Armed members of Taliban Islamic students' movement sit atop an armoured personnel carrier as they prepare in their forward camp at Sheikhabad in the southeastern Afghan province of Wardak on February 4 to invade the provincial capital Maidan Shahr. Maidan Shahr is the last stronghold controlled by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's opposition Hezbi Islami party in Taliban's advance from the south to the capital Kabul 

Fighters of the Islamic Taliban militia rehearse at Mohammad Agha frontline, 45 km south of Kabul on October 9 ahead of their offensive against the Afghan capital. The Taliban reached the gates of Kabul on October 11 after capturing the key town of Charasiyab just south of the city 

Afghan soldiers loyal to President [Burhanuddin Rabbani] stand with armoured vehicles near Kabul October 13 as they try to fend off an offensive launched by the Islamic Taliban militia. The two sides were still fighting on the southern edge of the capital October 16, but frontlines have changed little since the initial Taliban thrust 

Afghan soldiers loyal to President [Burhanuddin Rabbani] enjoy sunshine at the war-ruined former royal Darul Aman palace in Kabul on January 29 with a tank dug in as artillery prepares to pound the rebel Taliban militia positions on the other side of the hill. 

An Afghan soldier loyal to President [Burhanuddin Rabbani ] mans an anti-aircraft gun as he keeps watch over the skies of Kabul from atop a mountain overlooking the city February 9. The Afghan government has been warning that an offensive by the opposition Taliban militia on the capital is imminent 

Afghan refugees walk along the road fleeing fighting north of Kabul October 11. Afghan fighters opposing the country's new purist Islamic Taleban rulers cut the main road north of Kabul killing several Taleban militia.

AFGHAN 

Taleban militia fire a jeep-mounted BM-12 rocket launcher towards a village north of Kabul October 11. Afghan fighters opposing the country's new purist Islamic Taleban rulers cut the main road north of Kabul killing several Taleban militia.

AFGHAN 

An Afghan Taliban fighter tries to retrieve a shoe with his Kalachnikov at a zoo in Kabul October 13. 

Taliban Islamic militia fighters watch civil servants and residents marching through the Afghan capital of Kabul, October 17. A few thousands demonstrators protested against what Taliban calls interference [of Iran, Russia and India in Afghan affairs.] 

An Afghan woman wearing her burkha walks past a shop selling newly made burkhas in the Afghan capital, October 18. The Islamic Taliban militia who took Kabul three weeks ago, require women to be fully veiled when leaving the house. 

An Afghan Islamic Taliban fighter prays beside his machine gun at dusk on the artillery front line north of the Kabul November 26. The Taliban, who claim to control much of the country, have vowed to impose their puritanical interpretation of Islamic Law on Afghanistan. 

A ruling Taliban fighter sits on a piece of rubble in front of one of the demolished Buddha statues in the central Afghan province of Bamiyan on March 26, 2001. Afghanistan's ruling taliban needed 20 days to destroy two giant Buddhas hewn into a cliff more than 1,500 years ago, an official said on Monday.

SS/CP 

Displaced Afghan families wait at a temporary camp in Herat, Afghanistan, to be transferred to U.N.-sponsored camps May 1, 2001. More than 100,000 people who fled from drought and civil war took refuge at the camps. The U.N. sent its top refugee official to the headquarters of the internationally sanctioned Taliban Tuesday to plea for a temporary cease fire to allow increased humanitarian aid to reach millions of desperate Afghans. REUTERS/POOL/B.K.

TT/BK 

An Afghan Taliban fighter guards Kabul's sports stadium as tens of thousands of onlookers watch a football match June 26, 2001. The hardline Taliban movement requires athletes to fully cover their bodies during sports events as parts of its Islamic policy.

SS/JD 

An Afghan boy looks at a pole strung with hundreds of destroyed video
and music tapes beside a road in Kabul on July 16, 2001. Since its
ascension to power in 1996, the ruling Islamic Taliban have banned
music and cinema. Violators are jailed for several days if caught
watching videos or listening to music, while their tapes are publicly
destroyed.

