—Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) August 17, 2021
Based on the Taliban's history, there are many reasons be skeptical of its claims. Prominent Afghan women have expressed concern that they will be killed in the coming days.
Along these lines, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday said, "I call upon the Taliban and all parties to respect and protect international humanitarian law and the rights and freedoms of all persons. We are receiving chilling reports of severe restrictions on human rights throughout the country."
"I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan who fear a return to the darkest days," Guterres added. "It is essential that the hard-won rights of Afghan women and girls are protected."
The Taliban — a group of fundamentalist Islamic militants — first emerged in the mid-1990s in the wake of the chaos that followed the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up a Communist government that gained power via a coup the year prior. Much like the US, the Soviets waged a disastrous, costly, and lengthy war in Afghanistan — a country often referred to as the "graveyard of empires." The Soviets struggled to win popular support among the overwhelmingly Muslim population and were ultimately pushed out.
The Soviet-backed Communist government collapsed in 1992 as civil war consumed Afghanistan. The Taliban was formed in 1994 by Afghan mujahideen, or guerilla fighters who'd resisted the Soviet occupation (and received CIA assistance in the process).
In 1996, the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan and declared an Islamic Emirate. They imposed strict laws based on a fundamentalist interpretation of the Quran, enforcing the rules in a brutal fashion — including mass executions.
The Taliban were overthrown after the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 following the 9/11 terror attacks. None of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 where Afghans, but the US invaded because the Taliban had opened its doors to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda — the terror group responsible for the attacks. The US aimed to destroy Al Qaeda , though the terror organization remains in operation today.
By December 2001, the Taliban was in retreat and bin Laden fled to Pakistan. The US would go on to hunt him down in Pakistan 10 years later, while remaining in Afghanistan for the next two decades as the Taliban waged an insurgency against the American forces, their NATO allies, and the US-backed government. Fast-forward to August 2021, and the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan as the US withdrew troops and ended the longest war in its history.
