taliban

The translator told me that I owed my life to the Taliban commander we had been staying with.

Roshan has had to stop building in parts of the country where NATO troops are trying to reverse recent Taliban advances.

For more than a year, British intelligence officers have been instigating contacts with Taliban commanders and their entourage.

Apologists point to Stalinism and Nazism as murderous ideologies, as if their existence made Torquemada and the Taliban somehow acceptable.

Paying for a program to encourage Taliban insurgents to give up their fight is expected to be one of the main Afghan demands.

On our first trip we were told to leave a gap between our cars of at least 10 yards for fear of Taliban fire from the top of the mountains.

Jones says the situation represents progress from a few years ago, when the Taliban appeared to have the upper hand and was gaining ground.

There have been a number attacks this week on Afghan forces, including Taliban suicide bombings that killed at least 16 people on Tuesday.

A Western official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the attack made the talk of a peace deal with the Taliban seem "absurd. "

The original justification for the war was that the Afghan Taliban provided a shelter for al-Qaeda and its leader.

The man in front of me is Zabiullah Mujahid -- one of two spokesmen for the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Pakistan denies the allegation, and Mr. Bashir said the country does not know if Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders are in Pakistan.

The Taliban bring it up to the front lines from Kabul, and we buy it from them.

He gave reporters free access to meetings in which the bleak progress of the drive against the Taliban was bluntly discussed.

The Pakistani schoolgirl hailed around the world for her efforts to stand up against the Taliban is out of the hospital.

A Taliban spokesman said the fate of these people in the East High Commission in the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He also lapses occasionally into jarring usages, like "this was no longer your father's Taliban. "

A relief effort led by the U. S. and Pakistani governments would do much to convince Pakistanis to reject groups like the Taliban.

The Taliban in Afghanistan have told the BBC that there is no question of their entering into any kind of negotiations with Nato forces.

He said the failure of a recent voter registration drive in Ghazni showed how effectively the Taliban was cutting off the countryside.

Apparently sure of victory, the commanders said the Taliban would not negotiate with Mr Karzai.

But he said his coalition government will continue to pursue its own strategy in countering the Taliban insurgency.

A week ago, the Taliban did announce the beginning of their spring offensive.

In what one Western diplomat calls the Taliban's "madrassa, linear-thinking sort of way" this does not infuse talks with mutual trust.

Senior military officials say that until a few days ago, the ridge served as a major training facility for Taliban terrorists.

Our correspondent said a Taliban leader had been due to attend the meeting but dropped out in the last minute citing health reasons.

"There is a degree of unanimity that there must be swift and effective action taken against the Taliban in Pakistan, " he said.

The Taliban claim responsibility for the execution-style street shooting, contending she was trying to spread Christianity.

Pakistani military spokesman said the video appears the police in northern Brazil by captured Taliban fighters.

Afghanistan was nothing but a third world country with the ruthless Taliban preventing any growth what so ever to occur in their country.

The fact of the matter is that the stated positions of the Taliban and the United States are at the moment very different.

of Kunar borders Pakistan and is often a transit point for Taliban between the countries.

The Taliban have long been known as haters of modern technology, certainly the kind that comes out of the Western world they revile.

Mr Karzai seems to have stopped lambasting Pakistan for tolerating sanctuaries within its borders for Taliban insurgents.

He said there are some members of the Taliban who joined simply out of ignorance, or to escape poverty.

He said the Taliban read the newspapers and are able to determine public opinion in the United States and Europe.

Residents of South Waziristan said the early morning missile strike hit the home of a Taliban commander outside the main town, Wana.

Secretary Clinton says defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida is not only in Pakistan's vital interest, but that of the United States as well.

The next day a suicide-bomber in the west of the country killed at least 37 members of an anti-Taliban militia.

The head of the Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility and said it was in retaliation for an American drone attack.

As he said "Taliban military, " the camera cut to someone in the audience in military dress, who winced.

A spokesman for the Nato-led force, Brigadier General Josef Blotz, said the Taliban were trying to reverse NATO gains.