SS/RCS 

Members of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban wearing traditional dress pass
onlookers during a military parade as part of celebrations to mark the
72nd anniversary of the country's independence from Britain in Kabul
August 19, 2001. The independence day ceremony was attended by senior
Taliban officials and some leaders of Pakistani religious parties who
support the hardline Islamic movement.

MK/CP 

Afghans walk past a ruined site in Kabul on September 19, 2001. Many
Afghans are nervous and concerned about a possible attack on
Afghansitan by the United States. The leader of

Afghanistan's Islamic Taliban movement appealed to the United 

Afghan Muslim clerics are seen in this video grab arriving at a meeting
in Kabul September 19, 2001, to decide whether to bow to international
demands for the surrender of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, wanted in
connection with last week's suicide attacks in the United States.
Mullah Mohammad Omar, spiritual leader of the purist ruling Taliban,
appealed to the United States for patience, and asked to see proof in
the case. REUTERS/Staff

RCS 

Afghans watch cars burn in the compound of the U.S. embassy in Kabul on
September 26, 2001. Thousands of protestors stormed the embassy, and
burned dilapidated cars and disused offices, as a sign of hatred
against the U.S. for its threat of staging an attack on the ruling
Taliban. REUTERS/Sayed Salahuddin

SS 

A mob of pro-Taliban Afghan refugees run to attack members of the
international press travelling in a convoy of 25 cars in the village of
Yarro, near Quetta, October 10, 2001. No injuries were suffered by
members of the convoy who immediately returned to the safety of their
hotel in Quetta. REUTERS/Jerry Lampen

AS 

Northern Alliance soldiers carry weapons on the front line near
Zarkamar town in the north of Afghanistan, October 15, 2001. Defense
officials said that U.S. warplanes conducted very heavy daylight
strikes against troops and other Taliban targets on Monday, as a fourth
American aircraft carrier moved near striking range of Afghanistan.
REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

GG/AS 

Northern Alliance soldiers make their way to the front line position nearby Charatoy town in the north of Afghanistan October 17, 2001. Opposition commanders fighting Afghanistan's ruling Taliban watched in the early hours of Wednesday as U.S. warplanes struck enemy positions close to the frontline above Kabul for the first time. 

Afghans look at a crator caused by a bomb dropped during U.S. air
strikes in Kabul on October 18, 2001. One child was killed and four
others were wounded in this bomb while five members of one family and a
woman were killed in two other raids, witnesses said. More than 400
people have been killed so far in U.S. strikes on Afghanistan and the
country is running short of food and medicines, Taliban Ambassador to
Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef said in a statement on Thursday. REUTERS/
Sayed Salahuddin

SS/CRB 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. A US Air Force B-52 drops bombs on front line Taliban positions in
Tutakhan hill some 25 km north west of the Afghan capital Kabul October
31, 2001. B-52's carpet bombed Taliban positions in this area for the
first time since the begining of the US led campaign, pounding the
hardline Islamic movement in some of the heaviest strikes of the
campaign so far. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

YB/CLH/ 

Two Northern Alliance soldiers watch as the dust and smoke rises after
explosions in Taliban positions on Kalakata hill, near the village of
Ai-Khanum in northern Afghanistan, November 1, 2001. The Pentagon said
on Wednesday B-52s dropped heavy loads of bombs, a tactic known as
carpet bombing, on Taliban troops north of Kabul as a result of
improved tergeting intelligence, partly from U.S. special forces on the
ground. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

VF/CRB 

Taliban prisoners line up outside a jail in opposition-held Khoja
Bahawuddin in Northern Afghanistan, October 31, 2001. Afghanistan's
opposition is preparing to launch an assault on Taliban front lines
north of Kabul in the next few days, a senior Northern Alliance
official said. Ahmad Ziah Masood, a member of the movement's senior
council, said he saw no need for U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan.
REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

