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World History Database
Use Grant Wood Login.

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Vice news special.

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Afghans Are Facing The Deadliest Taliban Yet | VICE on HBO

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Host Liane Hansen speaks with Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner (Riverhead Books, 2003), a new novel about a young boy who flees Afghanistan for America, but cannot forget the friend he left behind to suffer under the Taliban.

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* What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why?

3. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)

4. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the "Reply" button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.

5. The Op-Doc "Pashtana's Lesson" is based on the feature-length documentary " What Tomorrow Brings." Beth Murphy, the filmmaker, describes the film in this article:

When I first met Pashtana, she was a 15-year-old in the seventh grade - the oldest student in her classroom. She was caught in the awkward moment between being a girl and becoming a woman, and not quite comfortable in either role. But she was an eager class clown.

With holes in her clothes, and borrowed shoes that didn't quite fit, Pashtana launched into a classroom standup routine before the teacher arrived. She grabbed her long braid and held it up to her face, mimicking an older man who was courting her friend.

"Hey!" she yelled. "This is what your fiancé looks like!"

Then, Pashtana turned the joke on herself. "My fiancé is tall with a giant head! I try to hold his hand, but I cannot reach!"

The girls laughed; it was a familiar scenario to them all.

Pashtana's school - the Zabuli Education Center - is the first girls' school in Deh'Subz, a village on the outskirts of Kabul Province. Pashtana was 10 when it opened in 2008, and because of her age - and because she had never been to school before - she was assigned to the second grade.

Like most men in the village, Pashtana's father was educated only through the sixth grade, but the education was so poor that he still signs his name with a thumbprint. Her mother never went to school at all.

"I'm the first person in my family who can read and write," she told me proudly.

Her smile faded when I asked about her future. Like many girls her age, considered old enough for marriage, Pashtana knew her window for education was closing. She had, in fact, already been forced into an engagement with her cousin.

_________ More?
* See all the films in this series.

* Read our list of practical teaching ideas, along with responses from students and teachers, for how you can use these documentaries in the classroom.

* Our next Film Club will take place on Friday, Dec. 16.

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What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why? 3. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)

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How I stopped the Taliban from shutting down my school

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When the Taliban closed all the girls’ schools in Afghanistan, Sakena Yacoobi set up new schools, in secret, educating thousands of women and men. In this fierce, funny talk, she tells the jaw-dropping story of two times when she was threatened to stop teaching -- and shares her vision for rebuilding her beloved country.

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Women's Shelters in Afghanistan

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Women in Afghanistan who would have previously had no place to turn in abusive situations can now go to shelters run by four organizations.

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Education Ted Talk

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Shabana Basij-Rasikh: Dare to educate Afghan girls

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Imagine a country where girls must sneak out to go to school, with deadly consequences if they get caught learning. This was Afghanistan under the Taliban, and traces of that danger remain today. 22-year-old Shabana Basij-Rasikh runs a school for girls in Afghanistan.

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The main forensic medical center in Kabul, which also processes cases from other provinces, conducted 42 virginity tests in the first half of 2016, about the same pace as the year before, when it conducted about 80, according to medical records there. The overall number of such tests is certainly higher, given that official records across the country are difficult to track down. One police substation in Kabul sent 26 cases of "moral crimes" - which include rape cases - to forensic medicine in 2015, and most involved virginity tests.

Asked for comment, President Ghani's office sent a statement saying: "The virginity test has been banned. However, it's a long-lasting practice used wrongly by law enforcement authorities, especially police." It said that early in 2016, "to eliminate the practice entirely, the government asked for a full study of the practice and the socio-psychological impact of this practice on women who go through this."

The statement acknowledged, though, that such tests still happen: "However wrong, it is going to take some time to entirely be stopped and removed. But we are determined to change this practice."

The procedure's resilience, though, shows a broader problem that a recent report by the United States Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, known as Sigar, expressed concern about. The United States has spent $1 billion on legal reform in Afghanistan, yet the country's justice sector still remains profoundly biased against women, the report said.

In addition to that spending, the United States added $1 billion for programs in which the advancement of Afghan women was a central point. But many prominent women interviewed for that report said the efforts missed a key component: the support of Afghan men.

Historically, efforts to alter the status of women in a deeply male-dominated culture have drawn strong adverse reactions. That is reflected in widespread and aggressive criticism that working Afghan women say they face, and also in the perception that over all, basic support of women's rights has dropped in recent years.

