The Taliks are an extreme, fundamentalist Sunni organization that was created in 1994. The roots of the organization go back to a small group of students of mullah Mohammed Omar (numbering about 30), which assumed the armed takeover of power in Afghanistan. The organization's popularity grew relatively quickly, and the Taliban skillfully fueled dissatisfaction with the previous secular government and the difficult economic situation in the country. As a result of the civil war in 1996, the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, but their rule gained very limited support on the international forum. During their reign, they introduced an extreme interpretation of Koranic law in the country and started religious persecution of the followers of Hinduism and Shiism. The Taliban also supported - directly or indirectly - terrorist organizations, especially al-Qaeda. This led to the US intervention (from October 2001) that overthrew the Taliban rule. However, many Taliban hid in the mountains and conduct military operations against the coalition forces from there. In 2008, their number was estimated at 7-11 thousand. people, and at the beginning of 2019 they controlled - according to various estimates - from 30 to 50% of the territory of Afghanistan.
United States Armed Forces ) are currently the most powerful and strongest troops in the world, with an active staff of approximately 1.36 million people and a budget of $ 686 billion in 2018. Depending on the size of the US Armed Forces, they have extensive, broadly understood special forces, which virtually all types of US armed forces have. For example, in the US Army they are Rangers or Green Berets, and in the US Navy they are SEALs. Since 1987, the overall oversight of the conduct of US Special Operations rests with the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), which is based at the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The idea to create such a command was born shortly after the completely unsuccessful operation Orli Pazur in 1980, the failure of which - in the course of analyzes - resulted precisely from the lack of coordination and joint command of various special forces units. The tasks of the American special units include, among others: conducting direct actions, anti-terrorist actions, conducting reconnaissance in the enemy's distant rear or anti-drug operations. Special forces were used on a large scale during the intervention in Afghanistan (since 2001) and in Iraq (since 2003).