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Intel - History
Taliban Revolution

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

• "An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries." — Zbigniew Brzezinski
• In the long run there may even be targets of opportunity for the West created by ferment within the crescent. Islam is undoubtedly compatible with socialism, but it is inimical to atheistic Communism. The Soviet Union is already the world's fifth largest Muslim nation. By the year 2000, the huge Islamic populations in the border republics may outnumber Russia's now dominant Slavs. From Islamic democracies on Russia's southern tier, a zealous Koranic evangelism might sweep across the border into these politically repressed Soviet states, creating problems for the Kremlin.

• Whatever the solution, there is a clear need for the U.S. to recapture what Kissinger calls "the geopolitical momentum." That more than anything else will help maintain order in the crescent of crisis.
• Time Magazine, January 15, 1979

• In the summer, Mullah Omar heads to neighbouring in Pakistan.
• Later in the year, he returns to Afghanistan, reportedly with a well-armed and well-funded militia of 1,500 followers, who would provide protection for a Pakistani trade convoy carrying goods overland to Turkmenistan.

• Many reports, however, suggest that the convoy was in fact full of Pakistani fighters posing as Taliban, and that the Taliban had gained considerable arms, military training, and economic aid from the Pakistanis.

Taliban executing women in soccer stadium

• In September, after gaining power in and around Kandahar through a combination of military and diplomatic victories, the Taliban attack, and eventually capture Herat province, bordering Iran.

Rare photo taken by Peter Lorimer, of Mullah
Muhammad Omar on a Kandahar rooftop, draped in the cloak of the Prophet Muhammad

• In May 1996, Mr. bin Laden forms a close relationship with leaders of the Taliban, particularly Mullah Omar.

• Mr. bin Laden’s son later marries Mullah Omar’s daughter.

• This was accomplished with the assistance of the Pakistani military.
• This has been the only real military victory by the Pakistani military
• Done under Benazhir Bhutto

Taliban style restrictions are
 imposed on Afghan women

Taliban executes opponents,
Hanging them on a crane

• Months later, the Taliban bans opium poppy cultivation, but by 2000 opium production still accounts for 75 per cent of the world’s supply.

• BBC
• Daily Telegraph

• Bill Richardson, the US Ambassador to the UN, meets Taliban officials in Kabul.
• (All such meetings are illegal, because the US still officially recognizes the government the Taliban ousted as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.)
• US officials at the time call the oil and gas pipeline project a “fabulous opportunity” and are especially motivated by the “prospect of circumventing Iran, which offers another route for the pipeline.”
• Richardson tries to persuade the Taliban to hand over bin Laden to the US, promising to end the international isolation of the Taliban if they cooperate.

• Eleven diplomats from Iranian were killed by the Taliban.
• Iran nearly went to war over this incident, and amassed thousands of troops on the border, in preparation
• At the same time, the crazed Taliban invaders stormed the consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and kidnapped the ten diplomats and one journalist from the national press agency IRNA, who were there.

• It was on August 8 when the Taliban conquered the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, that tensions with neighboring Iran flared up.

• According to reports verified by the UN and other humanitarian aid officials, the Taliban slaughtered up to 6,000 ethnic Hazaras, who, like the Iranians, are Shiite Muslims.

• According to reports of diplomats who had fled the city, "Young men over 16 were brought out of their houses into the streets and had their throats slit in a ritualistic killing."
• Debriefings of surviving Hazaras family members, provided further reports, "that younger boys had both hands chopped off at the wrist." Children were mutilated, bodies were left to rot in the streets, and anyone seeking to flee, was summarily shot.

• It was only on September 10, that Taliban spokesmen admitted that the Iranians had been killed.
• They claimed that the men had been shot by fighters "acting on their own," i.e., rogue elements not following orders of the central command.

• While three days of official mourning were declared, Iranian President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami denounced the atrocities, in a message read at Friday prayers on September 11th.
• "The primitivity, irrationality, and adventurism of the uncouth Taliban has been the cause of enormous catastrophe taking the innocent and defenseless lives of thousands and thousands of Afghan children, women, and men," it read.

Hundreds of Hazaras Shiites have been imprisoned and dozens of them have been publicly executed by the Taliban

• Peering at the 60-foot-high faces of four of America's most famous presidents, the dozen robed and bearded Afghans drew little attention at the base of Mt. Rushmore in July 1999.
• Only bullet and shrapnel scars beneath their heavy attire would be clues that these visitors were militia commanders, some with ties to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.
• For the next five weeks, the men were feted at private parties, escorted on tours of other local landmarks, including a school and hospital, and given cash for a shopping mall excursion where most bought scented soaps and silk stockings.

