5. October 2011 booth 02: 28 GMT by M Ilyas Khan BBC News, Islamabad
the Taliban hit back with a vengeance after the US-led invasion in 2001 Taliban fighters to thousands a decade ago abandoned makes, fled their military posts and melted into the countryside, so that to capture Western-led Afghanistan troops without a fight.
This colorful mixed militia has today developed into a sophisticated guerrilla force, taken recently by several high-quality objectives and all but derailed American plans for a smooth and successful use of troops.
Clearly, they have achieved this despite the lack of a charismatic leader, a single chain of command and a political and economic vision.
How did they do it?
Until three years after their Government in October 2001 by coalition forces ousted was there was little activity of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"Taliban were initially welcomed by the Afghan people to bring civil war, but when they began to implement their strict Islamic code for four years long, the people got fed up," Brig says Mehmood Shah, a former head of security for North West Pakistan tribal areas (in retirement).
"People welcomed the Americans as they saw it as their liberators." "There was no place for the Taliban immediately to stage a comeback."
Until 2006, the Taliban had infiltrated however large parts of the South - in particular the provinces of Zabul, Kandahar and Helmand.
Until 2008 were from the direction North to Kabul spreading.
Brig Shah says, that the Americans made two errors, wasted the advantage.
"she are focused on military targets rather than stabilisation and development." "And she soon went renunciation of the war of the need that had brought them to Afghanistan choice against a war in the Iraq."
The lack of reconstruction and rampant corruption among government officials at a time when the millions of refugees from Iran and Pakistan were again, led to widespread disappointment and operated uprising, he says.
Sanctuary in Pakistan
But you many analysts also point to the role of Pakistan, from where the Taliban emerged in 1994 and where most of them fled in 2001.
Many believe that the current Afghan rebels in the tribal Pakistani Waziristan was born.
While the rest of Afghanistan quietly, they say was Waziristan lived with Taliban activity, which then made banner headlines around the world.
Sent but not replace Pakistan troops at the border the militant
In the year 2002 and 2004 there were skirmishes between the Taliban and Pakistani troops, followed by a series of peace deals with the army were, which the Taliban virtually control over most of Pakistan's tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan.
Most analysts agree - whether public or private, that Pakistan's security establishment the Taliban to Waziristan in a militant sanctuary, although the ability to remove them.
"I think the military in question was divided." It tolerated it, and also helped, "says Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi, a defense analyst."
Coalition forces suffered her earliest casualties in South Eastern Afghanistan, shortly behind the border of Waziristan.
It was the fighting in the South-East and later in the North-East - province in Afghanistan Kunar, the Pakistani tribal districts of Bajaur and Abdul Ahad Mohmand - which took most of their attention during 2002-06 next to.
The concentration of Taliban fighters in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, to infiltrate the quiet Zabul, Kandahar and Helmand provinces of Toba Kakar, Chaman, Quetta and Chaghai obscured these developments.
This development remained unattended by both the Pakistani armed forces and coalition troops in Afghanistan.
The results were predictable enough.
Western officials admit that until 2008-09, Coalition forces were in the not in a position to hold that the areas, the Helmand important for the Taliban - like large parts of Central Kandahar and southern were, where the Taliban bomb factories, arms caches, and defensive positions - and set up at the same time, protect their own lines of communication.
'Punjabi Taliban'
Since the "troop surge" announced by President Obama in 2010 troops could evict the Taliban from their fixed positions in Kandahar and Helmand.
Read the main story emerged in Afghanistan in 1994Mainly, which is supported by ethnic PashtunsToppled, after the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan 2001Fugitive wanted leader Mullah Omar, residence UnknownBut has spread the insurgent areas around the capital Kabul, and even the formerly quiet province of Nord-Afghanistan now wider.
The Taliban now seems more on suicide bombings will leave, and spectacular weapon and bombings, to meet the objectives of the psychological cheapest.
And there is an endless supply of neuen-and better trained - fighter, the Afghanistan from Pakistani areas, in particular the Waziristan in.
Credible sources the BBC say that these mainly Pakistanis, the Punjabi Taliban fighters are called, which specialized in gun and bomb attacks and form a large part of the Haqqani Waziristan-based network.
According to these sources, these fighters have been for 2009 to the border in Pakistani military vehicles, probably migrating rocket to avoid strikes by CIA operated drone.
Pakistan's military source in the region is cooperation with these fighters.
Spokesman of the army, Maj Gen Athar Abbas, rejects this as "malicious and manufactured".
"Nothing is further from the truth," he wrote in a current text message me back.
But since the recent accusations by US officials, who ordered several attacks in Kabul of Pakistani ISI intelligence service, questions about the military are actual role in the Afghan insurgents now trigger in various quarters in Pakistan.
Many in the West fixed long that is the key to peace in Afghanistan with the Pakistani forces.
The coming months will show if this really is the case, and whether Pakistan agrees, the demands of the international community to comply with.
Technology
News
A front view of the Field Museum in Chicago, IllinoisRaymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
