Taliban

Coming to Power

The Taliban emerged in the southern Afghan district of Kandahar in 1994. Two years before, the mujahideen—a loose alliance of Afghan ethnic and religious groups, plus foreigners come to defend Islam—had ousted the Soviet-backed People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) after more than a decade of war. But peace did not follow victory. Mujahideen warlords began fighting over control of Afghanistan. While some areas, such as the western city of Herat, were relatively stable, the Afghan capital of Kabul was attacked ceaselessly for two years as various factions fought for control of the city.

The district of Kandahar was also in chaos. There, the mujahideen warlords acted more like bandits than would-be governors, attacking civilians as well as each other. In the summer of 1994, a former mujahideen fighter named Mohammed Omar decided to rid Afghanistan of the mujahideen warlords and restore unity under Islam.

At the time, Omar was living at a madrassa, or Islamic religious school, in the village of Singesar. Omar—a reclusive man who would not allow himself to be photographed—would eventually become the ultimate leader of the Taliban, given the title Commander of the Faithful. His background, and the religious philosophy of the madrassas, would strongly shape the Taliban's agenda.

Omar was a member of the Pushtun ethnic group. Roughly half the Pushtuns lived in southern Afghanistan, the other half lived in neighboring Pakistan. National lines had been muddled following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to shore up the PDPA government. Many Afghan Pushtuns fled to Pakistan, where they lived in refugee camps and among Pakistani Pushtuns. Most Pushtuns follow the Sunni sect of Islam, which is the dominant sect in Afghanistan.

The madrassas could be found on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Students at the madrassas received an education that was primarily religious. The madrassas had been greatly influenced by the Deobandi movement, a Sunni religious movement that emphasizes strict observance of religious ritual.

The madrassas of Afghanistan and Pakistan supplied the Taliban not only with a leader but also with soldiers—most of them Afghan, but many Pakistani. Even the Taliban's name reflected its roots in the madrassas: The word Taliban is a Persian pluralization of the Arab word Talib, which means religious student. [Page 358]The Taliban was largely dominated by the Pushtuns, and it was exclusively Sunni, to the detriment of Afghanistan's Shiite Muslim minority. The Deobandi influence was expressed by the Taliban's strident emphasis on the observance of religious customs, whether or not that observance was sincere or even voluntary.

Following his decision to restore order to Afghanistan, Omar gathered 30 comrades, took up arms, and attacked a mujahideen bandit. In October 1994, he and his growing group of comrades seized a village and an arms depot. A month later, the Taliban—now with almost 3,000 fighters—routed an attack on a Pakistani convoy, then swept into the provincial capital of Kandahar and seized the city.

While supporters of the Taliban tended to credit the group's remarkable success to divine favor, popular discontent with the mujahideen, and the genius of Omar, critics noted the contribution of other factors. Almost from its inception, the Taliban received aid from Pakistan and from mujahideen warlords—including ones the Taliban would later overthrow—who apparently believed that the Taliban would serve to weaken rivals.

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