VF/CLH/ 

A Taliban fighter points his rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher
skywards during a visit by foreign journalists to the outskirts of
Kandahar October 31, 2001. U.S. planes roared over the Taliban
powerbase of Kandahar in southeast Afghanistan on Wednesday in a
pre-dawn strike that killed 11 people at a Red Crescent clinic, a
doctor said. REUTERS/Mian Khursheed

MK 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. A Northern Alliance fighter points at Taliban positions bombed by US
Air Force B-52 in Moshin-Ab some 35 km North of the Afghan capital
Kabul November 2, 2001. B-52s heavily bombed front line Taliban
positions pounding the hardline Islamic movement in some of the
heaviest strikes of the campaign so far. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

YB/CLH/ 

A young Afghan boy clutching a bag made from a U.S. food aid package
looks up to the sky as U.S. fighter jets bomb Taliban positions near
Deshitiqala in northern Afghanistan November 3, 2001. Diving from clear
blue sky, U.S. war planes blasted Taliban front line positions north of
Kabul. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

SZH/ 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. Afghan villagers sit atop a hill to have a better view of Northern Alliance troop movements in the outskirts of Gulbahal, some 70kms north of the Afghan capital Kabul, late November 4, 2001. [Afghanistan's opposition movement has chosen 60 candidates to a Council of National Unity called by ex-King Zahir Shah that it hopes will lead the war-torn state after the Taliban are toppled. Said Hussein Anwari, a representative of the minority Hazaras in the opposition United Front, told Reuters that the nominations included representatives from all the main ethnic groups in Afghanistan. ] 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. Afghan opposition Northern Alliance troops wait for their President
Rabbani in a training camp in the outskirts of Jabal us Seraj, 60 km
North of the Afghan capital Kabul, November 5, 2001. The Northern
Alliance, a mix of mostly ethnic Uzbek and Tajik fighters in the north
gathered in a symbolic show of strength and declared ready to push
Taliban forces. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

YB/CRB 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. A US Air Force B-52 flies over after releasing its bombs on front line
Taliban positions near Bagram airport, some 30kms north of the Afghan
capital Kabul, November 8, 2001. U.S. B-52 bombers pounded frontline
positions of the Taliban facing the opposition Northern Alliance north
of Kabul on Wednesday, sending up huge columns of smoke and hitting al
Qaeda posts. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

YB 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. Northern Alliance fighters atop a Russian made T-62 tank arrive in the
outskirts of Kabul November 13, 2001. Forces of the anti-Taliban
Northern Alliance entered Kabul on Tuesday as reports from across the
country pointed to a collapse of Taliban rule. Civilians greeted
opposition fighters and celebrated in the streets of Kabul.
REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

YB/CRB 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. An Afghan man and his son ride a bicycle past the body of a Taliban
fighter killed early morning on the motorway three kilometres north of
Kabul as Northern Alliance fighters approached the Afghan capital Kabul
November 13, 2001. Forces of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance entered
Kabul on Tuesday after defeating Taliban forces north of the capital,
civilians greeted opposition fighters and celebrated in the streets.
REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

YB 

Fighters of the Northern Alliance guard at one of the main roads near the Afghan capital of Kabul on November 13, 2001. Several hundred of the alliance armed fighters entered Kabul just after dawn following the ruling Taliban's withdrawal their forces from the city. 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. A Pakistani prisoner accused of fighting with the Taliban sits in his
prison cell in the basement of department three of Kabul's Security
Ministry November 17, 2001. In Taliban days, those suspected of working
to undermine the regime or of breaking its strict Islamic codes were
brought here for interrogation and then put in the dark stinking cells.
REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

YB 

Northern Alliance rocket-launcher "GRAD" shoots one the front line at
the border of Kunduz province, the only province in the Northern
Afghanistan still under the Taliban control, November 22, 2001. The
Afghan Northern Alliance said on Thursday talks on a surrender of
Taliban forces in Kunduz had failed and it had launched an offensive
that it hoped would capture the besieged province by the weekend.

