The Spectator

Where did the Taliban come from?

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issue 21 August 2021

Student takeover

Where did the Taliban come from?

— The word ‘Taliban’ means simply ‘students’ in Pashtun. They were originally a group of 50 students from the Sang-i-Hisar madrassa in Kandahar, led by Mohammed Omar, and committed to the overthrow of the warlords who were running Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

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