Taliban

Public execution of a woman by Taliban at Ghazi Sports Stadium, 1999, for murdering her husband.


The Taliban are a Sunni puritanical Muslim and Pashtun movement that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, and are currently engaged in a protracted guerrilla war against NATO forces and their local allies within Afghanistan.

While in power in Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Beneath Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the movement, were village mullahs (junior Islamic religious scholars), most of whom had studied in Islamic religious schools in Pakistan. Almost 98% of the Taliban movement was derived from the Pashtuns of southern Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan, but it also included a small percentage of non-Pashtun volunteers from Eurasia to China.

The Taliban became notorious for their treatment of women. Women were forced to wear the burqa in public; were not allowed to work; were not allowed to be educated after the age of eight, and until then were permitted only to study the Qur'an; were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperon; and faced public flogging and execution for violations of the Taliban's laws.