Facts about Taliban:
The Taliban group was founded by Mullah Mohammed Omar.
The Taliban movement started after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Mullah Omar is known to be the spiritual head of Taliban.
The Taliban government was headed by Mullah Omar from 1995 to 2001. The Taliban came into power with the support of many groups of Afghanistan's northern tribal regions and its mountainous border with Pakistan.
The Taliban are an Islamist militant group fighting the Western-backed government in Kabul, which it deems to be a puppet regime.
The group has since split into two factions, with a rival movement led by Mullah Mansour as well as a splinter faction headed by Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
"Taliban is the majority, will rule Afghanistan again," said Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul who recently took up his post as a special U.S. envoy. "It will be a peaceful Afghanistan."
Khalilzad said any peace talks should be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled.
How did the U.S. get involved in Afghanistan?
The United States invaded Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. After losing ground to the Taliban, President George W. Bush authorized the deployment of U.S. troops to Afghanistan in October 2001. the Taliban have remained a force to be reckoned with.
Afghanistan's current President Ashraf Ghani has requested that the Trump administration and the United Nations re-consider their silence on the latest assault, pointing to Afghan troops' struggles in fighting the Taliban in remote provinces.
"We, the people of Afghanistan, are faced with a ruthless enemy that defies our forces, and we are dying because of this silence, because of a complete disregard for human life and the most basic tenets of humanity," Ghani said on Fridays. troops to remain in the country at the invitation of Afghan authorities.
Who is Qari Yusuf Ahmadi?
Mujahid Yusuf Ahmadi, aka Qari, is an Afghan-born, British citizen who fought for the Taliban against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance.
Ahmadi, who had been associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since the 1990s, was killed in Kunar on Friday, according to a Pentagon statement.
The United States offered a $5 million reward in 2014 for information leading to his capture or conviction.
Also known as Abu Talib al-Britani, Ahmadi traveled to the U.K. in the late 1990s and later settled in Birmingham, England. In 2010, he appeared in an al Qaeda recruitment video.
Connection of Afghanistan and Taliban
Afghanistan has become a hotspot for the global terrorist outfits. To fight against this terrorism, Afghanistan has been able to establish its own military and political institutions.
The main militants groups active in the region have attacked national security agencies and government buildings. Such attacks have resulted in the loss of dozens of civilian lives.
The Taliban is a one of the largest extremist group fighting against the Afghan government, whose members originate from ethnic Pashtun tribes. Afghan Taliban is a coalition of various militant groups, which fights against the Afghan government in direct combat, according to the Pakistani media.
It was the US that started this alliance to fight the 'external enemies' of the US, in a bid to bring peace to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
The ISIS has also taken advantage of these grievances and is also fighting against the US and its allied forces.
In response to the moves made by the Taliban and ISIS, the US government has imposed sanctions on the group and their militants, stating that they pose a 'serious threat' to the US national security.
Pakistan hosted the Taliban leadership meetings, the largest number of the Taliban senior commanders and front-men visited Pakistan to hold meetings with their Pakistani counterparts.
In return, Pakistan was subjected to aggressive propaganda campaigns that accused it of being a state sponsor of terrorism and harbouring of terrorist groups.
Besides, the foreign media, especially CNN, NBC and BBC, targeted Pakistan for hosting Taliban leaders.
Through such biased approach and false allegations, the US portrayed Pakistan as a terrorist country and it is believed that Pakistan has incurred huge loss in the region due to these false accusations.
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