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Originally Posted by blankall
Bin Laden was pretty instrumental in the formation of the Taliban. Although. the Taliban had its roots largely in Madrassas in Pakistan, which were funded by Saudis. There was a split at some point between Bin Laden and the Taliban, but that was temporary and it was over the issue that Arabs should play in the Afghan government/military as opposed to any major ideological role.
Bin Laden returned to Afgahnistan in 1996 after being banned from Sudan and set up his own Al Qaeda mini-state there.
The USA was funding the Mujahideen, in the Afghan/USSR conflict. The Mujahideen were led by Bin Laden. So you can't say that the USA was funding the Taliban, who were in conflict with Bin Laden. It was the opposite, if anything, except that Bin Laden and the Taliban were not in conflict.
So for an overall timeline:
1990- Bin Laden leaves after defeating the Soviets - with US help.
1991-1996 - The Taliban, supported largely by Saudi sponsored madrass trained fighters in Pakistan gain control of Afghanistan. The Taliban did not gain control of Kabul until September 27, 1996.
1996 - Bin Laden returns to Afghanistan on May 18, 1996.
I'm not really seeing this major rift you're talking about. It looks like mutual support between the Taliban and Bin Laden to me, Bin Laden playing a large role in the Taliban founding throughout.
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Actually the local Mujaheddin in Afghanistan pretty much thought that Bin Laden and his foreign Mujaheddin were complete idiots who were there not to fight the Soviets to free Afghanistan but to achieve Martyrdom.
At the same time, the US funded the Afghan Mujaheddin which later became the Taliban, but Bin Laden wanted nothing to do with US aid preferring that the money came from pure Muslim countries.
There was a rift between local Taliban and foreign fighters, however the locals who later became the leadership in Afghanistan were grateful that Bin Laden and his group were so good at making the Soviets expend valuable ammunition;