• Chicago Tribune

• With the chances of a pipeline deal with the Taliban looking increasingly unlikely, President Clinton finally issues an executive order prohibiting commercial transactions with the Taliban.
• The order also freezes the Taliban’s US assets.
• Clinton blames the Taliban for harboring bin Laden..

• Peering at the 60-foot-high faces of four of America's most famous presidents, the dozen robed and bearded Afghans drew little attention at the base of Mt. Rushmore in July 1999.
• Only bullet and shrapnel scars beneath their heavy attire would be clues that these visitors were militia commanders, some with ties to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.
• For the next five weeks, the men were feted at private parties, escorted on tours of other local landmarks, including a school and hospital, and given cash for a shopping mall excursion where most bought scented soaps and silk stockings.

• Chicago Tribune

Envoy of Taliban in Islamabad, Mulla Abdul Salam 
Zaeef held talks with the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan,
 William Milam. This was the second meeting of the
 present Taliban envoy with his American counterpart, 
in the Pakistani capital.

Taliban brutally killed many people because 
they belong to Hazara ethnic minority

• The Taliban begins blowing up two giant stone Buddhas of Bamiyan (ancient statues carved into an Afghan mountainside, which are considered priceless treasures).
• They face great international condemnation in response, but no longer seem to be courting international recognition.

• In March, the Taliban order the demolition of two statues of Buddha, one 38 metres tall and about 1,800 years old, the other 53 metres tall and about 1,500 years old.

• In subsequent months, the Taliban institute a policy of requiring all Hindus living in their territories to wear distinguishing labels on their clothing to mark them as non-Muslims.

• The Taliban also bans the use of the Internet, playing cards, computer discs, movies, satellite TV, musical instruments and chessboards after declaring them against Islamic law.

• Some of the Taliban's more extreme decisions are viewed as signs that al-Qaeda has a growing influence over the government.

• A report by an Afghan-born Enron manager in July 2001, for instance, illustrates that company's deep interest in some sort of pipeline deal. Enron had begun funding the same sorts of humanitarian projects as Unocal had three years earlier.

• IRAN SAW 9/11 AS CHANCE TO ELIMINATE TALIBAN...REACHED OUT TO USA Iran saw September 11 as an important opportunity to rid itself of the Taliban...First, it sent official condolences to the mayor of New York after September 11, the first time any such gesture had been made since the 1979 revolution. Second - and even more strikingly - it offered itself as a place where damaged American aircraft could land during missions over Afghanistan. It was not a militarily critical offer, but it was a public gesture that Iran was prepared to collaborate in an American war in Afghanistan, and Iran's willingness to make such a gesture was significant. It had not changed its basic view of the United States, but it desperaty wanted the United States to take out the Taliban. [source: America's Secret War, pp. 156-157]

• The U.S. makes a five-point ultimatum to the Taliban: Deliver to the U.S. all of the leaders of al-Qaeda, release all imprisoned foreign nationals, close immediately every terrorist training camp, hand over terrorists and their supporters to appropriate authorities and give the United States full access to terrorist training camps for inspection.
• The Taliban rejects this ultimatum.

• Contrary to popular belief, Afghanistan “has significant oil and gas deposits.
• During the Soviets’ decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Moscow estimated Afghanistan’s proven and probable natural gas reserves at around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s.”
• Nonstop war since has prevented further exploitation. [Asia Times, 10/5/2001]

• A later article suggests that the country may also have as much copper as Chile, the world’s largest producer, and significant deposits of coal, emeralds, tungsten, lead, zinc, uranium ore, and more.
• Estimates of Afghanistan’s natural wealth may even be understated, because surveys were conducted decades ago, using less-advanced methods and covering limited territory. [Houston Chronicle, 12/23/2001]

• A U.S.-led coalition begins war against Afghanistan.
• Mullah Omar and most of the other senior Taliban leaders, along with Mr. bin Laden and some of his senior al-Qaeda associates, survive the American onslaught and flee, reportedly to the lawless region along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border.

• Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and his transitional government assume power in Afghanistan.
• It was reported a few weeks before that he had been a paid consultant for Unocal at one time (Karzai and Unocal both deny this), as well as Deputy Foreign Minister for the Taliban.

Afghanistan now produces 92 per cent (6,100 tons)
of the world’s supply of opium used to make heroin

• Afghanistan’s opium cultivation surged by 59 per cent this year largely as a result of a Taliban-led insurgency that is pushing the southern part of the country to the verge of collapse, the United Nations drugs agency chief said at the weekend.
• Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, said in Kabul that the record harvest of 6,100 tons was “staggering” and “very bad news”.

• Afghanistan now produces 92 per cent of the world’s supply of opium used to make heroin, Mr Costa said.
• In Helmand, where most British troops are stationed, the area under opium cultivation soared by 162 per cent as a result of corruption and efforts by insurgents to encourage production.