Taliban

Etymological considerations

The word taliban is the plural of an Arab word of origin talib , indicating that which studies in a religious school. In French, one should thus write " a taleb" and “of the taliban”, without S . But in the everyday usage, the press and according to the grammatical rules French, one writes a taliban, talibans. The dictionary the Large Robert guarantees this use (edition of 2001). Taleb is defined there like “public writer in talibé word and North Africa”, as “raises of a Koranic school”. In paṣto, the term knows primarily the meaning of studying in Théologie in a madrasa , with the detriment of the Arabic direction first.

Origin of the Taliban

During the war against the Soviets, of the million young Afghans were educated in the madrassas - religious schools - tribal zone Pakistan ease. In these madrassas they were strongly influenced by a school of thought, the school of Deobandi, which preaches the return to “a pure Islam”, near to that existing at the time of the Prophète according to their spiritual guide.

The chiefs of Guerre who tear during and after the occupation of Afghanistan by the Russians, are islamist , having objectives Politique S: they want initially to establish a islamist State, laws and a state respecting according to them the word of God, with an aim that then the company and manners become Islamic.

The Taliban, they, are the “fundamentalist ones”. Contrary to the islamist ones, they want initially réislamiser manners, justice, the human beings. The form of the State does not have importance for them in the condition of respecting the divine law. And only those which studied it, i.e. of course the Taliban, are capable to explain it and to ensure the respect of it.

Therefore they declare in their first years that they do not want the political power. It is also for that they attach such an amount of importance to all that touches with the daily life, public or private.

During the first years of their takeover, the Taliban enjoy a real popular support, especially but not only, on behalf of the populations Pachtoune S of the south and the east. The Afghans are tired of their war with the USSR and the exactions of the war leaders who ensanglantent the country, and accommodate readily these monks which brings the Paix and the Sécurité. The constraints morals which will shock the Occident so much when he condescends to be interested in the fate of the Afghans, do not change in fact not large-thing in the campaigns where the women carry already the Burqa, where they do not work nor do not go to school separately a negligible minority.

From 1994 at end 1997, the Taliban also benefit from a moral support if not financier and soldier on behalf of the secret services Pakistani, from the Saudi Arabia and the the United States, although this last forever recognized the legitimacy of the mode. Presence on territory Afghan, from 1996, Usama Bin Laden, which declared and strong high that it was going to attack the United States by all the means, changes gives it. And the Occident then discovers a mode which shocks its fundamental values.

The civil war at the time of the Taliban

After their appearance on the Afghan scene in October 1994, the Taliban take in a few months the control of the southern half of the country. In February 1995, they are with Maydan Shahr with a score of kilometers in the south of Kabul, and to a hundred kilometers of Hérat in the west. Those having demolishes Hezb-i-Islami in the Logar and having killed Mazari, the chief will hazara of Hezb-i-wahdat, Ahmad Shah Massoud benefits from it to take the total control of Kabul. The capital is destroyed to 40% by the combat of the civil war.

Hérat is taken in September 1995, Kabul the September 27th 1996 and the Taliban benefits from it to kill the former president Communiste Mohammed Nadjibullah which had found refuge in a house of UNO since its dismissal. The Mollah Omar, chief of the Taliban, becomes de facto the new Head of State under the title of Commandeur of the Believers .

Mazar-i-Sharif is taken first once in 1997 but that proves to be a trap in which approximately: 3000 Taliban will coldly be massacred, and when the Taliban take again Mazar in 1998, they are avenged by massacring in their turn several tens of thousands of Hazara S, men, women and children. The Hazaradjat is then almost encircled and fall after the fall from Bamiyan in September 1998. The Taliban make dynamite the two Buddhas carved of Bamiyan.

The Alliance of North, gathering of plain enemy brothers but against the Taliban, disaggregates then. The majority of its chiefs take refuge abroad and Ahmad Shah Massoud remains the only leader of Alliance to resist since its mountainous stronghold of the Panchir from where it keeps the control of the North-East of Afghanistan. Elsewhere in the country, only some pockets of resistance in Hazaradjat, under the command of Khalili, continue to badger the Taliban, causing revenges, massacres of civilians and a total destruction of the town of Bamiyan and its neighborhoods.

The August 20th 1998, the United States launch dozen cruise missiles on camps of drive supposed of Usama Bin Laden, in reprisal with the attacks against their embassies of Nairobi and Dar be Salam.

The September 9th 2001 with Khwadja Bahuddin, Ahmad Shah Massoud is killed at the time of a suicide bombing made by two Taliban being made pass for journalists provided with Belgian false passports.