"These programs have raised the expectations of women, but they have left men behind," Adela Raz, Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister for economic affairs, was quoted as saying in the Sigar report. "This has created tension between genders, because men think as women become more 'aware,' they will cut ties with tradition and the families."

A study by Afghanistan's human rights commission found the continuing virginity tests so routine that the justice system was still regularly ordering female victims of domestic abuse who had sought protection in women's shelters to go through the procedure. The commission called the examinations "violence against women."

"The circumstances of virginity test are never humane," said Soraya Sobhrang, a commissioner at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. "In conducting virginity tests, no one asks for the consent of the victim or the suspect - 99 percent of the virginity tests are conducted by force and without considerations of its legality."

Virginity tests in Kabul are usually conducted in a small room at the city's main forensic center that looks more like a storage space than an examination facility. A narrow bed is tucked against the wall; several old computers and monitors are stored under it. The window is covered by a black cloth.

Khalil Ahmad Pashtoonyar, the government's deputy director of forensic medicine, insisted that the center never forces women to undergo the examination. If a woman refuses, he said, the facility just sends the file back to the police stating that the subject did not consent.

But that does not speak to the continued pressure within families for women to remain obedient. That culture and tradition is so ingrained that the forensic center gets many cases that have not been forwarded to them by the police.

Newly married couples have arrived at the center after their weddings when the husbands suspected their wives had not been virgins, doctors said. Parents have also brought in young girls who may have damaged hymens so the forensic center can issue a certificate documenting the girl's "purity" for some future husband.

Fear of social devastation has also given rise to underground businesses that promise to repair hymens - for as much $1,500, a large sum in Afghanistan.

In an interview with The New York Times, one woman, who was afraid to allow her name to be used, described how she and her mother had sought the repair procedure to hide from her fiancé that she had previously had sex. "It is a big deal in Afghanistan," she said. "If your hymen is broken, it is finished - you fall into hell."

But the cost was too high, and the woman decided she had to tell her fiancé. He called off the engagement and demanded that her family repay everything he had spent on her, she said.

Some women are put through the tests several times.

One girl in northern Jowzjan Province who had run away with a young man was arrested and sent to the hospital for an examination, which showed that her hymen had been damaged, said Humaira Qarizada, the manager of the aid group Women for Afghan Women in Jowzjan. The girl was sentenced to three months in prison, Ms. Qarizada said, but that was not the end of it.

"Soon she was released when a second test in the same hospital revealed that she was still a virgin," Ms. Qarizada said.

For the girl who survived the mob attack in Kabul last July and was arrested and ordered to be examined, the test at the forensic medical center showed that her hymen was still intact, according to records at the center seen by The Times.

Still, she was held for 40 days at the children's detention center, according to her father. (The Times is not using his name because his daughter, who is a minor, could be identifiable.)

He said that the public shame of the mob's accusation forced him to send her away to stay with family in a different province.

On the day she left, he said, the girl wrote him a letter expressing regret, but insisting: "I have done nothing wrong."

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human rights and human rights violations

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afghanistan independent human rights commission

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special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction

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Despite Ban, Invasive Virginity Tests Remain Prevalent in Afghanistan

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The main forensic medical center in Kabul, which also processes cases from other provinces, conducted 42 virginity tests in the first half of 2016, about the same pace as the year before, when it conducted about 80, according to medical records there.

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Description of the Hazara.

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Introduction / History

The Hazara are a people of distinctions - set apart from fellow Afghans by religion, mixed ethnicity and an independent nature - and they have suffered for them. Persecution has shaped and defined the Hazara, particularly over the last 200 years. They face discrimination as Shi'ite Muslims, a minority among Afghanistan's dominant Sunni Muslims, as well as for ethnic bias.

Pre-second century inhabitants, they are likely Afghanistan's oldest. Their traditional homeland lies in central Afghanistan amid rugged mountains - a wildly beautiful, nearly inaccessible region of craggy peaks and rushing rivers called the Hazarajat. Hazara origins are much debated. Their name is from a Persian word meaning "thousand". Current theory - supported by obvious Asian features - favors descent from Mongol soldiers left behind by Genghis Khan in the 13th century, with considerable Turkish admixture. Their unwritten dialect, Hazaragi, contains regional languages - Arabic, Urdu, Mongol, Turkish and Dari/Farsi, which is now Afghanistan's primary language. Prior to the 19th century, Hazara were 67% of the total population, the largest Afghan ethnic group. More than half were massacred in 1893 when their autonomy was lost as a result of political action. Later fundamentalist governments, including the Taliban, attempted to dismiss them historically, politically and culturally by labeling them a mere religious entity and continued to attack them until they were driven from power. Now, estimates number the Afghan Hazara at around 2.9 million, less than 10% of the country's population according to the UN.

