In May 2002, exiled members formed the Council of Leaders ( Rahbarī Shūrā) based in the city of Quetta. The mass persecutions of Taliban members left the group weakened and many ultimately fled to neighboring Pakistan. Subsequently, the Taliban launched an insurgency to fight the United States–backed Karzai administration and the NATO–led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the War in Afghanistan.

The Taliban held control of most of the country until being overthrown after the United States invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001. The Taliban's government was opposed by the Northern Alliance militia, which seized parts of northeast Afghanistan and largely maintained international recognition as a continuation of the interim Islamic State of Afghanistan. In 1996, the group administered roughly three-quarters of the country, and established the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with the Afghan capital transferred to Kandahar from Kabul. Under the leadership of Mohammed Omar Mujahid ( r. 1996–2001), the movement spread throughout most of Afghanistan, shifting power away from the Mujahideen warlords. The Taliban emerged in 1994 as one of the prominent factions in the Afghan Civil War and largely consisted of students ( ṭālib) from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools ( madāris). The Taliban government has been criticized for restricting human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women and girls to work and education.

It recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 after years of insurgency, and currently controls all of the country, although its government is not recognized by any country yet. It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country from 1996–2001, before being overthrown following the United States invasion. The Taliban ( / ˈ t æ l ɪ b æ n, ˈ t ɑː l ɪ b ɑː n/ Pashto: طالبان, romanized: ṭālibān, lit.'students' or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by the name of its state, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, and jihadist political movement in Afghanistan. Jihadist extremism in the United States.

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