After the attacks of the September 11th, 2001 against the World Trade Center with New York whose planning is allotted to Usama Bin Laden, the war is declared in Afghanistan by the government of the United States which carries out a coalition elected by UNO. The capacity taliban collapses in a few days beginning November 2001.

After a few months of transition, a Loyah Jirgah invests Hamid Karzai.

Life under the Taliban

The mode imposed by the Taliban was based on a strict and literal respect of a certain vision of the Islam, particularly rigorous. The culture of the Opium is reduced but the zones controlled by the taliban continue their production, approximately 35 tons in 2001 according to the PNUCID (Program of the United Nations for the international control of drugs) in spite of the prohibition of culture issued by mollah Mohammed Omar in the year 2000.

Afghanistan lived then under the cut of: 30000 with: 40000 Taliban, moved by a return to the original purity of Islam. The “ministry for the promotion of the virtue and the repression of the vice” control all aspects of the life of the Afghans.

Institutionalized intolerance

The theater, the cinema and television were prohibited; the possession of cameras and video tape recorders became illegal. The ministry for Information prohibited to the foreign journalists to speak to the women, to take stereotypes and to only walk. Only one hotel was opened with the Western reporters in Kabul. The sexual relationships except marriage are prohibited and punished of 100 whiplashes. In the name of the Iconoclasme, the Taliban dynamited the statues of giant Buddhas of Bamiyan old fifteen centuries. The diffusion of ideas “not-Moslem women” was also prohibited. In 2001, the Hindu minorities must carry a distinctive sign. The Taliban burned the musical instruments and the cassettes, struck and imprisoned the musicians, prohibited the dance. Boxing, like much of other sports, were prohibited. Each day, the radio of the Taliban enumerated new interdicts: to paint in white the panes of the houses not to see the punitive women, forwardings inside to break the television sets, video tape recorders, to tear the photographs of family. The authorities as made check as one did not listen to music in the houses or during the marriages. The systems medical and school were duplicated according to the kind, while giving the priority to the men. The Charia became the base of the Afghan right. In particular, the amputation and lapidation were among sorrows applied under the Taliban. Any human representation was illegal, even for the headstocks of the little girls. The homosexual ones are condemned to died: one makes be crushed on them a wall, and one uses a bulldozer to complete the sorrow. In the schools, half of time is devoted to the religion. The courses of sports and art were eliminated from the school programs.

Condition of the women

The women were excluded from the labor market, they were to be entirely covered by traditional clothing, the Burqa (or Tchadri), and could leave their house only accompanied by their husband or a close relation. The burqa was kind of a folded and opaque tent, on which is cut out a grid bordered on the level of the eyes. The women refusing this vestimentary code were whipped. In the same way, the men were to wear a beard of at least 10 cm: the length was checked in the street. The people were to shave the pubis and the armpits. The women judged for crimes of adultery were shot publicly in stages. Secondary education was interdict with the girls. But the mode closed the eyes on private schools and clandestine. The beaten women were legions, the suicides increased…

The Taliban after 2001

July 16th, 2004: a rocket falls close to a college visited a few minutes later by the president Hamid Karzai. The Taliban assert the Attentat.
August 29th, 2004: car bomb attack, in Kabul, making at least 12 died and about thirty casualties. The Taliban aimed at the company of American safety Dyncorps, which deals with the protection of Hamid Karzai Afghan president.
July 9th, 2005: six police officers were decapitated and four others were killed in the south of the country by rebels Taliban. According to the Afghan authorities, there would have been 500 died in the first six-month period 2005 because of attacks and attacks in the country.

In the capital, Kabul, the life is standardized and relatively calm. The remainder of the country is with the hands of tribal or lords of the war formally subjected to the legal government, but sometimes very independent groups.

Certain rural areas of the south Pachtoune, especially along the border with the Pakistan, remain under the cut of the Taliban.

Since the beginning of the year 2005,150 young women preferred to commit suicide while immolant themselves by fire rather than to be married of force. The forced marriages count among the anti-Islamic practices that the Taliban make an effort éradiquer of the Afghan company by the establishment of the Charia.

Since August 2006, the violent actions of the taliban redoubled in the south of the country (town of Kandahar and its area), involving in answer of immense operations of the Afghan National army and the quotas with NATO to counter them.

The advertisement of died of the Mollah Dadullah, confirmed by NATO on May 13rd, 2007 is considered, by the perpétrateurs, like an hard blow carried to the Taliban.

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