The Kite Runner

For more than twenty years, war has consumed Afghanistan. In 1979, the Soviet Union launched an invasion of the country in order to prop up a pro-communist regime in Kabul. The United States and Pakistan played leading roles backing various Afghan guerrilla forces, known collectively as "mujahideen" (religious warriors), which gradually wore down the Soviet occupying force. Afghanistan's civil war continued after a Soviet pullout in 1989 as various mujahideen factions fought to fill the power vacuum. In the past four years, a newer group called the Taliban has gained control of most of Afghanistan. The Taliban, whose name means "students," have their roots in the Pakistan-based seminaries established for Afghan refugees during the Soviet occupation. The movement got a significant boost from the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, which reportedly provided extensive organizational, logistical, and material support to the Taliban militia. The core of the Taliban are from the Pashtun ethnic group, the largest single group in Afghanistan but still a minority of the population. Pashtuns are also a significant ethnic group in Pakistan, where they are heavily represented in the military.

The Taliban captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, in 1996, and now reportedly control all but the Panjshir Valley and other smaller areas in northern Afghanistan. They have imposed a highly restrictive form of Islamic law throughout Afghanistan which Muslim and non-Muslim observers have described as inhumane. Some see the Taliban's efforts to be not so much Islamic as an attempt to impose rural tribal mores onto the rest of the country. International concern is mounting about the treatment of Afghan women, who are usually denied schooling, medical care, and freedom to travel except under strict conditions. There have also been widespread reports of extrajudicial killings throughout Afghanistan as well as reports of massacres as the Taliban conquered new territory.

The Taliban reportedly support their regime partly from profits in the opium trade. The Taliban directly tax domestic growers as well as traders who traffic in the narcotics. Sharp increases in Afghan production have left Afghanistan lagging behind only Burma as the world's largest producer of opium products in the world, amounting to 2,800 metric tons in 1997. The two countries combined account for 90 percent of opium production worldwide. The Taliban have further angered the international community by sheltering Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden, who was linked by the U.S. government to the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa