Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, seized control, later providing Osama bin Laden with a training base from which to launch terrorist operations worldwide.

The most famous (and likely most effective) of the mujahideen commanders was Ahmed Shah Massoud

Much smaller numbers of Arabs (like Osama bin Laden),

Osama bin Laden, originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab Islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the Muslim world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments

DRA's request, the Soviet Union brought forces into the country to aid the government from 1979.

These foreign fighters became known as "Afghan Arabs" and their efforts were coordinated by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.

Instead, according to the well-known story, the Taliban arose in extremist madrassas in Pakistan, spread across war-weary Afghanistan in two short years, and imposed an alien theocracy on the population the likes of which the world had never before seen. They were a phenomenon unprecedented in Afghan history, this story goes, a symptom of the hyper-regionalization of the conflict.

The news prompted taliban from around the province to descend upon Arghandab, sparking one of the most intense battles of the entire Soviet occupation.

These students, called taliban in Pashto, had been among the earliest to take up arms against the Soviets. Akbar Agha was one of them.

The tide of the war turned with the 1987 introduction of U.S. shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles. The Stingers allowed the mujahidin to shoot down Soviet planes and helicopters on a regular basis.

The mujahidin employed guerrilla tactics against the Soviets. They would attack or raid quickly, then disappear into the mountains, causing great destruction without pitched battles. The fighters used whatever weapons they could grab from the Soviets or were given by the United States.

the Americans and Osama bin Laden had fought on the same side against the Soviets in Afghanistan — as if the Americans had somehow created the Bin Laden monster by providing arms and cash to the Arabs. The complex at Tora Bora where Qaeda members hid had been created with the help of the C.I.A. as a base for the Afghans fighting the Soviets.