"caused the rise of Taliban"
It should be re-written as "ISI decided to fund the Taliban"
bro one thing everyone admit rise of taliban was helped by isi but creating of taliban was total afghani internal matter .tell me what you do if two of your generals fighting a tank battle in city for whom having sex with a beautiful boy ? please tell me . situation was very very bad since soviet leave . and anyone can got mad that time . yeah i agree ISI take this chance and juice it with helping taliban .
these are not pakistani news agencies
How Afghans' Stern Rulers Took Hold
By JOHN F. BURNS with STEVE LeVINE
Published: December 31, 1996
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan— When neighbors came to Mullah Mohammed Omar in the spring of 1994, they had a story that was shocking even by the grim standards of Afghanistan's 18-year-old civil war.
Two teen-age girls from the mullah's village of Singesar had been abducted by one of the gangs of mujahedeen, or ''holy warriors,'' who controlled much of the Afghan countryside. The girls' heads had been shaved, they had been taken to a checkpoint outside the village and they had been repeatedly raped.
At the time, Mullah Omar was an obscure figure, a former guerrilla commander against occupying Soviet forces who had returned home in disgust at the terror mujahedeen groups were inflicting on Afghanistan.
He was living as a student, or talib, in a mud-walled religious school that centered on rote learning of the Koran.
But the girls' plight moved him to act. Gathering 30 former guerrilla fighters, who mustered between them 16 Kalashnikov rifles, he led an attack on the checkpoint, freed the girls and tied the checkpoint commander by a noose to the barrel of an old Soviet tank. As those around him shouted ''God is Great!'' Mullah Omar ordered the tank barrel raised and left the dead man hanging as a grisly warning.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/31/world/how-afghans-stern-rulers-took-hold.html?pagewanted=all
Who Is Responsible for the Taliban?
Michael Rubin
Middle East Review of International Affairs
March 2002
Kandahar and southern Afghanistan was in a state of chaos, with numerous warlords and other "barons" dividing not only the south, but also Kandahar city itself into numerous fiefdoms. Human Rights Watch labeled the situation in Kandahar "particularly precarious," and noted that, "civilians had little security from murder, rape, looting, or extortion. Humanitarian agencies frequently found their offices stripped of all equipment, their vehicles hijacked, and their staff threatened."(45) Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid argued that the internecine fighting, especially in Kandahar, had virtually eliminated the traditional leadership, leaving the door open to the Taliban.(46)
Afghanistan became a maelstrom of shifting alliances. Dostum defected from his alliance with Rabbani and Masud, and joined Himatyar in shelling the capital. The southern Pushtun warlords and bandits continued to fight each other for territory, while continuing to sell off Afghanistan's machinery, property, and even entire factories to Pakistani traders. Kidnappings, murders, rapes, and robberies were frequent as Afghan civilians found themselves in the crossfire.
The beginning of the Taliban's activity in Afghanistan is shrouded in myth. Ahmed Rashid recounted what he deemed the most credible: Neighbors of two girls kidnapped and raped by Kandahar warlords asked the Taliban's help in freeing the teenagers. The Taliban attacked a military camp, freed the girls, and executed the commander. Later, another squad of Taliban freed a young boy over whom two warlords were fighting for the right to sodomize. A Robin Hood myth grew up around Mullah Umar resulting in victimized Afghans increasingly appealing to the Taliban for help against local oppressors.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-responsible-for-the-taliban
