Radio Shariat (meaning Islamic law) was the mouthpiece of the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, broadcasting religious programs and official decrees and announcements. The broadcasts were carried over twenty transmitting towers. It was the foreign media's main source of information from the Taliban.
Early in the United States invasion of Afghanistan, on October 8, 2001, U.S. forces bombed the main building and antennas of Radio Shariat. The U.S. then utilized the same frequencies to broadcast music with instrumental accompaniments (which had been banned by the Taliban) as well as announcements and information in Dari and Pashto.
The U.S. bombing of the station was decried by members of the international media.
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) or the Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Western China. Its stated goals are to establish an independent state called East Turkestan replacing Xinjiang. The UN Security Council Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee has listed ETIM as a terrorist organization since 2002. The United States removed it from its list of Terrorist Organizations in 2020, claiming it ceased to exist.
The following lists events that happened during 1996 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 2001 in Afghanistan.
Radio Afghanistan, also known as Radio Kabul or Voice of Sharia, is the public radio station of Afghanistan, owned by Radio Television Afghanistan. The frequencies are 1107 kHz (AM) and 105.2 MHz (FM) for the Kabul area. The name Radio Kabul has been given to many different incarnations of the state-run radio station since the first radio transmitters were installed in Kabul in the 1920s.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was a militant Islamist group formed in 1998 by Islamic ideologue Tahir Yuldashev and former Soviet paratrooper Juma Namangani; both ethnic Uzbeks from the Fergana Valley. Its original objective was to overthrow President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and create an Islamic state under Sharia; however, in subsequent years, it reinvented itself as an ally of Al-Qaeda. The group also maintained relations with Afghan Taliban in 1990s. However, later on, relations between the Afghan Taliban and the IMU started declining.
Fazal Hayat, more commonly known by his pseudonym Mullah Fazlullah, was an Islamist militant who was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, and was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in Swat Valley. On 7 November 2013, he became the emir of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, and presided over the descent of the group into factions who are often at war with each other. Fazlullah was designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the Security Council in 2015, and was added to the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice wanted list on 7 March 2018. Fazlullah was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kunar, Afghanistan on 14 June 2018.
The mass media in Afghanistan includes printing, broadcasting, and digital. It is mainly in Dari and Pashto, the official languages of the nation. According to the Attorney General's Office of Afghanistan, "there are 1,879 active media outlets in Afghanistan which were called one of the main achievements of the country in the past 18 years."
Zabihullah Mujahid is an Afghan official Central spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan since 25 October 2021 and Deputy Ministry of Information and Culture since 7 September 2021. He has long served as one of several spokesmen for the Taliban, the others being Suhail Shaheen and Yousef Ahmadi. Mujahid often commented mainly on the Taliban's activities in eastern, northern, and central Afghanistan, while Ahmadi focused on the western and southern regions.
The Pakistani Taliban, formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current leader is Noor Wali Mehsud, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban share a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and have assisted them in the 2001–2021 war, but the two groups have separate operation and command structures.
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi is a Salafi Islamic extremist militant group in Pakistan whose objective is to enforce Sharia law in the country.
Sufi Muhammad bin Alhazrat Hassan was a Pakistani cleric and Sunni Salafi Islamist militant, the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a militant group vying for implementation of Sharia in Pakistan. It operates mainly in the Dir region, Swat, and Malakand districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Sufi Muhammad was jailed for sending thousands of volunteers to Afghanistan to fight the U.S. intervention in 2001. However, he was freed in 2008 after he renounced violence. He was the father-in-law of Maulana Fazlullah, who assumed the leadership of TNSM during Sufi's imprisonment. He was described by BBC as a "follower" of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi Islamic school of thought, and by the Jamestown Foundation as one of the "active leaders" of Jamaat-e-Islami in the 1980s.
Maulana Shah Dauran was an Islamist militant from Swat, Pakistan. He was a deputy of Fazlullah, the chief of the Pakistani Taliban in Swat. He was one of the most wanted militants and the closest aide of Swat Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah. He was known for his hawkish views against the opponents. The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa announced a 10 million rupees bounty on Dauran.
The Islamic State – Khorasan Province is an affiliate of the Islamic State militant group active in South Asia and Central Asia. Some media sources also use the terms ISK, ISISK, IS–KP, Daesh–Khorasan or Daesh–K in referring to the group. ISKP has been active in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, where they claimed attacks. The ISKP and Taliban consider each other enemies.
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Afghanistan.
Operation Omari, also called the Spring Offensive, was an offensive launched by the Taliban against the Afghan government in Afghanistan. Its start was announced on 12 April 2016. The Taliban made their yearly spring offensive announcement on April 12, 2016. They named the offensive in honor of the movement's late leader. The announcement of Operation Omari includes details on how the members of the group should present themselves in public. The aim of the Operation is considered ambitious and its focus is on clearing the remaining areas from enemy control and presence. Unlike offensive announcements from previous years this announcement contained details about specific targets that would be attacked during the operation. The targets were stated in general terms with reference only to "large scale attacks on enemy positions across the country, martyrdom-seeking and tactical attacks against enemy strongholds, and assassination of enemy commanders in urban centers."
Hibatullah Akhundzada, also spelled Haibatullah Akhunzada, is an Afghan Islamic scholar, cleric, and jurist who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and came to power with its victory over Western-backed forces in the 2001–2021 war. However, he has remained a reclusive figure, and his low profile has fueled speculations about his role in the new Taliban government, and rumours that he may be dead. Except for an undated photograph, and several audio recordings of speeches, he has almost no digital footprint.
The Islamic State–Taliban conflict is an ongoing armed conflict between the Islamic State and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The conflict escalated when militants who were affiliated with Islamic State – Khorasan Province killed Abdul Ghani, a senior Taliban commander in Logar province on 2 February 2015. Since then, Taliban and IS-KP have engaged in clashes over the control of territory, mostly in eastern Afghanistan, but clashes have also occurred between the Taliban and IS-KP cells which are located in the north-west and south-west.
A suicide car bomb exploded at a security checkpoint outside a police station in the Afghanistan capital, Kabul, on 7 August 2019. The explosion occurred in the early morning, in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood in western Kabul. At least 14 people were killed and 145 injured, mostly civilians. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, citing that one of their suicide bombers attacked "a recruitment centre". The attack occurred as ongoing negotiations between the Taliban and the United States were being conducted.
Events in the year 2020 in Afghanistan.
"This Is the Home of the Brave" is a Pashto-language nasheed and the national anthem of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. It is an a cappella song, meaning that it does not contain musical instruments, as instruments are considered haram by many Islamic scholars in Afghanistan.