Taliban

The Taliban (Pashtun and Persian: طالبان; "students"), also transliterated as Taleban, is an 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.

U.S. invasion

On September 22, 2001, as the U.S. blamed 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 ultimatumhttp://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/ demanding, among other things, the handover of all Al-Queda leaders and the closure and inspection of all "terrorist training camp".

Related Topics:
September 22 - 2001 - September 11, 2001 attacks - United Arab Emirates - Saudi Arabia - Pakistan

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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.

Related Topics:
United Kingdom - NATO - Osama bin Laden - Northern Alliance

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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).

Related Topics:
November 9 - November 12 - November 15 - Attacks on humanitarian workers

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

Related Topics:
UN Security Council - January 16 - 2002

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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.

Related Topics:
Madrassah - Arabic

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