* Tanner, Stephen ( 2002 ) Afghanistan: a military history from Alexander the Great to the fall of the Taliban Da Capo Press, New York, ISBN 0-306-81164-2, also available from NetLibrary

After the Taliban government was toppled during Operation Enduring Freedom, Rabbani returned to Kabul and served as a temporary President from November to December 20, 2001, when Hamid Karzai was chosen at the Bonn International Conference on Afghanistan.

The CIA's Special Activities Division created successful guerrilla forces from the Hmong tribe during the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, from the Northern Alliance against the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan in 2001, and from the Kurdish Peshmerga against Ansar al-Islam and the forces of Saddam Hussein during the war in Iraq in 2003.

In 1994, the Taliban ( a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan ) also developed in Afghanistan as a politico-religious force, reportedly in opposition to the tyranny of the local governor.

On September 26, 1996, as the Taliban with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia prepared for another major offensive Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul.

20, 000 were regular Pakistani soldiers either from the Frontier Corps or army and an estimated 8, 000 were militants recruited in madrassas filling regular Taliban ranks.

Resentment was increasingly gathering against Taliban rule from the bottom of Afghan society including the Pashtun areas.

In January 2010, the Kabul office of New Ansari Exchange, Afghanistan's largest hawala money transfer business, was shuttered following a raid by the Sensitive Investigative Unit, the country's national anti-political corruption vetted and trained by the US Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ), allegedly because this company could be involved in laundering profits from the illicit opium trade and moving the cash earned by Taliban through extortion and drug trafficking.

It was later reported that, while in Afghanistan, Harry had called in United States Air Force air strikes, helped Gurkha troops repel an attack from Taliban insurgents, and performed patrol duty in hostile areas.

The Taliban differed from other Islamist movements to the point where they might be more properly described as Islamic fundamentalist or neofundamentalist, interested in spreading " an idealized and systematized version of village customs to an entire country.

Taliban are still very much alive and fighting a vigorous insurgency from bases in the frontier regions of Pakistan with suicide bombings and armed attacks being launched against NATO, Afghan government targets and civilians.

Hekmati had played a key role in helping Ismail Khan escape from the Taliban in 1999.

Hekmati stood accused of helping Taliban leaders escape from the custody of Hamid Karzai's government.

It formerly carried the death penalty in Afghanistan under the Taliban, but subsequently has changed from a capital crime to one that is punished with fines and a prison sentence.

" I provided my services as a soldier to the Taliban last year from about August to December.

On September 26, 1996, as the Taliban with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul.

Ahmad Shah Massoud withdrew his forces from Kabul to the northern regions of Afghanistan where he and his former enemy Abdul Rashid Dostum created the United Front ( Northern Alliance ) against the Taliban that were preparing offensives against the remaining areas under the control of Massoud and those under the control of Dostum.

The Taliban denied UN food supplies to 160, 000 starving civilians, and conducted a policy of scorched earth burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes during their rule from 1996-2001.

This peace was shattered in May 1997, when he was betrayed by one of his generals, Abdul Malik Pahlawan, forcing him to flee from Mazar as the Taliban were getting ready to take the city.

Seizing upon a power vacuum after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan after their invasion, the Taliban assumed the role of government from 1996 – 2001.

Footage includes the now infamous video of the flogging of a screaming woman pinned down by two men as well as Taliban recruitment footage of beheadings, including some by children, which turned out to be a fake video.

According to UK Ministry of Defence, British military forces have also used thermobaric weapons in their AGM-114N Hellfire missiles ( carried by Apache helicopters and UAVs ) against the Taliban in the War in Afghanistan.

The Vice and Virtue Ministry was a government department during the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

* People's Republic of China Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said that claims made by the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal of connections between China and the Taliban were false.

In November 2007 a World Food Programme convoy carrying mixed food aid was forced to abandon its mission due to security concerns and Afghanistan's Interior Ministry confirmed that Taliban insurgents had infiltrated the southern district of Kajran in a bid to destabilise the province.

On November 9, 2007 the Ministry of Defence announced that the squadron's MQ-9 Reapers had begun operations in Afghanistan against the Taliban.

In March 2008 the U. K. Ministry of Defence claimed that that they and the Afghan army had uncovered a Taliban torture chamber where two individuals were believed to have been beaten.

Outside Saudi Arabia, the Taliban regime, or Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, also had a " Ministry of the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice " with a very similar religious policing function.

He served as the political head of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( UIFSA ), an alliance of various political groups who fought against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Bonn agreement for the post Taliban governance of Afghanistan was debated and signed in the former seat of government of Western Germany.

During the course of the hijack of Indian Airlines Flight 814 in 1999, the Taliban requested recognition by India in exchange for help in negotiations.

Many analyst like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests which the Taliban decline.

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf send more troops against the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan | United Front of Ahmad Shah Massoud than the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf-then as Chief of Army Staff-was responsible for sending thousands of Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and Bin Laden against the forces of Massoud.

He stated that the Taliban and Al Qaeda had introduced " a very wrong perception of Islam " and that without the support of Pakistan the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year.

According to a report by the United Nations, the Taliban and other militants were responsible for 76 % of civilian casualties in 2009, 75 % in 2010 and 80 % in 2011.

The use of the term Islamism was at first " a marker for scholars more likely to sympathize " with new Islamic movements ; however, as the term gained popularity it became more specifically associated with political groups such as the Taliban or the Algerian Armed Islamic Group, as well as with highly publicized acts of violence.

The Taliban were spawned by the thousands of madrasahs the Deobandi movement established for impoverished Afghan refugees and supported by governmental and religious groups in neighboring Pakistan.

Like most Islamists, the Taliban enforced strict prohibitions on women, but these were so severe – for example effectively forbidding most employment and schooling – that they created an international outcry.

During the U. S. intervention in Afghanistan, he fought against the Taliban within the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( Northern Alliance ) and thus regained his position as Governor of Herat.

Aged 20, he decided to travel to Afghanistan to fight for the Afghan Taliban government forces against Northern Alliance fighters.

Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests.

Some parts in the Taliban also ran a network for human trafficking.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf – then as Chief of Army Staff – was responsible for sending thousands of Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and Bin Laden against the United Front.

* December 2009, after his disputed re-election, President Hamid Karzai announced to move ahead with a plan for a Loya Jirga to discuss the Taliban insurgency.

* June 2010, at Kabul, in which around 1, 600 delegates of all ethnic groups attended for a peace talks with the Taliban.

In retaliation for this incident, the Taliban on August 8, 1998, returned and led a six-day killing frenzy of Hazaras, a report the Taliban denied at that time.