Who is the Taliban?

The Taliban (Pashto: طالبان ṭālibān, meaning "students"), also Taleban, is a Sunni Islamist political movement that governed Afghanistan from 1996 until it was overthrown in late 2001 during Operation Enduring Freedom. It has regrouped since 2004 and revived as a strong insurgencymovement governing local Pashtun areas and fighting a guerrilla war against the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the NATO-ledInternational Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The movement is primarily made up of members belonging to ethnic Pashtun tribes, along with volunteers from nearby Islamic countries such as Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Arabs, Punjabis and others. It operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, mostly around the Durand Line regions. U.S. officials say their headquarters is in or near Quetta, Pakistan, and that Pakistan andIran provide support, although both nations deny this.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, in hiding, leads the movement. Omar's original commanders were "a mixture of former small-unit military commanders and madrasah teachers,"while its rank-and-file was made up mostly of Afghan refugees who had studied at Islamic religious schools in Pakistan. The Taliban received valuable training, supplies and arms from the Pakistani government, particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and many recruits from madrasas for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, primarily ones established by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam(JUI).

Although in control of Afghanistan's capital (Kabul) and most of the country for five years, the Taliban regime, which called itself the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan", gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It has regained some amount of political control and acceptance in Pakistan's border region, but recently lost one of its key leaders, Baitullah Mehsud, in a CIA missile strike. However Pakistan has launched an offensive to force the Taliban from its territory.

The Taliban enforced one of the "strictest interpretation[s] of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world", but occasionally modifies its code of conduct. In mid-2009, it established an ombudsman office in northern Kandahar, David Kilcullen describes as a "direct challenge" to the ISAF.