Taliban
Taliban(Pashto, ‘seekers’) An Islamic fundamentalist political and military grouping that controlled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until late 2001 . The Taliban militia was formed in 1994 by Islamic theological students in the south of the country with the intention of unifying Afghanistan. Rival Mujaheddin factions had been fighting since the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989 . After initial reverses, the Taliban captured the city of Herat in September 1995 and advanced to take Kabul in August 1996 . A strict Islamic code of law was immediately imposed, which debarred women from paid work and education and proscribed television. In the late 1990s the Taliban consolidated its hold on power and took further territory from their main opponents, an alliance of forces concentrated in the north‐east of Afghanistan. However, the regime remained...
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