With the American strikes on Afghanistan, the country's ruling Taliban regime is paying the price for refusing to hand over prime suspect Osama bin Laden, who enjoys shelter within the country's borders.
The Taliban - which comes from the Persian word for "students" - came to power in 1995 after years of chaos following the Russian withdrawal.
Emerging from the Mujahideen guerrillas who fought Soviet troops during the 1979-89 occupation, they swept across the country, ruthlessly imposing strict Islamic sharia law as part of a mission to create a pure Islamic society.
The regime's ruler, Mullah Mohammed Omar, is a one-eyed veteran fighter who is rarely seen in public and is said to have visited the Afghan capital Kabul only twice.
He is said to cut a striking figure, wearing a black shawl which legend has it belonged to Islamic prophet Mohammed.
Mullah Omar is rumoured to live as a neighbour of bin Laden in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, and to have married one of bin Laden's daughters, though the Taliban deny it.
Under their regime, a raft of legislation was introduced prohibiting women from working, going to school and even restricting their access to healthcare.
To ensure their decrees were obeyed, religious police - part of the Department for the Propagation of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice - were employed to patrol the streets.
A woman found strolling in the company of a man who is not her relative can expect 100 lashes as a punishment and the number of public executions has risen steadily under Taliban rule.
Criminals are shot or hanged and thieves' hands are cut off. One woman had her thumb amputated for wearing nail varnish.
Television is banned, as is listening to anything other than the Taliban's own Shariat radio station, which broadcasts fanatical religious teachings.
The Taliban also bans heeled shoes, ties, playing chess, playing music, surfing the Internet, cutting one's beard, having a "US or British hairstyle" or laughing at an inappropriate moment.
In March this year two 2,000-year-old Buddhist statues at Bamiyan in central Afghanistan were blown up with rockets and dynamite.
Mullah Omar has also been criticised for religious intolerance.
He has forced the country's Hindu population to wear yellow badges on their clothes.