The Taliban initially enjoyed enormous goodwill from Afghans weary of the corruption, brutality, and the incessant fighting of
Mujahideen warlords. Two contrasting narratives explain the beginnings of the Taliban.
[25] One is that the rape and murder of boys and girls from a family traveling to Kandahar or a similar outrage by Mujahideen bandits sparked Mullah Omar and his students to vow to rid Afghanistan of these criminals.
[26][27] The other is that the Pakistan-based truck shipping mafia known as the "Afghanistan Transit Trade" and their allies in the Pakistan government, trained, armed, and financed the Taliban to clear the southern road across Afghanistan to the Central Asian Republics of extortionate bandit gangs.
[28]
Although there is no evidence that the
CIA directly supported the Taliban or
Al-Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s, the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency) provided arms to Afghans resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets.
[29] Osama Bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers. The U.S. poured funds and arms into Afghanistan, and "by 1987, 65,000 tons of U.S.-made weapons and ammunition a year were entering the war."
[30] FBI translator
Sibel Edmonds, who has been fired from the agency for disclosing sensitive information, has claimed the
United States was on intimate terms with Taliban and
Al-Qaeda, using them to further certain goals in
Central Asia.[
citation needed] The Taliban were based in the
Helmand,
Kandahar, and
Uruzgan region which is overwhelmingly Pashtun territory and predominantly
Durranis.
[31] The
New York Times reported that the Reagan administration delivered several hundred Stingers to Afghan resistance groups, including the Taliban.
[32]
