Is this the end of the Taliban

�

A.� It certainly seems so, doesn't it Taliban forces abandoned their last bastion, fleeing the southern city of Kandahar. Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is missing - presumably in hiding. He was seen fleeing on a motorbike and is also reported to have been captured by a pro-Taliban warlord.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

�

Q.� It didn't take long, did it

A.� On the face of it, no - but we don't know what horrors may still be in store from the fanatics and Osama Bin Laden. However, it seems fair to say that the Taliban have fallen even quicker than they rose. With battering by American airstrikes and ground assaults by opposition forces, the Islamic militia was defeated in two months.

�

Q.� How did they rise

A.�� A group of former religious students formed the Taliban - the word means seekers, or scholars - in 1994, and within two years ruled most of Afghanistan. The fundamentalist movement swept across the chaotic country in the mid-1990s as people became disillusioned by the collection of feuding warlords who took power after the collapse of a pro-Russian government in 1992.

�

Q.� And then

A.� Once they gained power, the Taliban leadership imposed a brutal mix of Koranic interpretations and tribal customs on their increasingly fearful people. Citizens were forbidden to listen to music, watch television or admire artwork. Men had to wear beards as long as their fists. Women were banned from going to school, and had to gaze at the world - always with a male escort - from the tiny netted hole of a burqa. Children could not keep pet pigeons, play chess or fly kites.

�

Q.� Crazy.

A.� And it got worse. By the end of Taliban domination, women were not even allowed to wear shoes with hard soles. The sound was considered provocative. The Taliban's five years of rule were marked by the increasing influence of foreign elements, notably Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi accused of masterminding the 11 September attacks in the United States.

�

Q.� He didn't help them much, did he

A.� Ultimately, Bin Laden has been the Taliban's downfall. After Taliban leaders refused to hand over their 'guest' to America, President George W Bush launched a furious air assault on Afghanistan on 7 October. A collection of warlords grouped together in a disorganised Northern Alliance suddenly got the support of the world's most powerful military force.

�

Q.� But it wasn't an immediate success

A.� For a month, the attacks showed few results. Then, on 9 November, Taliban defences around the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif crumbled. Taliban soldiers, now aided by Bin Laden's fierce Al-Qaeda fighters, pulled out of the city. Within 10 days, the Taliban had fled the capital city of Kabul, and most other major cities, to the place of their movement's birth: Kandahar. The Taliban leaders agreed to surrender Kandahar, but by the next morning, when opposition forces moved in to seize their weapons, most of the Taliban were already gone.

�

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's new interim leader, said: 'The Taliban rule is finished. As of today, they are no longer a part of Afghanistan.'

�

To ask a question about People & Places, click here

Steve Cunningham