Negotiating - even reasoning - with the Taliban has vexed governments and international organizations ever since the group assumed power after a long civil war. Only three countries - Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates- recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government in Kabul. The group, whose name means "seekers of religious knowledge," sprang up from ultra-conservative religious schools in refugee camps in Pakistan.

The camps were recruiting grounds for guerrilla groups during the Soviet Union's 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan and during years of battle between rival ethnic warlords that followed the collapse of the Soviet-backed government in 1992.

The emergence of the Taliban in the mid 1990s was initially hailed by many Afghans, who welcomed the group's promise to unite the country and end more than 15 years of warfare. But powerful warlords in the north - particularly the Tajik commander Ahmed Shah Massoud who was assassinated in September 2001 - continued their guerrilla campaigns. Many Afghans have turned against the Taliban because of its repressive brand of Islam and the brutality of its leaders.

Foreign governments, alarmed by the proliferation of Islamic terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, a rise in opium cultivation and trafficking and disdain for human rights, shunned and isolated the country. Today, Afghanistan is one of the poorest and most backward countries in the world.

Particularly galling for foreign governments is the Taliban's harboring of Osama bin Laden, a fugitive Saudi millionaire who is the described by U.S. officials as the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In December 2000, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding that the Taliban hand over bin Laden to any country "where he will be arrested and effectively brought to justice."

The resolution also said the Taliban "should act swiftly to close all camps where terrorists are trained within the territory under its control."