The Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, two decades after being removed from power by a US-led military coalition.
The hardline Islamist group advanced rapidly across the country, seizing province after province before taking the capital Kabul on 15 August last year, as the Afghan military collapsed.
Foreign forces, who had agreed to leave, were stunned by the speed of the advance and had to accelerate their exit. Many Western-backed Afghan government leaders fled, while thousands of their compatriots and foreigners fearing Taliban rule scrambled to find room on flights out of the country.
Within weeks, the Taliban were in control of all of Afghanistan - something they had not managed to do in their first stint in power between 1996 and 2001.
The group had struck a deal with the Americans in 2020 for US troops to withdraw, following a bloody but ultimately successful guerrilla campaign lasting many years.
Under the deal, the Taliban committed to national peace talks, which never took place, and to preventing al-Qaeda and other militants from operating in areas that the Taliban controlled.
Following the group's return to power, Afghanistan's economy imploded, leaving a huge portion of the population struggling to find enough money to eat and to access other essentials.
Billions of dollars in Afghan assets held abroad are frozen as the international community waits for the Taliban to honour promises still to be met on security, governance and human rights, including allowing all girls to be educated.
Rise to power
The Taliban, or "students" in the Pashto language, emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
It is believed that the predominantly Pashtun movement first appeared in religious seminaries - mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia - which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam.
The promise made by the Taliban - in Pashtun areas straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan - was to restore peace and security and enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power.
From south-western Afghanistan, the Taliban quickly extended their influence. In September 1995, they captured the province of Herat, bordering Iran.
Exactly one year later, they captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, overthrowing the regime of President Burhanuddin Rabbani - one of the founding fathers of the Afghan mujahideen that resisted the Soviet occupation. By 1998, the Taliban were in control of almost 90% of Afghanistan.
Afghans, weary of the mujahideen's excesses and infighting after the Soviets were driven out, generally welcomed the Taliban when they first appeared on the scene.
Their early popularity was largely due to their success in stamping out corruption, curbing lawlessness and making the roads and the areas under their control safe for commerce to flourish.
But the Taliban also introduced or supported punishments in line with their strict interpretation of Sharia law - such as public executions of convicted murderers and adulterers, as well as amputations for those found guilty of theft. Men were required to grow beards and women had to wear the all-covering burka.
The Taliban also banned television, music and cinema, and disapproved of girls aged 10 and over going to school. They were accused of various human rights and cultural abuses. One notorious example was in 2001, when the Taliban went ahead with the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddha statues in central Afghanistan, despite international outrage.
This time round, there has been no repeat of such excesses, but the Taliban are accused of a range of well-documented abuses, including killing opponents, as well as beating and detaining journalists and Afghans protesting for their rights.
Women are no longer allowed to go on long-distance journeys without a male chaperone and, while not required to wear the burka, have been ordered to cover their faces in public. Most women are not allowed to work.
Pakistan has repeatedly denied that it was the architect of the Taliban enterprise, but there is little doubt that many Afghans who initially joined the movement were educated in madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan.
Pakistan was also one of only three countries, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which recognised the Taliban when they were in power the first time round in Afghanistan. It was also the last country to break diplomatic ties with the group.
At one point, a Pakistani offshoot of the Taliban threatened to destabilise Pakistan from areas it controlled in the north-west. One of the most high-profile and internationally condemned of all Pakistani Taliban attacks took place in October 2012, when schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot on her way home in the town of Mingora.
A major military offensive two years later following the Peshawar school massacre greatly reduced the group's influence in Pakistan, though. At least three key figures of the Pakistani Taliban had been killed in US drone strikes, including the group's leader, Hakimullah Mehsud in 2013.