What Are Their Lives Like?

During the 1978-2001 war years numerous Hazara fled with other Afghans to Pakistan or Iran. While many returning refugees settled in Kabul to work as laborers, market vendors or in service positions, a majority returned to their mountain homelands. Comprised of a half-dozen tribes, the Hazara identify by village location more than by family ties. Marriage is arranged for a price - usually for the groom's economic advantage - and the bride joins her husband's family. Semi-nomadic life is simple and harsh in this arid region which is dependant on October to April snows to water meager grain crops and herds. Sustained drought is not uncommon. Housing varies by location and season. In valleys, shelters are sun-dried bricks plastered with a mud/straw mixture; at higher elevations, homes are stone with timber roofs; in summer tents are used as flocks move to high meadow pastures.

Food is barely adequate, consisting of bread, possibly vegetables and dairy products like buttermilk, yogurt and hard cheese. Rice and tea are obtained by barter. In dry years malnutrition and starvation are common. Health issues are serious, aggravated by geographical isolation, unsanitary conditions and little access to medical care, which is only available at far distances by foot or donkey. Tuberculosis, leprosy, dysentery and eye disease caused by dust storms and smoky living quarters often go untreated.

A talented people, the Hazara truly enjoy poetry, often memorizing it and using it to teach children, as well as storytelling and music that is distinct to their culture. They are expert rug weavers, embroiderers and calligraphers (even through most are illiterate). Wrestling and a baseball-like game are favorite physical pastimes.

Hazara women are honored in legend and folk tales. Shunning burkas, their traditional garb is bright green and red floral dresses, worn without the long under-trousers customary in Afghan culture and accessorized with heavy stockings, fur-lined boots, beaded headgear and heavy, coin strung necklaces. Independent and industrious given opportunity, many pre-Taliban Hazara women were highly educated and entered teaching or medical professions as well as serving in political roles. And, unlike other Afghan women, they fought beside Hazara men in battle.

Adjectives often used to describe the Hazara include brave, hardworking, trustworthy, friendly and committed. Known, too, as superb soldiers, today they proudly fight for equal rights, peace and Afghan unity, hopeful of a kinder future for their children.

The Hazara are Muslims (mostly Imami Shi'ite, otherwise known as "Twelvers", who hold a particular reverence for the son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed). A number of Hazara who have strong ties with the Tajik people are Ismaili Shi'ites (also known as "Seveners"). Strong feelings prevail between the two sects, each one often denying they have any ethnic affinity with the other at all.

The Hazara are in urgent need of basic health care and clean water. Illiteracy is high. Adequate educational opportunities need to be provided for both boys and girls. There are opportunities for missions work, but those involved (mainly medical and humanitarian in nature) are doing so under extreme difficulties. There are no official missionaries working among the Hazara.

Access to the Hazara's homelands is difficult in summer and virtually impossible in the winter. Christian converts are hesitant to meet with other believers for fear that a spy may be present among them. Christians turned in by government informants may face torture and even death unless they renounce their faith in Christ.

* Ask the Lord to call people who are willing to share Christ with the Hazara and to help meet their physical needs.
* Pray that God will call doctors and nurses, construction volunteers, and agriculturists to Afghanistan.
* Pray that God will send Christian teachers and literacy workers who can minister to the Hazara.
* Ask God to protect medical and benevolent workers in Afghanistan.
* Pray that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers into the fields where the Hazara are located.
* Ask the Lord to help you learn more about the Hazara and what you can do to reach out to them.
* Pray that the Christians who live near and among the Hazara will be bold in sharing their faith in Jesus.

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Introduction / History The Hazara are a people of distinctions - set apart from fellow Afghans by religion, mixed ethnicity and an independent nature - and they have suffered for them. Persecution has shaped and defined the Hazara, particularly over the last 200 years.

