Taliban: Encyclopedia - Taliban

Taliban

The Taliban (Persian and Pashto طالبان (plural), from the Arabic طالب (singular), "seeker" or "student"), also transliterated as Taleban, is a Wahhabi Islamist and Pashtun nationalist movement which effectively ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, despite having diplomatic recognition from only three countries: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. The most influential members, including Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the movement, were simple village ulema (Islamic religious scholars). The Taliban movement derived mainly from Pashtuns of Afghanistan and North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, but also included many non-Afghan volunteers from the Arab world, as well as Eurasia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. In Winston Churchill's story of the Malakand Field Force (1897) the "Taliwan," a warlike group of tribes on the North-West Frontier are mentioned.

Taliban - Rise to power

After the fall of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, Afghanistan was thrown into civil war between competing warlords. The Taliban eventually emerged as a force capable of bringing order to the country. The rise of the Taliban helped the economy by eliminating the payments that warlords demanded from business people; it brought political benefits by reducing factional fighting (although the Taliban fought aggressively against its enemies, its relative hegemony reduced the number of factions) and brought relative stability by imposing a set of norms on a chaotic society. Although the radical ideology of the Taliban would later alienate many, several observers initially considered its emergence as a positive development. Taliban legend has it that in the spring of 1994, upon hearing of the abduction and rape of two girls at a mujahideen checkpoint in the village of Sang Hesar near Kandahar, local mullah Mohammed Omar, a veteran of the Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami faction of the mujahideen, gathered thirty other taliban into a fighting force, rescued the girls and hanged the commander of the mujahideen. After this incident, Taliban legend goes, the services of these pious religious fighters were in much demand from villagers plagued by unruly mujahideen, and thus the Taliban were born. (Note: This is legend. The Taliban were already making international news in such papers as the Irish Times as early as first quarter 1990. The part about Omar's involvement may be true, but not about it causing the rise of the Taliban movement as a whole.)

Following this incident, Omar fled to the neighboring Balochistan province of Pakistan, from where he emerged in the fall of 1994, reportedly with a well-armed and well-funded militia of 1,500 followers, who would provide protection for a Pakistani trade convoy carrying goods overland to Turkmenistan. However, many reports suggest that the convoy was in fact full of Pakistani fighters posing as Taliban, and that the Taliban had gained considerable arms, military training, and economic aid from the Pakistanis. Some claim that support also came from the U.S., which would have preferred a Pakistan-installed government over the Russian-backed Northern Alliance.

After gaining power in and around Kandahar through a combination of military and diplomatic victories, the Taliban attacked, and eventually defeated, the forces of Ismail Khan in the west of the country, capturing Herat from him on September 5, 1995. That winter, the Taliban laid siege to the capital city Kabul, firing rockets into the city and blockading trade routes. In March, the Taliban's opponents, Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ceased fighting one another and formed a new anti-Taliban alliance. But on September 26, 1996 they quit the city of Kabul and retreated north, allowing the Taliban to capture the seat of government and establish the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

On May 20, 1997, brother Generals Abdul Malik Pehlawan and Mohammed Pehlawan mutinied from under Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum's command and formed an alliance with the Taliban. Three days later, Dostum abandoned much of his army and fled from his base in Mazar-i-Sharif into Uzbekistan. On May 25, Taliban forces, along with those of the mutinous generals, entered the undefended Mazar-i-Sharif. That same day, Pakistan recognised the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, followed by recognition from Saudi Arabia the following day. However, on May 27, fierce street battles broke out between the Taliban and Malik's forces. The Taliban, unused to urban warfare, were soundly defeated, with thousands losing their lives either in battle or in mass executions afterward. Nearly fifteen months passed before the Taliban re-captured Mazar-i-Sharif on August 8, 1998.

On August 20, 1998, US President Bill Clinton ordered the United States Navy to fire cruise missiles on four sites in Afghanistan, all near Khost (and one in Sudan), which the U.S. claimed were terrorist training camps. This was known as Operation Infinite Reach. The sites included one run by Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, who allegedly directed the August 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. Three other villages, whose legitimacy as targets was strongly disputed by many sources, were also struck.

At its height, the Emirate was diplomatically recognised by Pakistan, by the United Arab Emirates and by Saudi Arabia. It then controlled all of Afghanistan, apart from small regions in the northeast which were held by the Northern Alliance. Most of the rest of the world, and the United Nations continued to recognize Rabbani as Afghanistan's legal Head of State, although it was generally understood that he had no real influence in the country.

The Taliban received logistical and humanitarian support from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). An estimated $2 million came each year from Saudi Arabia's major charity, funding two universities and six health clinics and supporting 4,000 orphans. The Saudi King Fahd sent an annual shipment of dates as a gift. The relationship with Iran was considered poor due to the Taliban's strong anti-Shia policy.

Taliban - Culture

In the languages spoken in Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan, (Persian and Pushtu), Taliban means those who study the book (referring to the Qur'an). It is derived from the Arabic word for seeker or student, talib. The Taliban belong to the Deobandi movement, a Sunni Islam movement which emphasizes piety, austerity, and the family obligations of men. They emerged from the ethnically Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. Many of Taliban grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan.

Taliban - Life under Taliban rule

Taliban - Islamic law

Once in power, the Taliban instituted a form of Sharia (Islamic law). The Taliban's reform of government was in part directed by scholars of Islamic law. Among the laws applied were criminal 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 IOC suspended Afghanistan from participation in the 2000 Summer Olympics. Wearing white shoes - the color of the Taliban flag - was illegal and men were required to keep their beards at a specified length.

