LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Taliban: Countries
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The Taliban has been heavily beaten back in three years of fighting. Most important, the Afghan people, by and large, support the presence of international troops, whom they correctly perceive as vital to instilling stability in the war-torn country. If anything, they worry that the NATO-led forces won't be as committed to the fight as the U.S.-led forces are.
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The Taliban were based in the Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan regions, and were overwhelmingly ethnic Pashtuns and predominantly Durrani Pashtuns. They received training and arms from Pakistan, the U.S. as well as other Middle Eastern countries who had been recruited by the U.S. to thwart the Soviet invasion of this region.
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The Taliban takeover of Kābul in 1996 paved the way for additional territorial conquests, and Taliban soldiers advanced north toward the mountain strongholds of the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. By the late 1990s the Taliban had taken control of almost all of Afghanistan. Opposition forces, commonly known as the Northern Alliance, held a small portion of the country’s territory in the north. Most countries did not recognize the Taliban regime as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
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The Taliban originally seized 23 South Koreans, but have since killed two of the hostages and released two others. They had initially demanded the withdrawal of South Korean troops from the country and the release of prisoners in exchange for freeing the hostages.
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Since their defeat in 2001, Taliban militants have been allowed to regroup, re-arm and re-exert their influence. Most of the southern countryside is now paralyzed, beyond the influence of Afghanistan's central government, lacking any government services and unable to break the Taliban's stranglehold. Just as it was in the 1980s during the Soviet occupation, the foreign troops control the major cities while the guerrillas control the mountains and villages.
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The official verdict of the Taliban ... was otherwise. Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani, the Taliban's top drug official in Nangarhar, said the ban would remain regardless of whether the Taliban received aid or international recognition. "It is our decree that there will be no poppy cultivation. It is banned forever in this country," he said. "Whether we get assistance or not, poppy growing will never be allowed again in our country."[107]
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