The Rise and Rule of the Taliban, 1994–2001

Abstract

On the morning of 27 September 1996, the residents of Kabul awoke to a grisly spectacle. Two dead bodies were hanging from a traffic policeman’s pylon in a downtown square. The dead men were Dr Najibullah and his younger brother. Just a few days earlier, during a meeting with UN Under Secretary-General Marrack Goulding, Najibullah had declined to leave Kabul. ‘He had no fear of the Taliban, he said; his only enemy was Ahmed Shah Masood’ (Boutros-Ghali, 1999: 301). It was the worst, and the last, mistake of his life. Photographs of the spectacle were flashed around the world, and although the exact identity of the killers was never firmly established, it was universally interpreted as a manifestation of the Taliban character.