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Jihad with US-Arms - The Soviet–Afghan War I THE COLD WAR

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When the Soviet Union intervened in Afghan Civil War, they created a spiral of violence that is still going on till this day. On the one side the Soviet troops weren't able to gain control over the huge country. On the other side, the US, via the CIA, and the Arab countries supported guerrilla fighters with arms deliveries.

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Aw snap! Google Earth isn't supported by your browser yet. Try this link in Chrome instead. If you don't have Chrome installed, download it here.

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Gale eResources offers screened and reliable content from magazines, newspapers, and reference materials. This resource is part of Iowa AEA Online, a virtual library that provides no-cost access to 12 high-quality, web-based resources for accredited public and non-public PreK-12 schools. Iowa AEA Online is funded and supported by Iowa's Area Education Agencies.

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The U.S. State Deparment

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login: 3141alhs
Password:  aea10

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CultureGrams Online Database: Subscriber Area Only

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videos on topics

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Gale eResources offers screened and reliable content from magazines, newspapers, and reference materials. This resource is part of Iowa AEA Online, a virtual library that provides no-cost access to 12 high-quality, web-based resources for accredited public and non-public PreK-12 schools. Iowa AEA Online is funded and supported by Iowa's Area Education Agencies.

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Student Opinion

Williams played what might be the final Grand Slam in her 27-year career. What is your lasting memory of her - on or off the court?

Current Events

Students will examine a photo essay in which teenagers use their cameras to answer the question "What is school for?" Then, they will use the work as a model for their own responses to that question.

Picture Prompts

Have you ever tried to meditate? How did it go?

Teaching Strategies

Inspired by lighthearted New York Times features from across sections, these exercises can help students get to know one another.

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Williams played what might be the final Grand Slam in her 27-year career. What is your lasting memory of her - on or off the court? Students will examine a photo essay in which teenagers use their cameras to answer the question "What is school for?"

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Who are they really?

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It's only been a year-and-a-half since the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria seized one of Iraq's largest cities and declared a caliphate in the swathes of territory it held in both countries. Since then, foreign fighters have flocked to join the conflict and ISIS' leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has inspired pledges of allegiance from aspiring insurgents and breakaway factions of militant groups in countries such as Egypt, Yemen and Libya, as well as from well-established groups like Nigeria's Boko Haram.

Now, it appears ISIS-allied fighters are gaining a foothold in Afghanistan as well. But who are they really? Do they take orders from ISIS' leadership in Iraq and Syria? And could their ideology and grasp on territory spread like it did in Iraq and Syria? Here is what three experts had to say.

Who is "ISIS" in Afghanistan?

James Cunningham, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2012 until Dec. 2014, says he first heard rumors of ISIS in Afghanistan as his term was ending. "Just as I was getting ready to leave, there were rumors, but nothing very solid - expressions of concern that ISIS was starting to make contact with Afghans and Pakistanis, and trying to recruit people to come to the fight in Syria and Iraq."

However, experts say that the entities that now call themselves ISIS in Afghanistan are not fighters from Iraq or Syria. Rather, they're primarily disaffected Taliban members and insurgents from other groups who seized an opportunity to "rebrand" themselves as ISIS.

"It's important to look at what we mean when we say ISIS," says Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, The Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, "because these were groups that were disgruntled and they essentially rebranded themselves as a way of reinvigorating their group or faction, and attracting funding."

"There's been increased dissatisfaction among certain elements of the Taliban, and with the media talking about ISIS all the time and the Afghan government playing up the idea of ISIS as a way of keeping the United States interested, all of that sort of set the ground for the groups to rebrand themselves," Gopal says.

Among the groups that have taken up ISIS' black flag in Afghanistan are factions of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-i-Taliban, or TTP; the Pakistani militant group Lashkar e Taiba; and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Currently, the leaders of ISIS in Afghanistan are predominantly former Pakistani Taliban members.

Some members and commanders of the Afghan Taliban have also defected, highlighting rising disaffection within the group, which despite being able to briefly take and hold the provincial capital of Kunduz in September, has experienced fragmentation and turmoil over the last several months. Some defectors began joining ISIS because of the long absence of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader whose stature and mystique held the disparate group together. The confirmation of his death in July has only increased defections. Others, meanwhile, were driven to ISIS by disagreements over whether the Taliban should take part in peace talks with the Afghan government.

