Political and religious faction and militia that came to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Following the Soviet Union's 1989 withdrawal from Afghanistan (see Afghan Wars), the Taliban (Persian: “Students”)—whose name refers to the Islamic religious students who formed the group's main recruits—arose as a popular reaction to the chaos that gripped the country. In 1994–95, under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban extended its control in Afghanistan from a single city to more than half the country, and in 1996 it captured Kabul and instituted a strict Islamic regime. By 1999, the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan but failed to win international recognition of its regime because of its harsh social policies—which included the almost complete removal of women from public life—and its role as a haven for Islamic extremists.
Among these extremists was Osama bin Laden, the expatriate Saudi Arabian leader of Al-Qaeda, a network of Islamic militants that had engaged in numerous acts of terrorism. The Taliban's refusal to extradite bin Laden to the U.S. following the September 11 attacks in 2001 prompted the U.S. to attack Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, driving the former from power and sending the leaders of both groups into hiding. See also Islamic fundamentalism.
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