ABSTRACT
Following their capture of Kabul in 1996 the Taliban were unable to consolidate their success by taking control of the whole of Afghanistan, despite the covert military assistance they ‘allegedly’ received from the ISI in Pakistan in terms of fighting men and munitions. The complicated narrative of advances and defeats, of shifting alliances and allegiances is far beyond the scope of my narrative; Michael Griffin's Reaping the Whirlwind (2001) has all the details and takes the story up to 2000, before the fall of the World Trade Center.
