Talk:Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001)

Are the 1996-2001 government and the 2021-present government really differerent entities?

It reads to me more like they were ousted from Kabul and the cities, but the organization itself was never changed, there was cohesive and consistent leadership, it was the same group. They just lost the capital and the bulk of the cities in 2001, but they never stopped existing or got fully wiped out, there's a continuous line of leadership and organization and control(albeit very little control in 2002 and 2003, but some rural areas yes). They didn't change constitutions or stop existing completely, this isn't a successor republic, it's the same organization operating in the same country continously.

You have this article for 1996-2001, Taliban for the 2001-2021 period, and the just plain Afghanistan page for the 2021 onward stuff, even though it's all the same group with no massive internal changes or anything, they always claimed to be the legitimate government, there was a 20 year civil war, they lost the capital, they retook the capital. 2604:3D09:1F80:CA00:396A:97CC:5ECB:C17B (talk) 20:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

My gut instinct is everything from 1996 onward is Islamic Emirate, they called themselves that continuously, they claimed legitimacy continuously, same group ousted from Kabul in 2001 who retook it in 2021, not a revival or new entity with the same name. Syria and Yemen both lost their capitals for a while in Civil Wars, we don't count them as seperate entities.

Taliban would be fitting for the pre-taking Kabul and declaring the Emirate era, the stuff from their founding in August 1994 to the declaration after taking Kabul in September 1996 2604:3D09:1F80:CA00:396A:97CC:5ECB:C17B (talk) 20:20, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 3 March 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Sophisticatedevening ^(talk) 17:49, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

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Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001) → Islamic Emirate of AfghanistanIslamic Emirate of Afghanistan – There is no functional difference between the 1996-2001 Taliban government and the present one, and related articles (e.g. Recognition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) cover both the 1996-2001 period and the 2021-present period. It's been the same government for the entire time- it simply had limited control between 2001 and 2021, functioning as a government in exile. For that reason, I think the scope of this article should be broadened to cover the entire period of Taliban government from 1996 to the present day, with information on the present-day government moved from the Afghanistan article into here. I'd restructure the Afghanistan article into one about the region in general (similar to Ireland), with a hatnote to here for information on the Taliban government. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 17:33, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose, this is not really an RM, and the Afghanistan article covers a country. Countries should not be mixed with other sorts of regions, Ireland is about an island. CMD (talk) 17:50, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

  Comment restructuring the Afghanistan article isn't really the primary point here and the details of that can easily be discussed separately. The point is that there was no 1996-2001 Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as it still exists and has done since 1996 (just with 20 years partially in exile in the middle), so the current title/scope of this article doesn't really make sense. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 22:59, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

  It makes a lot of sense to have temporally-scoped articles. We do it all the time, and that is without quite substantial considerations such as the one prefixed by "just" there. We maintain separate pages for Estonian government-in-exile, Northern Yuan, West Germany, and Byzantine Empire despite continuing government structures, because how those structures operate in the context of the world around them substantially shifted. CMD (talk) 02:37, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

  Those all saw some meaningful major transformation into being treated effectively as a different country. That's not the case here- the areas under Taliban control as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have always been governed in much the same way, and things covered in this article like the human rights situation and international relations largely apply to areas under Taliban control for the entire 1996-present period rather than just the initial five years. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 13:00, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

  There was no 1996-2001 Islamic Emirate: if you are saying this seriously, and I mean this in the most respectful way I can, I don’t think you are familiar enough with this topic to be an effective contributor to it. TEMPO156 (talk) 11:48, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. This seems like asking to merge French Third Republic and French Fourth Republic because ideologically similar leaders were involved in both. Well yes, but there was a notable gap in the middle. I get that the Taliban still existed from 2001-2021, but it wasn't exactly a continuing government - it was ideologically-aligned similar figures who spent quite a bit of time as not a government at all, but more like warlord armies & militias. SnowFire (talk) 14:35, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose, frankly ridiculous, we don’t have to accept Taliban POV that they continued to be a government when they weren’t, and sources definitely refer to it as a government from 1996-2001. TEMPO156 (talk) 11:45, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

  Oppose. I concur. That would be somewhat like saying that the antifreeze that was in your car in 1996 is the same antifreeze that is in there today, simply by virtue of the fact that you never completely flushed the system, and therefore there is still some of the antifreeze from 1996 in there today. No, it is simply the successor to the antifreeze that was in your car in 1996. While it may be almost identical, it is not the same. I do apologize for the silly analogy, but it's the best I can think of right now. BaggyCEO89 (talk) 04:21, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

• support, it should be divided into Afghanistan at the broad level and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan at the narrow level, given the high degree of international uncertainty surrounding this regime, it should be viewed as a factional government and should not only be placed in the broad category of Afghanistan. Cbls1911 (talk) 14:28, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Dubious 17 December date

@Sundostund: Thank you for reverting MarketFruit on this. A clear pattern of unhelpful editing is ongoing there. 7 December is a solid date. For a group as mysterious as the Taliban, you need people who have gone on the ground and talked to both the Taliban and all other sides. Bette Dam is the standout expert on this, and has the unusual bravery for a journalist of just going there unaccompanied and talking with Taliban, who she found quite like to gossip. Huge amounts of the quality information on Mullah Omar come entirely from her, and people in the U.S. government consider her book, where she reveals 7 December is when Mullah Omar called it quits and left Kandahar, is the #1 most required reading for anyone being brought on to do intelligence work in this area. I have read the whole book; it is of unusually high quality. So, I do place enormous emphasis on the information she has gathered, and placed the citation in the Fall of Kandahar article. TEMPO156 (talk) 22:05, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

• Reason for 17 December appearing: This is a case of WP:CITOGENESIS. Wikipedia had for years dubiously labeled the Battle of Tora Bora (which concluded on 17 December) as the end of the Emirate. That operation involved clearing al-Qaeda out of a cave, and Osama bin-Laden fled to Pakistan. There were some Taliban fighters in the cave, too, but not top leadership and they certainly weren't governing any part of the country from that cave. TEMPO156 (talk) 22:19, 28 April 2026 (UTC)