneasy coalition shortly before the
coup. The new government, which had little popular support, fake close ties with the Soviet
Union, launched brutal eliminations of all domestic opposition, and began extensive land and
social reforms that were bitterly resented by the devoutly Muslim and largely anticommunist
population. Insurgencies arose against the government among both tribal and urban groups, and
all of these—known collectively as the mujahideen (Arabic: mujāhidūn, “those who engage in
jihad”)—were Islamic in orientation.
 Conflict After 1992
• A transitional government, sponsored by various rebel factions, proclaimed an
Islamic republic, but jubilation was short-lived. President Burhanuddin
Rabbani, leader of the Islamic Society (Jamʿiyyat-e Eslāmī), a major
mujahideen group, refused to leave office in accordance with the power-
sharing arrangement reached by the new government. Other mujahideen
groups, particularly the Islamic Party (Ḥezb-e Eslāmī), led by Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, surrounded Kabul and began to barrage the city with artillery and
rockets. These attacks continued intermittently over the next several years as
the countryside outside Kabul slipped into chaos.
 Taliban

Rise of Taliban. In reaction to the anarchy and warlordism, a movement of

former Mujahideen mostly Pashtuns who were educated in madarass in
Pakistan surfaced.
• They removed warlords, provided order, and imposed strict form of Islam
in the country. In 1994 they captured Kandahar.
• By the end of 1998, they occupied about 90% of the country. Continuing
their march,
 Cont.
• The Taliban is a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that
ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion toppled
the regime for providing refuge to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
• The Taliban regrouped across the border in Pakistan and has led an
insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul for more than
eighteen years.
 Cont.
• How was the Taliban formed?
• The Taliban was formed in the early 1990s by Afghan mujahideen, or
Islamic guerilla fighters, who had resisted the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan (1979–89) with the covert backing of the CIA and its Pakistani
counterpart, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI).
• 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
 Emergency of Taliban and their ruling
period
• The movement attracted popular support in the initial post-Soviet era by promising to
impose stability and rule of law after four years of conflict (1992–1996) among rival
mujahideen groups.
• The Taliban entered Kandahar in November 1994 to pacify the crime-ridden southern city,
and by September 1996 seized the capital, Kabul, from President Burhanuddin Rabbani, an
ethnic Tajik whom it viewed as anti-Pashtun and corrupt.
• That year, the Taliban declared Afghanistan an Islamic emirate, with Mullah Mohammed
Omar, a cleric and veteran of the anti-Soviet resistance, leading as amir al-mu’minin, or
“commander of the faithful.” The regime controlled some 90 percent of the country before
its 2001 overthrow.
• The regime was internationally isolated from its inception. Only Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan recognized the
government..
• The leadership council is called the Rahbari Shura and is better known as
the Quetta Shura, named for the city in Pakistan where Omar and top
aides are believed to have taken refuge after the U.S. invasion. The
council makes decisions for all “political and military affairs of the
Emirate,” according to the UN monitor.
 Cont.
• Under the Taliban regime, Sharia law was interpreted to ban a wide
variety of activities previously 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.
• 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.

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

photographs, stuffed animals, and dolls.

• These rules were issued by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of
Vice (PVSV) and enforced by its "religious police,"
• 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
• 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, Women were made to wear
the burqa.
• Employment of women was restricted to the medical sector
End of Taliban regime, causes and impacts

• he Taliban have been condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of

their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, which has resulted in the brutal
treatment of many Afghans, especially women.
• During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban and their allies committed
massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to 160,000
starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth, burning vast areas
of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes. According to the
United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 76% of Afghan
civilian casualties in 2010, 80% in 2011, and 80% in 2012.
• In October 2001, the United States, with allies including the Afghan
Northern Alliance, invaded Afghanistan and routed the Taliban regime.
The Taliban leadership fled into Pakistan
• The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salem Zaeef, responded to the ultimatum by
demanding "convincing evidence" that Bin Laden was involved in the attacks, stating
"our position is that if America has evidence and proof, they should produce it".
Additionally, the Taliban insisted that any trial of Bin Laden be held in an Afghan court.
• On 22 September, the United Arab Emirates, and later Saudi Arabia, withdrew
recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan's legal government, leaving neighbouring
Pakistan as the only remaining country with diplomatic ties. On 4 October, the Taliban
agreed to turn bin Laden over to Pakistan for trial in an international tribunal that
operated according to Islamic Sharia law, but Pakistan blocked the offer as it was not
possible to guarantee his safety.
 Coalition attack

• A Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected the

Taliban offer, and stated that the US would not negotiate their demands.
• The Taliban were removed from power in October 2001 by a unified effort of
United Islamic Front (Northern Alliance) ground forces, small US Special
Operations teams and US air support.
• On 7 October, less than one month after the 11 September attacks, the US, aided by
the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries including several from the
NATO alliance, initiated military action, bombing Taliban and Al-Qaeda-related
camps.
 Cont.
• On the night of 12 November, the Taliban retreated south from Kabul. On
15 November, they released eight Western aid workers after three months
in captivity. By 13 November, the Taliban had withdrawn from both Kabul
and Jalalabad. Finally, in early December, the Taliban gave up Kandahar,
their last stronghold, dispersing without surrendering.
• In May and June 2003, high Taliban officials proclaimed the Taliban regrouped and
ready for guerrilla war to expel US forces from Afghanistan.
• 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“
• On 8 February 2009, US commander of operations in Afghanistan General Stanley
McChrystal and other officials said that the Taliban leadership was in Quetta, Pakistan.
 Cont.
• By 2009, a strong insurgency had united, known as Operation Al Faath, the
Arabic word for "victory" taken from the Koran, in the form of a guerrilla war.
• The Pashtun tribal group, with over 40 million members (including Afghans
and Pakistanis) had a long history of resistance to occupation forces, so the
Taliban may have comprised only a part of the insurgency
• In August 2017, reacting to a hostile speech of US President Trump, a Taliban
spokesman retorted that the Taliban would keep fighting to free Afghanistan of
"American invaders“
• https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
• https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-
responsible-for-the-taliban