All 50 Uses of
Taliban
in
Lone Survivor
- But there are undercurrents of hatred all over the Arab world, and we knew there were many sympathizers with the Muslim extremist fanatics of the Taliban and al Qaeda.†
Chpt 1.Taliban = fundamentalist Islamic political and military organization
- And when we found him, we scarcely knew who he was — al Qaeda or Taliban, Shiite or Sunni, Iraqi or foreign, a freedom fighter for Saddam or an insurgent fighting for some kind of a different god from our own, a god who somehow sanctioned murder of innocent civilians, a god who'd effectively booted the Ten Commandments over the touchline and out of play.†
Chpt 1.
- Those mountains up in the northeast, the western end of the mighty range of the Hindu Kush, were the very same mountains where the Taliban had sheltered the lunatics of al Qaeda, shielded the crazed followers of Osama bin Laden while they plotted the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11.†
Chpt 1.
- Let's face it, al Qaeda means "the base," and in return for the Saudi fanatic bin Laden's money, the Taliban made it all possible.†
Chpt 1.
- Right now these very same guys, the remnants of the Taliban and the last few tribal warriors of al Qaeda, were preparing to start over, trying to fight their way through the mountain passes, intent on setting up new training camps and military headquarters and, eventually, their own government in place of the democratically elected one.†
Chpt 1.
- Baluchistan, its endless mountains a safe haven for so many fleeing al Qaeda recruits and exiled Taliban fighters, currently provides shelter for up to six thousand of these potential terrorists.†
Chpt 2.
- Way below us was the important city of Kandahar, which a few weeks later, on June 1, 2005, was the scene of one of the most terrible Taliban attacks of the year.†
Chpt 2.
- In that central-city disaster, they killed the security chief of Kabul, who was attending the funeral of an anti-Taliban cleric who had been killed three days earlier by a couple of guys on a motorbike.†
Chpt 2.
- And we realized the importance of our coming missions, to halt the ever-burgeoning influx of Taliban recruits streaming in over the high peaks of the Hindu Kush and to capture their leaders for interrogation.†
Chpt 2.
- Chaman, Zhob, key entry points for the Taliban and for bin Lad-en's al Qaeda as they fled the American bombs and ground troops.†
Chpt 2.
- There were cells of Taliban warriors just waiting for their chance to strike against the government.†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban wanted power in Afghanistan again; bin Laden's mob wanted death and destruction of U.S. citizens, uniformed or not.†
Chpt 2.
- In the weeks before our arrival, there had been widespread incidents of violence, confirming everyone's dread that the generally hated Taliban was once more on the rise and a serious threat to the new government of Afghanistan.†
Chpt 2.
- A few weeks earlier, in February, the Taliban flatly announced they were increasing their attacks on the government as soon as the weather improved.†
Chpt 2.
- It's a strange word, Taliban.†
Chpt 2.
- But what does Taliban really stand for?†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban have been in prominence since 1994.†
Chpt 2.
- By the mid—'90s, the Taliban's prime targets in Afghanistan-before I showed up-were the feuding warlords who (a) formed the mujahideen and (b) threw the Soviets out of the country.†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban made two major promises which they would carry out once in power: to restore peace and security, and to enforce sharia, or Islamic law.†
Chpt 2.
- Afghans, weary of the mujahideens' excesses and infighting, welcomed the Taliban, which enjoyed much early success, stamping out corruption, curbing lawlessness, and making the roads safe for commerce to flourish.†
Chpt 2.
- Once in power, however, the Taliban showed their true colors.†
Chpt 2.
- Television, music, sports, and cinema were banned, judged by the Taliban leaders to be frivolities.†
Chpt 2.
- These religious policies earned universal notoriety as the Taliban strived to restore the Middle Ages in a nation longing to join the twenty-first century.†
Chpt 2.