"The footprints seem to be Taliban and al-Qaida, " said Talat Masood, a retired general turned security analyst.

Mr. Frans said that he doubted the Taliban claim of responsibility, and said the police had told him the probable motive was robbery.

Effectively, the Taliban create a complete blackout of any other source of information for these children.

It is at least the second occasion on which the Afghans have been duped by people posing as Taliban envoys.

The Taliban said the strike proved the insurgent group's ability to hit the U. S. -led coalition whenever it chooses.

But he said spending could begin to come down in 2015, after the US is scheduled to hand over the lead in the battle against the Taliban.

He said the Taliban had changed tactics in recent months to fight a guerrilla war with suicide attacks and roadside bombs.

Time, rather than resources or appetite for fighting, is beginning to run out for the Taliban.

When Taliban took over this region, this was one of the few girls' schools that remained open.

He said the Taliban did not prevent people from leaving during the suspended curfew.

But nobody knows the degree to which these things drive them to the Taliban, or what sort of progress might win them to the government.

During this speech Bush said the extra troops are needed to battle Taliban fighters who are gearing up for a new spring offensive.

He said he believed his western allies backed his plans for reconciliation with those Taliban who were not allied with al-Qaeda.

He's got to be involved with the Taliban. How much, no one knows.

US Marines fighting to take the Taliban haven of Marjah have had to call in air support as they come under heavy fire.

Ten days earlier the Taliban crept up to the wall of his family compound and blew up one of the security towers, the report said.

The mountainous region of Kunar borders Pakistan and is often a transit point for Taliban between the countries.

The "narcoterrorist" label is often misused, but the Taliban are the real deal.

Indeed, this is one of the main reasons why the Taliban's rise was, at least initially, widely welcomed.

No doubt Taliban and its leader Mullah Omar will be morphed by the US media machine into a bin Laden stand-ins.

Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.

Taliban commanders boast that they have 10, 000 fighters, plus a swarm of thousands of suicide-bombers, ready to go into action.

S. officials. Even in public, Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Kabul, has said the ISI retains ties with the Taliban.

Gen Mohammad Daud Daud is one of at least six people killed in the attack, claimed by the Taliban.

It was also unclear whether Mr. Shahzad was affiliated with the Pakistan Taliban or any other Pakistan-based jihadi group.

By Abid saying, behind the shooting may be "enemies of peace" , and this title is usually point to the Afghan Taliban.

The Taliban, in asserting responsibility for the deaths, said the aid workers were foreign spies and spreading Christianity.

He gave me a 5p ballpoint pen to prove the point that the Taliban were not against education.

He said Washington and Tehran share strategic interests in combating Afghanistan's spiraling opium trade and the resurgence of the Taliban.

An additional objective is to blunt efforts by Taliban insurgents who are trying to regain control of the country.

Part 4: Faces of Marja: Playing Cat and Mouse With the Taliban American troops try to stay one step ahead of the enemy.

The African Union says is ready to send off a taliban of soldiers to Somalia to boost the African peacekeeping force there.

Despite a heavy propaganda campaign to suggest otherwise, the subjugation of the Taliban has been a failure.

The attack on the World Food Program was the Taliban saying, "We do not approve of what you are doing. "

Several men walked over to the Talib and dropped money in his hands, donations to the Taliban.

But it has also been a place of bloody clashes between Taliban insurgents and the Pakistani military.

It appears that most of those on the boat were fleeing Afghanistan, a country where Australian troops are currently fighting the Taliban.

An Afghan diplomat was at a shopping mall in Doha recently and heard a child call out in Pashto, the language used by most Taliban.

If the US pulls out, the Taliban take over, as they have been as thoroughly aggravated as a hornet's nest kicked about like a football.

The Taliban claimed it shot down the helicopter, but the official said there was no sign of hostile fire.

The illegal narcotics trade is said to be a major cause of instability in Afghanistan and is believed to be funding Taliban insurgency.

