war. It is divided into four sections. The first gives a brief overview
of Bin Laden, his organisation, and his links with the Taliban, who
became increasingly radical as a result of his influence. The second
traces the military campaign by which the Taliban were obliterated
as a political and military force, and discusses the factors which
contributed to their rapid collapse at the very time when some
observers were predicting a prolonged campaign and warning that
the United States could find itself trapped in a new Vietnam. In the
third, I examine the Bonn Agreement of 5 December 2001, which
defined a path for the establishment of new political arrangements
in Afghanistan and led to the inauguration of a post-Taliban Interim
Administration on 22 December. The final section highlights some
of the challenges with which the Afghan people will have to deal.
OSAMA BIN LADEN AND THE TALIBAN
Bin Laden’s background
Osama Bin Laden was born on 10 March 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, the son of a building magnate of Yemeni origin,
Muhammad Bin Laden, who made a fortune as an entrepreneur in
the kingdom before his death – in a plane crash (Bergen, 2001a:
45). The young Osama was a student at the King Abdul Aziz
University in Jedda (Kepel, 2000: 310), where he fell under the
influence of the Palestinian Dr Abdullah Azzam. Following the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the young Bin Laden made his
way to Peshawar, and devoted his energies to supporting the strug-
gle against the Soviet occupation: from 1984, he ran a guesthouse
for Arab volunteers entitled the Beit al-Ansar (‘House of
Supporters’). There is no credible evidence to suggest that he was
supported in this by the United States, and nor does it seem parti-
cularly likely, since Saudi support for such activities was readily
forthcoming at that time, and Bin Laden was personally wealthy.
According to Peter Bergen, author of the most detailed and reliable
study of Bin Laden’s operation, he ‘would form his closest ties
with the ultra-Islamist Hekmatyar and with Sayyaf, an Afghan
The Fall of the Taliban 253