The Taliban Is Afghanistan

AshleyMichelle Cuadrado

Dr. B

Research paper

The Taliban is Afghanistan

The Taliban, plural form of the word Talib, meaning an Islamic or religious student who seeks to obtain (religious) knowledge, became known in October 1994, under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar and were force to flee in 2001. These students were either part time or full time students at madrassas, Arabic school/ Islamic seminaries. This group became a military and political movement and it's main stated goal was to obtain power in Afghanistan and "restore peace, disarm the population, enforce Sharia law, Islamic law, and defend the integrity and Islamic character of Afghanistan, The Taliban are full of extreme fundamentalist Muslims. It took about 15 years for the Taliban group to be recognized. In Afghanistan, the Soviet Union had invaded in 1979 and caused huge amounts of destruction, this was called the Soviet War in Afghanistan. After the soviets withdrawal in 1989, the Taliban involved from the Mujahideen, "freedom fighters", groups who fought in the war. The Taliban wanted to help and improve Afghanistan and "wanted to rid Afghanistan of the instability, violence, and warlordism that had been plaguing the country since the defeat and withdrawal of the Soviets in 1989". The Taliban expanded rapidly since there but in 2001, the Taliban attacked the United States, which caused the United States to respond back, which caused the Taliban, was pushed and bombed out of Afghanistan. The rise and fall of the Taliban comes with many major events and a variety of reasons that came behind hose events.

The Taliban as well as their higher officials such as their leader, Mullah Omar, were all students of the madrassa. Omar called the Taliban, many of those who were born in Pakistani refugee camps, educated in Pakistani madrassas and learnt their fighting skills from Afghan Mujahideen parties based in Pakistan, and 4,000 volunteers from Pakistan to protect the locals and from then are they came up and cleared the highways and road from the Mujahideen groups, groups that fought against each other, that formed after the Soviet-Afghan war. Mullah Mohammad Omar said 'We were fighting against Muslims who had gone wrong.' The Pakistani intelligence services, the Pakistani military and Benazir Bhutto, who was prime minister of Pakistan during the Taliban's most developmental years and it's rise, all saw that the Taliban had a reputation for discipline and effective fighting they could use to benefit Pakistan by being an ally. The Taliban seized control of Kandahar, and it fell under the Taliban obscure militia and began to rise. Pakistan and other locals started offering and giving their support to the Taliban. In 1994, Bhutto's government appointed the Taliban as "protector of Pakistani" attendant through Afghanistan. With their amounts of weapons and support and involved they were

receiving from Pakistan, the Taliban decided to go against Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. After Kandahar itself, The Taliban swept through southwestern Afghanistan, and arrived in Herat, which is close to the Iranian border, in September 1995. In 1996, they captured and conquered, the big fish, Kabul. They influenced and enforced strict Islamic law with even more restrictions. Many restrictions under the Taliban rule were banned from listening to music; they were banned from the watching of movies, television, videos and other media products, banned from celebrating the traditional New Year (Nowroz) on March 21. The Taliban said this holiday was un-Islamic, they ordered for all people with non-Islamic names change them to Islamic ones, ordered for all people attend prayers in mosques five times daily, all boy students must wear turbans. They say "No turban, no education", banned the use of the Internet by both ordinary Afghans and foreigners. To the Taliban, this was all a corrupting influence. Woman are not allowed to have an education, employment, go anywhere without the permission of the male head, wear a full burqa, deny their husbands any sexual gratification, Talk to males unless they are relatives, including in their own homes and many more. The Taliban rules range from the repressive, the draconian and the puzzling. "Afghanistan soon became a training ground for Islamic activists and other radicals from the Middle East and around Asia," said by two writers T. Johnson and C. Mason. . By 1998, the Taliban controlled at least 90 percentage of Afghanistan. The rise of the Taliban was fixed into territorial developments.

"Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge". The Taliban where not only motivated by their religiousness but also because of their needs. In the book "Taliban" by Ahmed Rashid, Rashid speaks about how a simple man would not only join the Taliban 'cause" for the radical religious reasons but for the incentives that were in it. An average man would not make enough to be able to support his family in Afghanistan or Pakistan. But by joining the Taliban they would make $1,000 from just transporting heroin via truck to the Iranian border. Another factor that motivated the Taliban was when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. This caused Tribal resistance to dramatically increase and also gained support from not only the United States, but also other countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Analyzing who the Taliban really are, it is found that they are a group of people or tribe which do not like any government try to change their way of living. Taliban also attracted global ire by supporting terrorism, either directly through training camps, or indirectly through financial assistance. The Taliban's political beliefs were influenced by their anger and crave revenge towards the Mujaehedin leaders, which they blamed for failing to create a "central political institution". The young men did not join the fight and the strict religious way just to grab and obtain power but rather to work "as the cleansers and purifiers of a guerrilla war gone astray, a social system gone wrong and an Islamic way of life that had been compromised by corruption and excess.... from their madrassas they learned about the ideal Islamic society created by the Prophet Mohammad 1,400 years ago and this is what they wanted to emulate"

Some say that what goes up comes back down and others say that what goes around comes back around. The fall of the Taliban government one might say has