- Washington immediately presented the Taliban leaders with a difficult choice-either expel bin Laden, who was held responsible for the bombings by the U.S. government, or face the consequences.†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban flatly refused to hand over their Saudi-born guest, who was providing them with heavy funding.†
Chpt 2.
- Then in 1999 the United States persuaded the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.†
Chpt 2.
- Two years later, even harsher sanctions were put in place in another attempt to force the Taliban to hand over bin Laden.†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban were still in power, and they were still hiding Osama bin Laden, but their isolation, political and diplomatic, was becoming total.†
Chpt 2.
- But the Taliban would not budge.†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban were so busy trying to enslave the citizens, they forgot about the necessity for food, and there was mass starvation.†
Chpt 2.
- That was when the Taliban blasted sky-high the two monumental sixth-century statues of the Bamiyan Buddhas, one of them 180 feel: high, the other 120 feet, carved out of a mountain in central Afghanistan, 143 miles northwest of Kabul.†
Chpt 2.
- And their summary destruction by the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan caused museum directors and curators all over the world to have about four hemorrhages apiece.†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban effectively told the whole lot of them to shove it.†
Chpt 2.
- That took place on September 11, the same year, and was the beginning of the end for the Taliban and bin Laden's al Qaeda.†
Chpt 2.
- Before the dust had settled on lower Manhattan, the United States demanded the Taliban hand over bin Laden for masterminding the attack on U.S. soil.†
Chpt 2.
- Again the Taliban refused, perhaps not realizing that the new(ish) U.S. president, George W. Bush, was a very different character from Bill Clinton.†
Chpt 2.
- At the same time, long after dark in Afghanistan, twenty-five carrier-based aircraft and fifteen land-based bombers took off and destroyed Taliban air defenses, communications infrastructure, and the airports at Kabul, Jalalabad, Kandahar, and Herat.†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban, its military headquarters now on fire, did own a somewhat insignificant air-strike capacity, just a few aircraft and helicopters, and the U.S. Air Force wiped that right out with smart bombs as a matter of routine.†
Chpt 2.
- Navy bombers taking off from the carriers targeted the Taliban's other military hardware, heavy vehicles, tanks, and fuel dumps.†
Chpt 2.
- They aimed them straight at Taliban forces in the city.†
Chpt 2.
- The United States really did a number on the Taliban, flattened their stronghold in Kunduz in the north, shelled them out of the Shomali Plains north of Kabul, carpet bombed them anywhere they could be located around the Bagram air base, where, four years later, we were headed in the C-130.†
Chpt 2.
- In the fall of 2001, the Taliban and al Qaeda were mostly fleeing the U.S. offensive or surrendering.†
Chpt 2.
- As we prepared for our final approach to the great, sprawling U.S. base at Bagram, the Taliban were once again out there, killing aid workers and kidnapping foreign construction workers.†
Chpt 2.
- Parts of eastern and southern Afghanistan have been officially designated unsafe due to increasingly daring Taliban attacks.†
Chpt 2.
- They are also the quintessential supporters of the Taliban.†
Chpt 2.
- Their warriors form the backbone of the Taliban forces, and their families grant those forces shelter in high mountain villages, protecting them and providing refuge in places that would appear almost inaccessible to the Western eye.†
Chpt 2.
- It's easy to see why the Pashtuns and the Taliban get along just fine.†
Chpt 2.
- Their villages may not be straightforward military strongholds as the Taliban desire, but the Pashtuns are not easily intimidated.†
Chpt 2.
- The Taliban creed comes right out of the Pashtun handbook: women are the wombs of patrilineage, the fountainheads of tribal honor and continuity.†
Chpt 2.
- That's the basis of the Taliban view of women.†
Chpt 2.
Definition:
a fundamentalist Islamic political faction that rules Afghanistan
(A fundamentalist is someone who strongly believes in old, traditional forms of a religion.)
(A fundamentalist is someone who strongly believes in old, traditional forms of a religion.)