Islamic State of Afghanistan in the context of "Northern Alliance"

The Taliban, which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is an Afghan political and militant organization with an ideology comprising elements of the Deobandi movement of Islamic fundamentalism and Pashtun nationalism. It ruled approximately 90% of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, before it was overthrown by an American-led invasion after the September 11 attacks carried out by the Taliban's ally al-Qaeda. Following a 20-year insurgency and the departure of coalition forces, the Taliban recaptured Kabul in August 2021, overthrowing the Islamic Republic, and now controls all of Afghanistan. The Taliban has been condemned for restricting human rights, including women's rights to work and have an education, and for the persecution of ethnic minorities. It is designated as a terrorist organization by several countries, and the Taliban government is largely unrecognized by the international community.

The Taliban emerged in 1994 as a prominent faction in the Second Afghan Civil War (1992–1996) and largely consisted of warlords from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan. Under the leadership of Mullah Omar, the movement spread through most of Afghanistan, shifting power away from the Islamic State of Afghanistan, as well as other Mujahideen militants. The Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and established the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that was opposed by the Northern Alliance, which maintained international recognition as a continuation of the Islamic State.

The Afghan conflict (Pashto: دافغانستان جنګونه; Dari: درگیری افغانستان) is the series of events that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. Early instability followed the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the largely non-violent 1973 coup d'état, which deposed Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah in absentia, ending his 40-year-long reign. With the concurrent establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan, headed by Mohammad Daoud Khan, the country's relatively peaceful and stable period in modern history came to an end. However, all-out fighting did not erupt until after 1978, when the Saur Revolution violently overthrew Khan's government and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Subsequent unrest over the radical reforms that were being pushed by the then-ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led to unprecedented violence, prompting a large-scale pro-PDPA military intervention by the Soviet Union in 1979. In the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War, the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen received extensive support from Pakistan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia in a joint covert effort that was dubbed Operation Cyclone.

Although the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the various mujahideen factions continued to fight against the PDPA government, which collapsed in the face of the Peshawar Accord in 1992. However, the Peshawar Accord failed to remain intact in light of the mujahideen's representatives' inability to reach an agreement on a power-sharing coalition for the new government, triggering a multi-sided civil war between them. By 1996, the Taliban, supported by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, had seized the capital city of Kabul in addition to approximately 90% of the country, while northern Afghanistan remained under the authority of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. During this time, the Northern Alliance's Islamic State of Afghanistan enjoyed widespread international recognition and was represented at the United Nations, as opposed to the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which only received diplomatic recognition from three nations. Despite the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the Northern Alliance continued to resist in another civil war for the next five years.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي امارت, romanized: Da Afghānistān Islāmī Imārāt), retroactively referred to as the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, was a totalitarian Islamic state led by the Taliban that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. At its peak, the Taliban government controlled approximately 90% of the country, while remaining regions in the northeast were held by the Northern Alliance, which maintained broad international recognition as a continuation of the Islamic State of Afghanistan. The Taliban referred to the government as interim throughout the entire period of its existence, despite the strong and permanent role of Mullah Omar in the government.

After the September 11 attacks and subsequent declaration of a "war on terror" by the United States, international opposition to the regime drastically increased, with diplomatic recognition from the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan being rescinded. The Islamic Emirate ceased to exist on 7 December 2001 after being overthrown by the Northern Alliance, which had been bolstered by the ISAF coalition established after a U.S.-led invasion of the country two months prior. The Taliban continued to refer to itself as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in official communications when it was out of power from 2001 to 2021.

Hamid Karzai (born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan politician who served as the seventh president of Afghanistan from 2002 to 2014, including as the first president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2004 to 2014. He also served as chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration from 2001 to 2002.

Born in Kandahar, Karzai graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul and later received a master's degree from Himachal Pradesh University, Summerhill, Shimla, India, in the 1980s. He moved to Pakistan where he was active as a fundraiser for the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) and its aftermath. He briefly served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the Islamic State of Afghanistan government. In July 1999, Karzai's father was assassinated and Karzai succeeded him as head of the Popalzai tribe. In October 2001 the United States invasion of Afghanistan began and Karzai led the Pashtun tribes in and around Kandahar in an uprising against the Taliban; he became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001. During the December 2001 International Conference on Afghanistan in Germany, Karzai was selected by prominent Afghan political figures to serve a six-month term as chairman of the Interim Administration.

The Taliban has ruled Afghanistan as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan since taking control by force in 2021, overthrowing the internationally recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The takeover was widely criticized by the international community. As of July 2025, only one member state of the United Nations, Russia, has extended diplomatic recognition to the new regime, even though many states maintain nominal relations with Afghanistan.

The Taliban previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and received limited diplomatic recognition, with the United Nations and most countries continuing to recognize the Islamic State of Afghanistan. The Taliban has campaigned for international recognition since the takeover, gradually taking over the Islamic Republic's foreign diplomatic missions. Ousted president Ashraf Ghani has largely remained silent since the takeover, and has not formed a government-in-exile. Ghani's vice president Amrullah Saleh declared himself caretaker president and relocated to Panjshir Province after the Taliban takeover with the support of the National Resistance Front (NRF). However, he fled Afghanistan after the Taliban quickly captured the province. Although the NRF continues to wage a guerrilla insurgency, it has failed to take any territory and neither Saleh nor the NRF have received any international support, leaving the Taliban as the only viable claimant to Afghanistan's government.

The Peshawar Accord was an agreement signed on 26 April 1992 in Peshawar, Pakistan, between various Afghan mujahideen factions, brokered by Pakistan, during the fall of the communist Republic of Afghanistan. It established the Islamic State of Afghanistan with a coalition government as part of the power-sharing deal.

A notable opponent of a coalition government was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-e Islami, who had since March 1992 opposed these attempts to form a coalition government and sought to continue waging a war against the government in Kabul.

The 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War, also known as the Third Afghan Civil War, took place between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001: a period that was part of the Afghan Civil Wars that had started in 1989, and also part of the conflict (in wider sense) in Afghanistan that had started in 1978.

The Islamic State of Afghanistan government remained the recognized government of Afghanistan by most of the international community. The Taliban's Islamic Emirate government, however, received recognition from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The Battle of Tora Bora was a military engagement that took place in the cave complex of Tora Bora, eastern Afghanistan, from November 30 – December 17, 2001, during the final stages of the United States invasion of Afghanistan. It was launched by the United States and its allies with the objective to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of the militant organization al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda and bin Laden were suspected of being responsible for the September 11 attacks three months prior. Tora Bora (Pashto: تورا بورا; Black Cave) is located in the Spīn Ghar mountain range near the Khyber Pass. The U.S. stated that al-Qaeda had its headquarters there and that it was bin Laden's location at the time.