"The motivations for people to want to take up arms and fight against the Afghan state haven't diminished," Gopal says. "You have the leadership saying, well, it's time to negotiate, time to look at peace." The groups that have rebranded themselves as ISIS are able to step in, Gopal says, and claim, "'We're not the Taliban ... we're not going to enter these negotiations. We're part of this global movement now that's been so successful in Iraq and Syria."

No one knows exactly how many fighters now call themselves ISIS in Afghanistan, but officials estimate there are around a thousand. The main areas where they hold sway are districts in the eastern province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, and parts of Zabul in the south and Kunduz in the north. By July, it was claimed that ISIS had defeated the Taliban in three districts in Nangarhar - Achin, Shinwar and Khogyani. But the Taliban has been pushing back, leaving civilians caught in the middle of fighting between both groups. The mid-year tally of civilian casualties in Afghanistan hit a record high in 2015, since the United Nations started counting in 2009 - 1,592 dead, 3,329 injured.

Do they take orders from or have ties to ISIS in Iraq and Syria?

While a spokesman for ISIS central in Iraq and Syria announced the establishment of an Afghan affiliate in January, experts say there isn't much evidence of centralized command and control links between fighters in Afghanistan and the leadership in Iraq and Syria yet.

"They embrace the label, and they swear allegiance to Baghdadi, but it doesn't appear there is any direction, control or instructions coming from Syria, Iraq or Baghdadi," explains Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"If you look at the way in which this group has operated on the ground, it operates very differently from the ISIS in Iraq and Syria," Gopal says. "They're not acting like ISIS central ... They're not destroying shrines and doing things against local culture."

However, that could change, and the things to keep an eye on are capabilities or behaviors of the group changing over time, experts say.

Could they spread like ISIS in Iraq and Syria?

The startlingly rapid rise of ISIS rattled Western officials. In 2011, the group emerged from the ashes of Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2011 and gained recruits and fighting experience in the Syrian civil war before launching a lightning offensive on Mosul and establishing its caliphate. The group took advantage of power vacuums and weakened state security forces in Syria and Iraq, as well as harnessing sectarian tensions in Sunni majority areas.

With fighters in Afghanistan now flying the flag of ISIS too, the natural concern is whether what happened in Iraq and Syria could happen in Afghanistan.

It's still to early to tell, experts acknowledge, but there are fundamental differences between ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the situation in Afghanistan that could impede ISIS' spread in the latter.

ISIS' ideology, which is Salafist, is antithetical to the Taliban's ideology, which has origins in Sufism and Deobandi. Salafist ideology is a very austere interpretation of Islam that's "supposed to harken back to the way they imagine the Prophet lived," Gopal says. However, in Afghanistan people worship holy shrines and saints, and the beliefs are more mystical. "That's the way Islam functions in southern Afghanistan, but it's all considered heretical by the Salafists." These ideological differences make it harder to recruit and gain the acceptance of the public.

Gopal offers the example of an Afghan Taliban commander who allied with ISIS and was killed in a drone strike. Mullah Raouf Khadim had a lot of difficulty recruiting people in Afghanistan, because "he went back to his village and told people, 'You shouldn't worship graves. You shouldn't go to the holy men.' And they all thought he was crazy." He was only able to get people to come around after mollifying some of the Salafist interpretations.

Afghanistan also doesn't have the same kinds of sectarian tensions that ISIS can exploit, Felbab-Brown points out. "Although the Pashtuns often feel excluded from the government, and mobilizing along the lines of Pashtun ethnicity has been a factor, there's already an alternative that exists - the Taliban - and that's the big difference compared to Iraq and Syria." While Syria's militias were fractious, and Iraq's sectarian tensions boiled over, in Afghanistan "you have a pan-Afghan, national, potent, long-established insurgency" in the Taliban. So far, the fiercest fighting has not been between ISIS and government security forces, but between ISIS and the Taliban.

ISIS and the Taliban not spreading in Afghanistan is also contingent upon the stability of the government and the strength of Afghan security forces, who seemed to struggle in regaining control of Kunduz when the Taliban briefly overran it for two weeks in September.

To help prevent their spread, President Barack Obama announced last month that the United States would keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through 2016, and maintain about 5,500 going into 2017. In announcing the decision, Obama said, "I will not allow Afghanistan to be used as safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again."

Withdrawing all troops as planned, given the current situation, "would have led to a very dangerous situation for the region and for us," Cunningham, who now serves as the Khalilzad Chair on Afghanistan at the Atlantic Council, says. "I think the outcome would have been one in which the Afghans were not able to sustain their security effort in the way it needed to be done."

