The Taliban ('taelᵻbaen,_'ta:lᵻba:n; ṭālibān or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist and Pashtun nationalist militant political movement in Afghanistan. It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country from 1996 to 2001, before being overthrown following the American invasion. It recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 following the departure of most coalition forces, after nearly 20 years of insurgency, and currently controls all of the country. However, its government is not recognized by any country. The Taliban government has been criticized for restricting human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women and girls to work and to have an education.
The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as one of the prominent factions in the Afghan Civil War and largely consisted of students (ṭālib) from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools (madāris). Under the leadership of Mullah Omar (1996-2001), the movement spread throughout most of Afghanistan, shifting power away from the Mujahideen warlords. In 1996, the group administered roughly three-quarters of the country, and established the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban's government was opposed by the Northern Alliance militia, which seized parts of northeast Afghanistan and largely maintained international recognition as a continuation of the interim Islamic State of Afghanistan. The Taliban held control of most of the country until being overthrown after the United States invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001. Many members of the Taliban fled to neighboring Pakistan.
After being overthrown, the Taliban launched an insurgency to fight the United States–backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the NATO–led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the War in Afghanistan. In May 2002, exiled members formed the Council of Leaders (Rahbarī Shūrā) based in the city of Quetta in Pakistan.
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The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions of the East Coast to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, two of the world's five-tallest buildings at the time, and aimed the next two flights toward targets in or near Washington, D.
Pashtuns (ˈpʌʃˌtʊn, ˈpɑːʃˌtʊn, ˈpæʃˌtuːn; پښتانه, pəx̌tānə́), also known as Pakhtuns, Pashteens or Pathans, are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They historically were also referred to as Afghans until the 1970s, after the term's meaning had become a demonym for members of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The group's native language is Pashto, an Iranian language in the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Arab world, and the largest in West Asia and the Middle East. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south.