The rise and fall of the Ruthless power

The Taliban came to power in 1991, when the former mujahid, Mulla Mohammad Omar became the mullah and head of the Kandahar province in Afghanistan. His students called themselves Taliban, which means seekers of knowledge. Many others who became the core members of the group were the commanders and were mainly from the Pushtun tribe.

Their aim, as they stated, were to regain stability and enforce their interpretation of the Islamic Law. In the early years, the Taliban gained a reputation of military prowess. It attacked the headquarters of a local commander who had been responsible for numerous rapes, murders and lootings and carried out similar campaigns against other warlords. By 1994, the group had attracted the support of Pakistan and they saw Taliban as a way to secure trade routes to Central Asia and establish a government in Kabul, friendly to its interests. The Taliban captured arms and enormous quantity of military material, including rockets, ammunition, artillery, and small arms. They also captured heavy weapons like MiG fighters, helicopters and tanks. By December 1994, the Taliban had spread to north and east to the outskirts of Kabul and west towards Herat. With half of Afghan under their control, the Taliban now joined hands with Al Qaeda which was the army of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. In 1997, the Taliban attacked villages, killing around eighty six civilians. In August 1998 again they opened their third assault and massacred at least 2000 people and killed an unknown number of people in the aerial bombardment.

Fighting in the entire region along with combined effects of drought, drove thousands of people into the arms of death again. The 9/11 attacks in the U.S, according to the reports were a coalition between Taliban and Al Qaeda. In mid 2000, the Taliban split into 3 groups, one of which became a sub army of Osama Bin Laden and was called Wahabi. The group believed in bringing strict Islamic rule in Afghanistan. The group enforced the strict dress code, undermined women’s rights and even disallowed music and film. The second group was made of Pakistani ISI agents who set out to destroy the national identity of Afghanistan and destroy its art and culture completely. And the third group were the actual students of Islam, who called themselves Jihadis and saw Jihad as a pillar of their religion and found it as their duty to preserve their faith and fight foreign invaders

On October 7, and less than one month after the Twin Towers fell, the U.S., 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. On November 12^th, the Taliban retreated from Kabul and   surrendered their arms after an attack by the U.S troops. The Taliban also agreed to surrender their last stronghold of Kandahar. The Taliban fighters handed over their weapons and control of Kandahar to local commander Mullah Naqibullah.