Such concerns have only grown in the wake of the Nov. 13 attack on Paris that killed at least 129 people - an assault that Iraqi intelligence suggested was at least partially planned in Raqqa, ISIS' self-appointed capital in Syria. As Cunningham says, if the growing brand of ISIS in Afghanistan isn't somehow defeated, the danger is that "there will develop a more organic connection with ISIS as it exists in Syria and Iraq."

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ISIS is in Afghanistan, But Who Are They Really?

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It's only been a year-and-a-half since the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria seized one of Iraq's largest cities and declared a caliphate in the swathes of territory it held in both countries.

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Listen to the full story from Weekend Edition

Buzkashi

NPR's Sean Carberry goes to a Buzkashi game in Northern Afghanistan. It's a centuries old game, in which men on horses aim to pick up the carcass of a dead calf, carry it across a field, and drop it in a pre-designated circle.

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Listen to the full story from Weekend Edition NPR's Sean Carberry goes to a Buzkashi game in Northern Afghanistan. It's a centuries old game, in which men on horses aim to pick up the carcass of a dead calf, carry it across a field, and drop it in a pre-designated circle.

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2012 Frontline Documentary

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Watch full-length episodes of PBS documentary series FRONTLINE for free. The Secret War - Inside the deepest front in America's war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban: Pakistan

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Official PBS Frontline website

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After the fall of the Taliban five years ago, some experts warned of a nightmare scenario in which the Taliban and Al Qaeda would escape from Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan and set up new command centers far out of America's reach.

That nightmare scenario has now come true. The Taliban controls large parts of the lawless tribal areas along the border. In a video obtained by FRONTLINE, the Taliban demonstrate their brutal brand of justice. After executing 17 people, said to be thieves, in front of a crowd of hundreds, they hung the bodies on poles for three days. "We have killed these people and sent them to God," a Taliban gunman says to the camera. "God will bring them to justice."

FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith (" Hunting bin Laden"; " Truth, War and Consequences") returns to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and presents a rare look inside this secret sanctuary in "Return of the Taliban." In a region long suspected of harboring Osama bin Laden and strictly off-limits to U.S. troops, Smith explores the complex web of alliances among the Taliban, Al Qaeda fighters and the Pakistani military, and analyzes the consequences for U.S. policy.

After 9/11, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged his country's support to America's fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but he has struggled to control his own military and intelligence services -- which have long supplied money, weapons and military advisers to radical fighters in Afghanistan. For Pakistan, the benefits of cooperation with America have been clear. As President Musharraf tells FRONTLINE, "Defense cooperation has increased between the United States and Pakistan, and ... the debt relief that we got will account for about $4 to $5 billion."

U.S. officials say that today the border region is a key front of the global war on terror. For example, when British police announced that they had foiled a plot to blow up as many as 12 flights to the United States, critical intelligence about the plan had been acquired in the tribal areas. Known terrorists have visited the region regularly, including Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested with plans to attack targets in New Jersey and London, and top Al Qaeda planner Abu Faraj al-Libbi. And despite the presence of 80,000 Pakistani troops, the Taliban and their supporters continue to use the region as a base from which to mount attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.

The tribal areas are inherently difficult to control because of terrain and the fierce autonomy claimed by local leaders. "We used to call them the no-go area[s], or the inaccessible areas," says Gov. Ali Muhammad Jan Orakzai, the Pakistani political chief of the tribal areas. "We had maps, but they were not very accurate. The borders are unguarded." Culturally, there are also great sympathies for the Taliban cause. According to Steve Coll, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars, "when the Pakistan army is fighting the Taliban, they're fighting cousins. They're fighting brethren."

Even under government pressure, some tribesmen continue to provide money and resources to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. After prodding from the United States, in 2004 Pakistan launched a major military offensive against a joint force of tribal militia and Al Qaeda fighters in an effort to take control of an area where Al Qaeda training camps were located. But the offensive failed, and Pakistani authorities turned to negotiation. The army demanded that tribal leaders give up all foreign fighters taking refuge with them, stop cross-border raids against U.S. forces in Afghanistan and lay down their arms. In return, the government agreed to pay the tribesmen more than a half-million dollars.

