“Despite this long-standing conflict, many people know little about the Taliban movement and its history.”

By Phil Halton

WESTERN ARMIES HAVE been fighting the Taliban, and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan, for nearly two decades now. Despite this long-standing conflict, many people know little about the Taliban movement and its history. Even when its leaders ruled nearly all of Afghanistan from the mid-1990s to late 2001, they were one of the most reclusive and uncommunicative governments in the world.

Here are ten facts about the Taliban that might surprise you.

Their name actually means “students”

The exact origins of the Taliban movement has been a matter of some debate. According to Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, one of its founding members who published an auto-biography, it began officially in the autumn of 1994 when about 50 people gathered at the White Mosque in Sangisar and agreed to form a group that would combat the lawlessness in their homeland. Many were former mujahideen who had fought the Soviets during the previous decade, but wanted to differentiate themselves from the factions who had fought each other in the civil war after Moscow’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. As many were also clerics, they chose to identify themselves as members of religious schools instead, calling themselves students or “Taliban.” 

Their leader’s authority came from the “Cloak of the Prophet”

It was at that 1994 meeting that Mullah Omar was made the Taliban leader, yet it wasn’t until 1996 that he cemented his authority. A cloak that is purported to have belonged to the Islamic prophet Muhammed was kept in a shrine in Kandahar, brought there in the mid-18^th century by Amir Ahmad Shah Durrani. Mullah Omar donned the cloak from the shrine’s rooftop, and was acclaimed by his followers as the “Commander of the Faithful.” The whereabouts of the cloak today is unknown.

They erased Afghanistan’s Buddhist past

Although an almost entirely Muslim country today, Afghanistan is where Zoroastrianism was founded, and until the 10 to 12^th century, was almost entirely inhabited by Buddhists. The country’s pre-Islamic past doesn’t fit into the Taliban’s view of history. In Bamiyan, there were two massive statues of the Buddha carved into the rock walls of the valley, 35 and 53 metres tall. These were built in 6^th century AD, when Bamiyan was famous as a centre of Buddhist scholarship, housing “1,000 monasteries each with 1,000 monks.” Although Mullah Omar originally decreed that the edifices would be protected, in 2001 he reversed his decision as part of country-wide efforts at eradicating all things un-Islamic, and they were destroyed with dynamite.

Their leader, Mullah Omar, was dead for two years before his death was made public

After the Taliban government was ousted in 2001, Mullah Omar and the other members of the ruling council went into hiding. Originally in Afghanistan, they eventually moved to safer ground in Pakistan, from where they directed operations against the U.S.-led coalition. Omar died in Quetta, Pakistan of tuberculosis, but his death was kept a secret for two years. During that time, orders continued to be issued in his name, until the ruse was uncovered by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security.

The Taliban regime banned recycled paper

Much has been said about the seemingly bizarre laws that the Taliban enacted when they controlled Afghanistan. All of the laws, however, had a religious or cultural reason behind them. The ban on recycled paper, for example, was due to their reverence for the Quran. When a Quran becomes too worn to be used any more, it is not destroyed, but is instead buried. As no provider of recycled paper could certify that no Qurans were used to make the new paper, it was banned in order to prevent accidental desecration of a holy book.

They controlled three-quarters of the world’s heroin supply

The Taliban famously made huge profits in the drug trade, and the organization itself taxed opium and heroin production, as well. But in 2000, the Taliban (in conjunction with the UN) declared the production of opium as un-Islamic and instituted a ban. Output fell from 4,500 tonnes in 1999 to virtually zero in 2000, cutting off 75 per cent of the world’s supply of heroin. Whether this was purely for religious reasons, or to greatly increase the value of the stores of opium held by many traders, is an open question. In 2001, production began again.

Despite opposing modernity, the Taliban has a website

The Taliban government declared the Internet as “unholy” and banned its use in 2000. Despite this, the regime still maintained an official website that exists to this day. Publishing breaking news, articles and interviews in five languages, it represents a significant propaganda effort by an organization who oppose many elements of modernity.

They also had an air force

Although it was destroyed in the invasion of 2001, the Taliban maintained a significant number of aircraft that they had captured from various mujahideen groups, who had themselves seized them from the Soviet-backed Afghan government. At its height, the Taliban controlled a fleet including MIG-21 and Sukhoi-22 fighters, Mi-8 and Mi-35 helicopters and a large variety of Russian transport aircraft.

They tricked the UN into building execution grounds for them

The UN had a very fraught relationship with the Taliban government, and often had difficulty finding humanitarian projects that the regime would permit the international community to implement in Afghanistan. One that seemed promising enough was the foreign construction of sports stadiums across the country. Considering the near total lack of entertainment in the war-torn country, athletics seemed like a worthy investment. The regime appeared to agree. Yet once the facilities were completed, it quickly became clear that the Taliban had no intention of using them for games. Instead the stadiums became sites for public executions. The killings were performed on the playing fields while thousands of Afghans gathered in the stands to watch.

The Taliban promote poetry

Although opposed to music, the Taliban have heavily promoted audio cassettes and CDs of poetry, religious chants and taranas, which are martial songs without musical accompaniment. In fact, their website has a section devoted just to poetry. The recordings of taranas, in particular, have a wide following in Afghanistan. One popular album, The Convoy of Martyrs Volume 1, includes such songs as “Let Me Go to Jihad,” “My Mother, I Am Going With Your Permission,” and “Convoys Going to Jihad, I am Joining the Martyrs.”

Phil Halton is the author of the upcoming book about the Taliban entitled This Shall Be a House of Peace. A 25-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, he has worked around the globe as a soldier and security consultant and has spent time in Afghanistan. He holds a Masters of Defence Studies from the Royal Military College and publishes the literary journal Blood & Bourbon. He lives in Toronto.