The word talib means student; the original Taliban were born in the chaos of the Afghan civil war that followed the defeat of the Soviet occupiers. In 1994, a group of righteous Pashtun students rose from the countryside around Kandahar to challenge the predatory warlords then ripping Afghanistan apart. Led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, an enigmatic, one-eyed cleric who refused to be photographed, they announced themselves by hanging an accused rapist from the barrel of a tank. Such savage theatrics would become the Taliban’s hallmark as they fought their way to power in Kabul. Kite-flying, shaving
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