According to sources familiar with the agreement, the money was destined for Al Qaeda. "This was part of the deal because some of these commanders had ... borrowed money for logistics, for support," says Ismail Khan, an editor at Dawn, Pakistan's largest English-language daily newspaper. "They wanted the money to pay their debt to Al Qaeda."

An uneasy truce followed. The army is largely confined to its barracks, the Taliban exercises control over much of the area and foreign fighters continue to launch cross-border raids. President Musharraf concedes that his strategy of negotiating with the local militants in 2004 has failed. "We thought if we reached an agreement, that would be the end of it," President Musharraf tells FRONTLINE. "Well, it proved wrong." Nonetheless, President Musharraf's government signed a new deal on Sept. 5 with tribal leaders who control another part of the lawless border region, but observers report that the terms are even less favorable to the government and signal a further strengthening of the Taliban's grip on the area.

Frustrated by Pakistan's lack of control in the tribal areas, the U.S. military began direct targeting of Al Qaeda operatives using unmanned Predator aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles. The program was exposed in December 2005 when a local Pakistani journalist and FRONTLINE contributor, Hayat Ullah Khan (" In Search of Al Qaeda"), took photographs showing that a U.S. missile had been used to kill an Al Qaeda operative, directly contradicting the Pakistani military's account of his death. Within days, Hayat Ullah was seized by unknown assailants, and his body was later found dumped by the side of the road; he was wearing government-issue handcuffs. His family tells FRONTLINE that the Pakistani military is responsible for his death, but President Musharraf and the military deny any involvement. Hayat Ullah Khan was the seventh journalist killed in the tribal areas since 2002.

"The United States is beginning to recognize that its project in Afghanistan will fail unless it addresses the sanctuary and support that the Taliban enjoys in Pakistan," says Steve Coll. "But the United States has not yet reached the point where it knows what kind of ... policy it is prepared to carry out."

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Introduction | Return Of The Taliban | FRONTLINE | PBS

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After the fall of the Taliban five years ago, some experts warned of a nightmare scenario in which the Taliban and Al Qaeda would escape from Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan and set up new command centers far out of America's reach. That nightmare scenario has now come true.

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Watch the video and answer the questions.
https://goo.gl/k3K7UQ

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History of Sunni Muslims, Shi-a Muslims, and Hazara

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History of Sunni Muslims, Shi-a Muslims, and Hazara

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Sunni and Shia Islam (What's the Difference Between Sunni and Shia Muslims?)

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Edpuzzle assignment. Make video delivery an interactive experience. Students watch the lesson while answering the quizzes. The teacher gets the powerful hassle-free analytics.

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The United States Secret War in Afghanistan

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The United States Secret War in Afghanistan

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The CIA's Secret: America's War in Afghanistan

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Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institute and Director of its Intelligence Project, Bruce Riedel on his new book, "What We Won: America's Secret War in Afghanistan."

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The Taliban were removed from power in Afghanistan by US-led forces in 2001, but the group has seized control of the country once again following a rapid offensive.

The capital, Kabul, was the last major city to fall to the offensive that began months ago but accelerated as the hardline Islamists gained control of territories.

The group entered direct talks with the US back in 2018, and in February 2020 the two sides struck a peace deal that committed the US to withdrawal and the Taliban to preventing attacks on US forces. Other promises included not allowing al-Qaeda or other militants to operate in areas it controlled and proceeding with national peace talks.

But in the year that followed, the Taliban continued to target Afghan security forces and civilians, advancing rapidly across the country.

Rise to power

The Taliban, or "students" in the Pashto language, emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. It is believed that the predominantly Pashtun movement first appeared in religious seminaries - mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia - which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam.

The promise made by the Taliban - in Pashtun areas straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan - was to restore peace and security and enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power.

From south-western Afghanistan, the Taliban quickly extended their influence. In September 1995 they captured the province of Herat, bordering Iran, and exactly one year later they captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, overthrowing the regime of President Burhanuddin Rabbani - one of the founding fathers of the Afghan mujahideen that resisted the Soviet occupation. By 1998, the Taliban were in control of almost 90% of Afghanistan.

Afghans, weary of the mujahideen's excesses and infighting after the Soviets were driven out, generally welcomed the Taliban when they first appeared on the scene. Their early popularity was largely due to their success in stamping out corruption, curbing lawlessness and making the roads and the areas under their control safe for commerce to flourish.