But America, for one, is sceptical about any attempt to woo the Taliban leadership before NATO is in a stronger military position.

No senior Taliban leader, they point out, seems to have been killed.

The US-led NATO troops have a difficult time trying to identify insurgents from civilians as the Taliban operate amongst the population.

But it illustrates the difficulties the West is facing, eight years into the war, even in areas where the Taliban no longer rule openly.

The British Defense Minister John Hutton says the killing of a senior rebel commander in Afghanistan is a significant blow to the Taliban.

Some of its soldiers and spooks sympathise with and help the Taliban, out of both ethnic-Pushtun fellow-feeling and strategic intent.

S. policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan that have failed to counter the Taliban or shore-up the two countries' U. S. -allied governments.

Now we were heading up to the anti-Taliban forces' prime observation post north of the capital - in the pitch dark.

Thousands of Taliban slogans cover the walls in and around the dusty frontier town of Kuchlak, some 14 kilometers northwest of Quetta.

The strikes began shortly after an offer from the Taliban to put Osama bin Laden on trial in Afghanistan was rejected by the United States.

The Afghan Islamic Press news agency said the Taliban insurgents were responsible for the abduction.

According to official said the Taliban leader Cary Tahir (q ari tahir) is the U. S. aircraft attack planners.

Baasha Rutter said: "wipe out the Taliban's actions will continue until there were all wiped out Taliban, restoring governance. "

The opposition, casually described as "the Taliban" , is far from a unified force in a country of great ethnic complexity.

President Karzai did not directly refer to reconciliation talks with the Taliban during a speech in Kabul Wednesday.

It is widely believed that will include some sort of negotiation with some elements of the Taliban.

This picture was taken when hundreds of Afghan women came out on the street after the Taliban fled.

The Taliban, routed by U. S. -led and Afghan forces following the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, have been able to regroup.

He was asked about the inroads Taliban militants have been able to make in rural parts of Afghanistan .

Vesa said the Taliban attack also killed a policeman and a civilian died and 29 others injured.

There are more Afghan troops to train, he said. Others add that there are fewer Taliban rebels to fight in Kandahar.

And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack was carried out by a suicide car bomber who was a member of the group.

The Taliban also appear to have had access to sophisticated military equipment and professionally drawn-up battle plans.

He said such operations risked alienating local tribes whose support is vital for defeating Taliban militants.

But in Mingora the Taliban still rule the roost, standing eyeball to eyeball with soldiers holed up in government buildings.

There was a cover story in NEWSWEEK [ " The Mind of the Taliban" ] that described how the Taliban survived.

THIS newspaper has long tried to see post-Taliban Afghanistan as a glass half-full.

The Taliban and other extremists run free and a multibillion-dollar gas pipeline would be a sitting duck in their destructive path.

The Taliban are not the only enemy along the fraught borderlands of the Afghan war.

And there has been a fivefold increase in night raids by allied special forces against Taliban commanders.

That may make it somewhat easier to peel local Taliban away from the high command, using the informal contacts that have worked best so far.

But for those things to happen, the Taliban must see that the Afghan government and its foreign friends are winning, not losing.

The victims, who mostly belong to a tribe opposed to the Taliban, had been waiting for the United Nations food rations.

Be prepared to pay $6, 000 per truck, so the police will not tip off the Taliban.

He said talks are already underway, but the Taliban will not be allowed again to control Afghanistan like they did in 2001.

Mr Lieven thinks growing resentment at the hierarchical nature of Pakistani society has helped the Taliban.

Mehsud is a self-proclaimed commander of the Pakistani Taliban militants and is believed to be closely linked to the al-Qaida network.

The Mehsud Taliban also seem to be in better shape than the army had hoped.

The Taliban have been preemptively attacking the reintegration program, which is now receiving international support through a trust fund.

Indeed, Taliban leaders, however hesitantly, are beginning to look at alternatives to fighting.

Authorities in southern Afghanistan say Taliban militants have publicly killed a young man and woman who tried to run away to get married.

