Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

658 • TALIBANand casinos that had sprung up as a result of the open-door policiesof Sadat. After a government crackdown on all groups critical ofSadat, whether leftist or fundamentalist, about 60 members of thisgroup were imprisoned. In return, on 3 July 1977 Mustafa and somefollowers kidnapped a former minister of religious affairs, SheikhMuhammad Hussayn Dhahabi, and demanded the release of theirbrethren. The government refused their demands. After Dhahabi’sbody was found on 7 July, Egyptian security forces cracked down onthe society, with six people killed and 57 injured in the fighting thatensued. Eventually about 620 members of the group were arrested,including Mustafa and four other key leaders, who were tried andexecuted in March 1978.The group had around 5,000 total adherents, many of whom livedin the Upper Egyptian city of Asyut, a stronghold of Islamic fundamentalism.While some aid came to the group from Libya, most ofthe group’s resources came from expatriate Egyptians sympathetic tothe group. In October 1981 the organization claimed responsibilityfor the murder of Anwar Sadat, which actually was accomplished bya different fundamentalist group, the Munazzamat al Jihad.TALIBAN. From Arabic, Talib, for “seeker,” with the Persian/Dari -anplural ending, generic term for Muslim theological seminary studentsand also used to designate the group that came to rule most of Afghanistanin the period 1999–2001. The Taliban movement began inSeptember 1994 among the students of Mullah Muhammad Omar ofQandahar who were dissatisfied with the arbitrary rule of the remnantMujahideen factions. By 27 September 1996 the Taliban capturedKabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and by the end of 1999 held mostof the country, although some northern parts were still loyal to otherAfghan leaders. The Taliban are Afghani Islamic fundamentalistadherents of Deobandism, an austere and puritanical branch of SunniIslam similar to Wahhabism that anathematizes any accommodation orsynthesis between traditional Islamic law and more contemporary legaland political forms and which also denounces Shi’ite Islam as beingheretical or even apostate. Thus, unlike the Islamic rulers of Iran, theTaliban have dispensed with any pretense of a written secular-styleconstitution, democracy, elections, or judicial equality of the sexes.The Taliban are connected to terrorism on several counts. Theygranted sanctuary in their territory to “Afghan” veteran fundamen-