Afghanistan: How the Taliban won over northern ethnic minorities

When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, they faced stiff resistance across the country’s north from ethnic-based paramilitaries that resented the southern Pashtun militants. That resistance would prove decisive in 2001 when the same ethnic minorities, backed by U.S. air power, ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul.

This time around, the Taliban had a new strategy: Enlist minorities in the north and turn a Pashtun-based insurgency into a pan-Islamic fighting force against foreign infidels.

Taliban commanders and fighters describe a decadelong effort to recruit among ethnic minorities, setting the stage for a lightning-fast victory over Afghan security forces in