REUTERS/Gleb Garanich 

United States Marines of the 15th MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) carry SMAWs (Shoulder Launched Multi-Purpose Assault Weapons) and lighter weapons as they march out from the Marines' forward camp in southern Afghanistan November 29, 2001 to take up positions in the perimter of the base. [Already hemmed into a shrinking swath of mountain and desert by nearly eight weeks of U.S. bombing and ground offensives by their Afghan foes, the Taliban now face another threat, hundreds of U.S. Marines pouring into a remote desert airstrip within striking distance of Kandahar, their spiritual cradle. ] 

Hazara children play in Bamiyan December 15, 2001, near an alcove where a giant statue of Buddha once stood. The destruction of the 2,000-year-old Buddhas, among the great wonders of the ancient world, was the first many people outside Afghanistan had heard of the Taliban or Bamiyan. 

EDITORIAL USE ONLY - NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. Northern Alliance fighters ride on a T-62 tank past a dead body on the motorway 3 km north of Kabul, as Northern Alliance fighters approached the Afghan capital, November 13, 2001. Forces of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance entered Kabul on Tuesday after Taliban forces fled the capital, and were greeted by civilians. 

Afghan children collect food grains under the truck being unloaded with
humanitarian aid in central Kabul December 5, 2001. Afghan factions
signed a landmark accord on Wednesday to set up a post-Taliban
government headed by Pashtun chief Hamid Karzai that will to start
rebuilding the devastated country from December 22. REUTERS/Damir
Sagolj REUTERS

DS/FMS 

Smoke billows from the top of a mountain after air strikes on a
suspected enemy position by United States Airforce B-52 bombers, March
10, 2002, near the villages of Sherkhankheyl, Marzak and Bobelkiel, in
Afghanistan. The towns were an al Qaeda and Taliban stronghold which
came under intense bombing and firefights as the coalition forces
battled to root them out. REUTERS/POOL/Joe Raedle

jr/kh/ME 

An Afghan girl looks from between women wearing traditional burqas as they wait in front of food distribution centre in Kabul December 7, 2001. [The Taliban's rule over its last bastion of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan came to an end with their forces laying down arms to a joint commission of tribal elders, Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.] 

Marines prepare to board a waiting helicopter at Camp Rhino in Southern
Afghanistan December 10, 2001. The Marines of the 15th Marine
Expeditionary Unit were continuing their mission of interdicting
avenues of escape for al-Qaida forces from Kandahar. U.S. armoured
vehicles backed by helicopters headed out of a Marine camp in south
Afghanistan towards the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, an
Afghan news agency

reported. REUTERS/POOL/Dave Martin 

Anti-Taliban Afghan fighters return from the front line in the Tora
Bora mountains December 14, 2001. They are among the mujaheedin on the
ground battling al Qaeda's last stronghold where Saudi-militant Osama
Bin Laden is believed to be hiding. REUTERS/Erik de Castro

EDC/RCS 

Anti-Taliban Afghan fighters watch several explosions from U.S.
bombings in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan December 16, 2001.
Hundreds of al Qaeda fighters have battled to the death in a last stand
in eastern Afghanistan, but their leader Osama bin Laden eluded the
U.S. dragnet, Afghan commanders said on Sunday. REUTERS/Erik de Castro

EDC/DL 

United States Army 10th Mountain Division soldier Jorge Avino from
Miami, Florida carves the body count that their mortar team has chalked
up on a rock, March 9, 2002 near the villages of Sherkhankheyl, Marzak
and Bobelkiel, in Afghanistan. The team said they have killed 40 plus
people, hit 12 vehicles and destroyed 1 mortar team near the villages
were an al Qaeda and Taliban stronghold came under intense bombing and
firefights as the coalition forces battled to root them out.
REUTERS/POOL/Joe Raedle

jr/kh/ME 

US Marines from Charlie 1/1 of the 15th MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit)
fill sand bags around their light mortar position on the front lines of
the US Marine Corps base in southern Afghanistan December 1, 2001
nearby a cardboard sign reminding everyone that the Taliban forces
could be anywhere and everywhere. This sign is one of several at an
area that Charlie Company named Camp Justice on the perimiter of the
larger base. REUTERS/Jim Hollander

CLH/