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The Mujahidin take Kabul in April 1992. The former communist leaders seek refuge in the United Nations compound. Several Mujahidin militias siege the city.

I was there in the city at the time and they were initially greeted by flowers and applause. They took up positions around the city, and what became plane by the end of the day was that yes they had taken Kabul, but now they were gonna to turn in fight each other for who control the city.

The next morning the next phase of the civil war begins. The artillery fire is ferocious. Whole neighborhoods of the capital are reduced to rubble. For the next 2 years more will continue sporadically and there will be no coherent government in Afghanistan. Lawlessness and chaos rule. The world pays little attention. A dangerous new group is about to step into the breach.

The standard lined out of Washing in the early 1990s became:" the Afghans have to settle things for themselves, we can't settle their war for them." That became a kind of excuse behind which American policy withdrew.

Out of this chaos and misery and international neglect a movement emerges. It is mostly young men, refugees, students in the religious schools of Pakistan, they are Talibs, students, and they call themselves the Taliban.

This group of religious teachers and students would never have been able to form a powerful political literally a military movement if they had not also received support from important groups in Pakistan.

The Taliban starts small. They confront local warlords in Afghanistan's south home to Pashtuon minority. They use violence swiftly and effectively. They do not shy for executing or maiming thiefs and drug dealers. Word of their success spreads and many rally to their side.

The Taliban were being cited and celebrated across Afghanistan because at that point no one moves their theology. Afghans were largely delighted if they had banned, absolved. The Afghans were tired of war. They wanted quiet. They wanted security. And the Taliban was able to give the Afghanistan.

They are led by a young and obscured village mullah named Omer. The title mullah indicates that he is holy man, and mullah Omer is holy man who claims to a rigid and conservative understanding of Islam.