Taliban - Opium trade

Although the Taliban reportedly banned opium poppy cultivation in late 1997, opium production in Afghanistan may have increased through the year 2000, accounting for 72% of the world's illicit opium supply, according to U.S. government sources. Most Afghan opium is sold in Europe and not the United States.

On July 27, 2000, the Taliban again issued a decree banning opium poppy cultivation. The announcement of the ban caused prices to rise from $30 per kilogram to $500 per kilogram.

There was comment from the international human rights community on the brutality of the Taliban's anti-drug interdictions, including violent punishment of offenders.

The U.S. State Department noted in 2001 that "Neither the Taliban nor the Northern Alliance has taken any significant action to seize stored opium, precursor chemicals or arrest and prosecute narcotics traffickers. On the contrary, authorities were said to continue to tax the opium poppy crop at about ten percent, and allow it to be sold in open bazaars, traded and transported."

However, the Taliban had succeeded in cutting annual poppy production from a CIA-estimated 4,042 tons per year to only 81.3 tons per year. In 2001 The United States provided $43 million worth of supplies (primarily wheat) to humanitarian relief organizations for distribution to the people of Afghanistan, while continuing to criticise the Taliban's activities. This was widely reported by critics of U. S. policy (such as Robert Scheer) to be a $43 million reward to the Taliban for reducing poppy production. The Taliban subsequently raided the shipments, but no evidence has been offered to indicate that this was the United States' intention.

Poppy production increased with the fall of the Taliban government.

Taliban - Women

The Taliban limited the right of women to work in public places. However, women had the right to work and set up their own business from their houses and work in certain medical positions. Women were permitted to work unless they had a baby in which then work was forbidden in order to stay home and treat their new born or children. The Taliban believed women should stay home in order that their children did not have to grow up in the care of another, and believed that work is the duty of the male in the house and to reject this duty was haraam.

Taliban religion minister, Al-Haj Maulwi Qalamuddin, told the New York Times that "To a country on fire, the world wants to give a match. Why is there such concern about women? Bread costs too much. There is no work. Even boys are not going to school. And yet all I hear about are women. Where was the world when men here were violating any woman they wanted?"

Although the Taliban claimed that the education of girls in rural Afghanistan was increasing, a UNESCO report alleged that there was "a whopping 65 per cent drop in their enrollment. In schools run by the Directorate of Education, only 1 per cent of the pupils are girls. The percentage of female teachers, too, has slid from 59.2 per cent in 1990 to 13.5 per cent in 1999."

A Taliban spokesperson claimed that "Health facilities for women have increased 200% during Taliban administration. Prior to the Taliban Islamic Movement's taking control of Kabul, there were 350 beds in all hospitals in Kabul. Currently, there are more than 950 beds for women in exclusive women's hospitals." ^{[citation needed]}

Supporters of the Taliban suggested that the depression and the other problems plaguing Afghani women were the result of dire poverty, years of war, the bad economy, and the fact that many were left war widows, and could no longer provide food for their families without some sort of international aid.

Women were also obliged to wear the burqa when appearing in public, and failure to do so could attract a public beating [2] (video). The Taliban stated that women were obliged to wear the burqa due to Islamic teachings which state that women must cover up her body in front of non-mahram men, and that both men and women should dress modestly.

Taliban - Shia under the Taliban

Minority Shia were brutally persecuted and oppressed by the Taliban. More than 15,000 Shia were killed in Hazara Province, and Shia women were enslaved and later sold to tribal leaders in Pakistan.^{[citation needed]}

Taliban - 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, including Iran.

The intentions of the destruction remain unclear. Mullah Omar initially supported the preservation of Afghanistan's heritage, and Japan offered to pay for its preservation. After a few years a decree was issued claiming all idols must be destroyed. Locals claim that Pakistani engineers were onsite to help with the statues' destruction, and that Afghanistan's treasures were ferried across the border to be plundered by private collectors.

Taliban - Relationship with Osama bin Laden

In 1996, Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan upon the invitation of the Northern Alliance leader Abdur Rabb ur Rasool Sayyaf. 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 generally accepted view in the West is that the Taliban and bin Laden had very close connections.

Taliban - U.S. invasion

On September 22, 2001, as the U.S. blamed Osama bin Laden and his hosts, the Taliban, for the September 11, 2001 attacks, 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. When threatened with retributive attack by the U.S. for harboring al-Qaeda, the Taliban government offered to judge Osama bin Laden in an Islamic court, and later, to hand him over to a neutral country for a war crimes trial. These offers were rejected by the United States, which instead offered an ultimatum[3] demanding, among other things, the handover of all al-Qaeda leaders and the closure and inspection of all "terrorist training camp[s]".

Shortly afterward, the United States, aided by the United Kingdom and supported by a coalition of other countries including the NATO alliance, initiated military action against the Taliban. The stated intent 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 in retaliation for the Taliban's aid to him. 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.

Mazar-i-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. On November 15, they released eight Western aid workers after three months in captivity (see Attacks on humanitarian workers).

The UN Security Council, on January 16, 2002, unanimously established an arms embargo and the freezing of identifiable assets belonging to bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the remaining Taliban.

The Taliban later retreated from Kandahar, and regrouped in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Most post-invasion Taliban fighters are new recruits, drawn again from that region's madrassahs (madrassah means "school" in Arabic). The more traditional Qur'anic schools are claimed by the U.S. to be the primary source of the new fighters.

See also

• List of Taliban leaders
• Politics of Afghanistan
• Taliban treatment of children
• Taliban treatment of women
• Golden Needle Sewing School
• Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Taliban", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki