The Taliban was formed during the Afghan Soviet war (1979-89). The Taliban are also known as a group of Mujahideen (Holy Warriors or Freedom Fighters)... Well any way they were formed on a regional basis but not united until in 1994 when Pakistan hired a group of Taliban warriors to protect a convoy going from Pakistan to Central Asia. Through this action the Taliban proved to be an effective force and later went on to take both the City of Kandahar and Kabul in 1996. The Taliban went on to rule Afghanistan until 2001 when the U.S. & Afghani opposition forces booted them out of office after the Sep 11th terror attacks. Since then Taliban has had major funding and influence by the Pakistani government. In one year alone the Taliban gained 30million dollars from Pakistan in 2002.

I got most of my information from this site: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html I(ts pretty good reading...