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Originally Posted by icarus
Well yes to be technical there were large areas in the north held by druglords (there was no Northern Alliance as such until the US-led invasion). Today there still are vast areas controlled by the same druglords.
I assumed it went without saying that modern Afghanistan referred to those areas under influence of Kabul and the government seated there, which consists of the major centres of the country--Jalalabad, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar. Anyway, I'm not sure what trying to downplay the Taliban government is meant to achieve in this discussion.
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Technically, The Northern Alliance was called the United Alliance for the Salvation of Afghanistan previously (and even after the invasion, they were still called the UASA locally--Northern Alliance was simply a western term, so of course it didn't exist until the american media took an interest in the region), but it definitely existed as a political body throughout the taliban rule. They were druglords, but they were much more organized than that term implies, as every country other than Pakistan and Saudi Arabia recognized the UASA as the legal government of Afghanistan.