ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the history and the contemporary dimensions of the problem of terrorism in Afghanistan. It deals with a discussion of definitional issues. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan inaugurated a period in which vast numbers of Afghans would lose their lives. In November 1986, a relatively new Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev took the decision in principle to withdraw from Afghanistan, and this was finally given effect pursuant to the Geneva Accords of April 1988, following which the Soviet Union completed the withdrawal of its combat forces by February 1989. In 1994, a new armed group known as the Taliban surfaced in Afghanistan, and succeeded in taking over the cities of Kandahar in 1994, Herat in 1995, and finally the capital Kabul in 1996. A Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, used a loudspeaker system to denounce the victims as heretics and personally supervised the choice of victims for imprisonment in containers.
