Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The Taliban emerged in Pakistan in the spring of 1994 as a movement built on radical Islam and Pashtun nationalism. Essentially, the Taliban accumulated the protests and dissatisfaction raging against the anarchy and violence that plagued Afghanistan under the rule of competing Mujahedeen (holy warrior) factions who had come to power with US assistance against the Soviet Union. With implicit Pakistani sponsorship, the Taliban forces grew rapidly and by fall 1994 had reached 1,500 followers, recruited mostly from among Afghan religious students. Headed by Mullah Muhammad Omar, a Mujahedeen veteran, the Taliban army captured Qandahar, and by fall 1995 reached Herat. In September 1996 the Taliban seized Kabul and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. During the next two years, Taliban rule expanded over 90 percent of the Afghan territory, with small pockets of regional resistance. Many Afghans welcomed the Taliban as the movement responded to their longstanding hopes for peace and political stability in a country divided on the basis of region, ethnicity, and clan. Others, however, were opposed to the Taliban's strict policy of imposing fundamental Islamic values and its goal to transform Afghanistan into a theocratic state. The most important factor for the Afghani people was not religious fundamentalism, as was demonstrated following the Taliban's fall, but establishing ... log in or subscribe to read full text