And one thing that happened there was also the Pakistani Taliban took credit for that failed car bombing.

The calm had led many to believe that Taliban insurgents had decided to spare the election a wave of a violence.

But only a few weeks ago, Rabbani voiced his frustration to the Afghan media that the Taliban would never soften their position.

Urban Afghans do not turn to Taliban courts to resolve their disputes, as do many in rural parts of the country.

The Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan said the two sides recently had contacts in Saudi Arabia.

We begin in Afghanistan, where the latest attacks by the Taliban have claimed at least nine lives.

That sort of tactical complexity is typical of recent Taliban operations.

The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which also left at least four others wounded.

The president and his advisers are also likely to discuss U. S. support for the Afghan government's negotiations with Taliban insurgents.

And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of what remains.

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for some of the attack, saying they were in retaliation for drone strikes.

The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military.

Burhanuddin Rabbani had been heading a government peace council set up to build contacts with the Taliban.

Yazid was also responsible for maintaining al Qaeda's relationships with other terrorist groups, like the Taliban.

Such comments are, on the face of it, nothing new for Mr Karzai, who previously invited the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, to talks in Kabul.

(Along with the Taliban, Hamas was also one of the groups that had no kind words for Obama's winning the prize).

But Pakistan considers Mr Bahadur to be a "good Taliban" , ie, one who has agreed to fight only in Afghanistan, not on Pakistani soil.

A Taliban spokesman said the group is scouring the WikiLeaks Web site for information to find and 'punish' these informers.

But few expect the jirga to reach agreement on what compromises with the Taliban the Afghan government should be prepared to accept.

The interior minister, Rehman Malik, then claimed that up to 700 Taliban militants had been killed in the fighting.

Only a clean and an effective administration might inoculate Afghans against the lure of the Taliban's shadow government.

Tao Xide Department said the attack "enemies of peace" - Taliban militants - should do.

Nothing could cheer the Taliban more than seeing General McChrystal out on his ear.

Insurgent groups with Western connections, like the so-called "German Taliban, " are also believed to vet potential recruits from abroad.

The Pakistani Taliban said it carried out a suicide-bomb attack in Quetta, in western Pakistan , which killed at least 20 people.

Many in Afghanistan were relieved to be spared a second poll in the face of Taliban threats, voter indifference and the approaching winter.

Its precarious stability will be jeopardised further if Mr Zardari proves to be right and the war against the Taliban is being lost.

If the Taliban can be beaten here, the war might be salvaged.

When he applied for the lucrative linguist job, Habib said his recruiter gave no hint he would join a ground assault in Taliban land.

The U. N envoy did not name any insurgent leaders, such as fugitive chief of the Taliban insurgents, Mullah Omar.

Afghanistan government spokesman Lama Fine says the proposal office can be used for Taliban political activity.

S. -led war against the Taliban has led to calls for a change of strategy including the option of sending more troops to bolster security.

The U. S. president pledged to also use diplomacy and development to help end the Taliban insurgency.

The two organisations provide some military support to one another and many Taliban fighters express admiration for Osama bin Laden.

The question, however, is whether displeasure at the Taliban is enough to overcome fear of the Taliban.

Hazrat Ali is from a poor farming family in Swat. He joined the Taliban a year ago, when he was 13.

Coalition troops in Afghanistan mounted their biggest offensive against the Taliban since the start of the eight-year war.

NATO officials say up to 150 Taliban militants have been killed in Afghanistan during an overnight battle with NATO and Afghan forces.

For all that, the government was right to take military action to drive the Taliban from Swat.

The Taliban clearly arrived in the U. S. can only choose one site of the incident path.

NEARLY seven years after the toppling of the Taliban, Afghanistan's future is still up for grabs.

The Helmand Taliban have been able to capture territory and hold it, mostly in the south of the province.

Military has sufficient capacity; we have sufficient boots on ground, er, to be able to eliminate Taliban from this area.

Who can say that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would not be a precursor for the triumph for jihadists in Pakistan?

