Taliban

The Taliban emerged in 1994 in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, born out of the chaos and warlordism that consumed Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the communist government in 1992. Its founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was a one-eyed former mujahideen commander who had lost his eye fighting the Soviets. Drawing on networks of students — talibs — from the Deobandi madrassas that had proliferated across Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province during the anti-Soviet jihad, Omar assembled a movement that promised to impose order, end factional violence, and establish a "pure" Islamic government.

The movement's rapid initial success was facilitated by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which saw the Taliban as a vehicle for establishing Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and securing strategic depth against India. With ISI support — training, arms, funds, and political backing — the Taliban swept across Afghanistan with remarkable speed. By September 1996, they had captured Kabul, publicly hanging former President Najibullah from a traffic light, and declared the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The Taliban's first regime (1996–2001) was characterised by an extreme interpretation of Sharia law enforced by a religious police, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Girls were banned from education. Women were prohibited from working, leaving home without a male guardian, or appearing in public without a full-body burqa. Television, music, and most forms of entertainment were outlawed. Ethnic Hazaras — Afghanistan's Shia minority — were subjected to massacres, most notably the Mazar-i-Sharif massacre of 1998 in which thousands were killed.

The regime also provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which used Afghan territory to plan the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Taliban's refusal to surrender bin Laden following 9/11 triggered the US-led invasion that dismantled their government within weeks. For the next twenty years, the Taliban waged a resilient insurgency against NATO forces and the US-backed Afghan Republic — an insurgency that ultimately succeeded in August 2021 when the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban retook Kabul as American forces completed their withdrawal.

The Taliban's ideology draws primarily from Deobandism — a revivalist Sunni movement originating in 19th-century British India that emphasises a strict, literalist interpretation of Islamic texts and rejects Western influence and modernity. This is fused with Pashtunwali, the traditional tribal code of the Pashtun people, creating a hybrid system of religious law and ethnic-tribal custom that is enforced through a totalitarian state apparatus.

Under Taliban rule, governance is exercised through a Supreme Leader — currently Haibatullah Akhundzada — who holds absolute religious and political authority as "Commander of the Faithful," a title carrying enormous theological weight in Sunni Islam. Akhundzada governs from Kandahar and has rarely appeared in public, ruling through a system of religious decrees. The Taliban's cabinet is composed entirely of men who fought in the original insurgency and carries a combined UN sanctions list spanning almost the entire government.

Central to Taliban ideology is the systematic subordination of women. Since retaking power, the Taliban has banned girls from education beyond the sixth grade, prohibited women from working in most sectors including NGOs and the UN, banned women from parks, gyms, and most public spaces, and required male guardianship for travel. The UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan has described Taliban gender policies as constituting "gender apartheid" and potentially crimes against humanity.

The Taliban also continue to harbour international jihadist groups in direct violation of their commitments under the 2020 Doha Agreement. The July 2022 US drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul safe house — a house reportedly belonging to a senior Taliban official — confirmed the depth of ongoing ties between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The UN has also documented the presence of fighters from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and other designated organisations operating on Afghan soil.

Over four decades of conflict, the Taliban has conducted thousands of attacks across Afghanistan and Pakistan, employing suicide bombings, complex multi-front assaults, targeted assassinations, and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices. Its insurgency campaign was among the longest and most costly in modern history.

Taliban governance and violence directly impacts numerous communities across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the broader Central and South Asian region, documented across multiple IFC regional desks.