But the Taliban also introduced or supported punishments in line with their strict interpretation of Sharia law - such as public executions of convicted murderers and adulterers, and amputations for those found guilty of theft. Men were required to grow beards and women had to wear the all-covering burka.

The Taliban also banned television, music and cinema, and disapproved of girls aged 10 and over going to school. They were accused of various human rights and cultural abuses. One notorious example was in 2001, when the Taliban went ahead with the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddha statues in central Afghanistan, despite international outrage.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied that it was the architect of the Taliban enterprise, but there is little doubt that many Afghans who initially joined the movement were educated in madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan.

Pakistan was also one of only three countries, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which recognised the Taliban when they were in power in Afghanistan. It was also the last country to break diplomatic ties with the group.

At one point, the Taliban threatened to destabilise Pakistan from areas they controlled in the north-west. One of the most high-profile and internationally condemned of all Pakistani Taliban attacks took place in October 2012, when schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot on her way home in the town of Mingora.

A major military offensive two years later following the Peshawar school massacre greatly reduced the group's influence in Pakistan though. At least three key figures of the Pakistani Taliban had been killed in US drone strikes in 2013, including the group's leader, Hakimullah Mehsud.

Al-Qaeda 'sanctuary'

The attention of the world was drawn to the Taliban in Afghanistan in the wake of the 11 September 2001 World Trade Center attacks in New York. The Taliban were accused of providing a sanctuary for the prime suspects - Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda movement.

On October 7, 2001, a US-led military coalition launched attacks in Afghanistan, and by the first week of December the Taliban regime had collapsed. The group's then-leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and other senior figures, including Bin Laden, evaded capture despite one of the largest manhunts in the world.

Many senior Taliban leaders reportedly took refuge in the Pakistani city of Quetta, from where they guided the Taliban. But the existence of what was dubbed the "Quetta Shura" was denied by Islamabad.

Despite ever higher numbers of foreign troops, the Taliban gradually regained and then extended their influence in Afghanistan, rendering vast tracts of the country insecure, and violence in the country returned to levels not seen since 2001.

There were numerous Taliban attacks on Kabul and, in September 2012, the group carried out a high-profile raid on Nato's Camp Bastion base.

Hopes of a negotiated peace were raised in 2013, when the Taliban announced plans to open an office in Qatar. But mistrust on all sides remained high and the violence went on.

In August 2015, the Taliban admitted they had covered up Mullah Omar's death - reportedly of health problems at a hospital in Pakistan - for more than two years. The following month, the group said it had put aside weeks of infighting and rallied around a new leader in the form of Mullah Mansour, who had been the deputy of Mullah Omar.

At around the same time, the Taliban seized control of a provincial capital for the first time since their defeat in 2001, taking control of the strategically important city of Kunduz.

Mullah Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in May 2016 and replaced by his deputy Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, who remains in control of the group.

Seizing power

In the year following the US-Taliban peace deal of February 2020 - which was the culmination of a long spell of direct talks - the Taliban appeared to shift their tactics from complex attacks in cities and on military outposts to a wave of targeted assassinations that terrorised Afghan civilians.

The targets - journalists, judges, peace activists, women in positions of power - suggested that the Taliban had not changed their extremist ideology, only their strategy.

Despite grave concerns from Afghan officials over the government's vulnerability to the Taliban without international support, the new US president, Joe Biden, announced in April 2021 that all American forces would leave the country by 11 September - two decades to the day since the felling of the World Trade Center.

Having outlasted a superpower through two decades of war, the Taliban began seizing vast swathes of territory, before once again toppling a government in Kabul in the wake of a foreign power withdrawing.

They swept across Afghanistan in just 10 days, taking their first provincial capital on 6 August . By 15 August, they were at the gates of Kabul.

Their lightning advance prompted tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, many arriving in the Afghan capital, others heading for neighbouring countries.

The Taliban's return to rule brings an end to almost 20 years of a US-led coalition's presence in the country.

More on this story

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The Taliban were removed from power in Afghanistan by US-led forces in 2001, but the group has seized control of the country once again following a rapid offensive. The capital, Kabul, was the last major city to fall to the offensive that began months ago but accelerated as the hardline Islamists gained control of territories.

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Britannica

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Britannica Online School Edition gives teachers and students instant access to four complete encyclopedias and other resources that ensure consistency with classroom topics and age-appropriate language. This unique reference and learning suite also offers high-quality online learning materials that have been developed by teachers and curriculum experts.