prohibited and all people are obliged to go to the mosque. If young people
are seen in the shops they will be immediately imprisoned.Source:Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2001).U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
Following the September 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks against the United States, Presi-
dent George W. Bush launched what he called a “global war on terror.” It would begin
with an attack on al-Qaida, which was based in Afghanistan under the protection of
the Taliban government. The Bush administration decided on a full-scale invasion of
Afghanistan requiring the support of neighboring Pakistan.
Pakistan’s military and intelligence services long had been the principal source of
outside support for the Taliban, because the Pakistanis considered the Taliban to be
reliable allies who would not threaten Pakistani interests. Since 1999 Pakistan had been
led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the head of the military who had ousted the civilian
government in a coup. Senior U.S. diplomats visited Musharraf in the days after the
September 11 attacks and demanded that he provide support for a U.S. military oper-
ation against the Taliban, including intelligence information about the Taliban’s mil-
itary formations and permission for U.S. planes to use Pakistani airspace. Musharraf
reportedly agreed to these demands reluctantly and only under considerable pressure.
In a televised speech on September 19, Musharraf told the Pakistani people of the
U.S. requests and made clear that he had agreed to them, but he did so while also
suggesting that a decision remained pending. “The decision we can take today can
have far-reaching and wide-ranging consequences,” he said. “The crisis is formidable
and unprecedented.” He added, “We are trying our best to come out of this critical
situation without any damage to Afghanistan and Taliban.”
In a speech to a joint session of Congress the day after Musharraf’s speech, Pres-
ident Bush announced the launch of his global war on terror. He presented no spe-
cific actions for this war, but he did lay down a series of demands for the Taliban,
whom he noted harbored Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. His demands included turn-
ing bin Laden and his colleagues over to the United States, closing down al-Qaida’s
training camps, and opening the camps to U.S. inspection. “These demands are not
open to negotiation or discussion,” Bush said. “The Taliban must act and act imme-
diately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.”
598 AFGHANISTAN