Notes

After taking power in 1996, Afghanistan’s defiant Taliban movement alienated the country from every neighboring nation but Pakistan - until even Pakistani leaders gave up on the ultraconservative Islamic regime next door. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Pakistan served as a base for Afghan mujahidin resistance fighters, welcomed millions of Afghan refugees, and later sponsored the Taliban in its rise to power over rival factions. But the relationship cooled after Taliban leaders rebuffed Pakistani policies and Taliban-style fundamentalists inside Pakistan threatened to disrupt that nation’s complex Islamic society, the population of which is more than five times as large as Afghanistan’s.