The Afghan government has prevented the Taliban from seizing control of any significant district centre or town.

After the meeting Afghan President Hamid Karzai said just fighting the Taliban is no longer an option.

More than a third of Afghanistan's eligible voters turned out on September 18th, defying the Taliban to vote in parliamentary elections.

Taliban spokesman is claiming responsibility for an attack on the ceremony attended by the president of Afghanistan.

The next most wanted figure is the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, with a $10m reward in the US for his capture.

Pakistan had supported Afghanistan's Taliban regime, Afghanistan is considered to be wanted as a hedge against India's strategic depth.

The Taliban have strongly denied that they were responsible for a suicide car bomb attack that destroyed a hospital in eastern Afghanistan.

Having previously failed to control Swat, the Taliban's regional base, with a division, the generals sent in three divisions.

A statement on a Taliban website warned that roads across the country would be blocked throughout polling today.

But it is thought he might withdraw, providing a convenient pretext to avoid a poll that will benefit mainly the Taliban.

But Kilcullen said there was a vicious cycle that began with government corruption, creating the space for the Taliban to expand.

He said residents worry the military's attempts to dislodge the Taliban could fail once again.

The letters showed what listeners are aching to hear most is music, banned as un-Islamic by the Taliban.

By early April 2009, Sharia law had been imposed as part of a deal between the authorities and the local Taliban.

American Idol meet Afghan Star and to be this woman, one of the finalists, a first in the post-Taliban Afghanistan.

It seems a paradox, but in the 1990s the Taliban leadership did not see themselves as oppressors of women but as their defenders.

Forty such districts will be the target of a comprehensive military and political effort to stop them from falling into Taliban hands.

"I grabbed the microphone and said, 'Here comes the Taliban, ' " she recalled with a chuckle.

One of Mr Karzai's ministers said that, so long as the Taliban were "winning" , reconciliation would be "an empty phrase" .

US again began to ship the counterfeit machines for the Afghan war, this time for the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Mr Karzai has appointed a body known as the High Peace Council, charged with opening negotiations with the Taliban at every level.

He promised to end the war in Iraq, sort out the Taliban, provide health care for all and erect a cap-and-trade system to save the planet.

Taliban violence during the first round underlined just how dangerous going to a polling-station can be.

Even short of that, the Taliban's penetration of Pakistan's cities and institutions is cause for serious worry.

Mehmet Aksoy, the designer of the Kars monument, says that the government risks being seen as "the Taliban" if it presses its demands.

She called on Pakistan to take "decisive steps" to ensure that Afghan Taliban militants do not operate from Pakistan's border regions.

General McChrystal sees counter-insurgency as an "argument" between the Taliban and the Afghan government, backed by the West.

An unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan, intertwined with a chaotic and Taliban-dominated Afghanistan: it is not a settling prospect.

Moscow is torn between wanting Nato to fail in Afghanistan, and not wanting to see a return to the Taliban.

During those dark days, museum officials risked their lives to keep thousands of artifacts out of Taliban hands.

"It is clearly a problem for us, leadership of the Taliban in my area are directed by leaders in Pakistan, " he said.

Unlike the anti-Soviet mujahideen, they argue, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies do not have the support of a superpower.

She said the Taliban singles out women in government posts because they know that killing them will garner more publicity.

Some leading Taliban even suspect that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader and symbol of their jihad, may also be in ISI custody.

Soon insurgencies were multiplying, fuelled by drugs, warlords, local resentments, a weak national army and police and a recovering Taliban.

I was in a madrasa when the Taliban were in government and I only joined them after the American occupation.

I'd also been told if the talks were to continue the Taliban needed to show a commitment to break from al Qaeda.

Kabul, Afghanistan: A fortune teller listens to a woman as another awaits her turn. Fortune telling was banned under the Taliban regime.

And yet, with perhaps 15% of his tribesmen openly supporting the Taliban, "For how long can I control my area? "

Suddenly, a Kiowa attack helicopter swept in low and fired a rocket toward the Taliban position, leaving a rush of air and a trail of smoke.

The transatlantic alliance has survived the end of the cold war. But as it battles the Taliban in Afghanistan, its problems are acute.

Talks with the Taliban would allow him to claim that the big green exit sign is in sight.

And they will embolden the Taliban into thinking that, after eight years of flea-bites, the American dog is about to roll over.

Mr Karzai's officials said that the Taliban would be invited to attend the gathering, to be held in the coming months.

The attack on such a powerful and high-profile official shows just how strong the Taliban insurgency is becoming.

Last week , President Karzai offered peace talks to Taliban militants who are prepared to renounce violence .

But the Afghan government remains weak, and this is as much of a problem as the strength of the Taliban.

The canal would become the new defensive line, keeping the Taliban out in the west while protecting the population on the other side.

Qatari officials did not respond to requests for comment about the Taliban presence.

I was skeptical about the project; even if Sharif wanted to help, the Pakistani military was full of Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers.

The Taliban, headquartered in the provincial capital of Quetta, use Baluchistan's 800-mile-long border to slip in and out of Afghanistan.

At dinner, Admiral Mullen repeated the long-held view that the Taliban leadership is hiding in the province of Baluchistan.

The Taliban said it had carried out the bombing as revenge against villagers who assisted the security forces.

I negotiated with Saddam's diplomats at the U. N. Later , I traveled to Kabul and served in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban .

The officials said the four dead tribesmen were kidnapped by the Taliban about 10 days ago.

When they untied my blindfold I saw chains on the floor: we were in a Taliban prison in the mountains of Pakistan.

If current talks progress well, such a Taliban office could be moved to Afghanistan.

The most likely first target is the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, whose stronghold is in South Waziristan.

Those in the south and the east of the country are also likely to have links with the Pakistani Taliban and their hard-core affiliates.

Rashly that conference did not include the defeated Taliban.

The Taliban seized on the shooting, describing it as "genocide" and pledging to help victims' families take revenge on the US.

A spokesman for the Afghan President Hamid Karzai has described the escape from prison of many Taliban militants as 'a disaster'.

The German Army has been heavily criticized for calling in an US air strike on the Taliban when many civilians were nearby.

Many of the Taliban's new leaders are being courted by Al Qaeda and other extremists who do not support making a deal with President Karzai.

The United States should seize upon the death of bin Laden to promote urgent peace negotiations with the Taliban leadership.

The fact that the Taliban has safe havens across the border in Pakistan is also a huge problem for Nato's nation-builders.

It seems unlikely that the Afghan government will grow strong enough to dictate terms to the Taliban.

Not many people in Washington or London had ever heard of Ghulam Haider Hamidi, but the Taliban were scared to death of him.

It follow threats by Taliban militants to deploy thousands of suicide bombers in retaliation for an army offensive .

The Taliban insurgency in the south is not about to go away, but Afghanistan's army can probably keep it at bay.

A spokesman for the Taliban denied that, saying that on the contrary, the Kandahar attack had been planned for some time.

Given that there can be little or no eradication in Taliban areas, those who live under government control feel unfairly penalised.

War was all but declared against the ruling Taliban government of Afghanistan and the worldwide Al-Quaida terrorist organization.

Mr. Obama said he was struck by the courage of Afghans who went to polling stations despite the threats of violence by the Taliban.

And a Taliban leader and two associates were captured in Balkh province, NATO's International Security Assistance Force announced.

Mujahid said such efforts would fail to detect Taliban fighters, some of whom have had years to blend in.

Last week, Taliban gunmen killed five U. N. workers in an attack on an international guest house in the capital, Kabul.

"The US is still not willing to negotiate directly with the Taliban, as the Taliban want, " he says.

Having struggled so hard it was particularly hard to see her own daughter, now 24, denied education under the Taliban.

Do you think there is a wedge now between the Taliban and al-Qaeda out of this?

But few observers expected much from the gathering, even before the Taliban fired rockets at it.