Wiki, you probably posted that! The GOP Taliban fought the Soviets who withdrew in 1989, so they had to have already existed BEFORE 1989, which means they were already formed before 1994.
History of the Taliban
History of Taliban Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979, the Taliban emerged as a resistance movement aiming to eject the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. With the United States and Pakistan providing considerable financial and military support, the Afghan Mujahideen were able to inflict heavy losses on the Soviet troops. According to The New York Times, the Soviet Union lost about 15,000 soldiers in Afghanistan.
In 1989, the Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, and the Afghan Mujahideen, under the leadership of Ahmed Shah Massoud, surrounded the Afghan capital, Kabul, and took over the rule three years after the departure of the Soviets. The Afghan government that was backed by the Soviet Union and led by President Sayid Mohammed Najibullah was subsequently overthrown. The Mujahideen alliance forming the new Afghan government, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani as interim president, failed to reach political unity and ended up fighting one another (Matinuddin 12-16).
VIDEO.
The Taliban was one of the Mujahideen factions that formed during the Soviet occupation and the internal fighting in Afghanistan. The Taliban emerged as a powerful movement in late 1994 when Pakistan chose the Taliban to guard a convoy trying to open a trade route from Pakistan to Central Asia. With Pakistan providing weapons, military training, and financial support, the Taliban gained control over several Afghan cities and successfully captured Kabul in September 1996. The Taliban continued to control most of Afghan territories with intermittent fighting with Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, led by Ahmed ShahMassoud, the former defense minister under the coalition government led by President Burhanuddin Rabbani (Maley 1-9).
Pakistani support for the Taliban is based on strong religious and ethnic bonds between the Taliban and Pakistan, especially with the tribal areas on the North-West borders of Pakistan. Most of the Taliban’s leaders were educated in refugee camps in Pakistan where they had escaped the Soviet invasion. Taliban militants are Sunni Muslim Pashtuns, and Pashtuns constitute thirteen percent of the total population of Pakistan. Pashtuns dominate the Pakistani military and are concentrated in the
North-West Frontier province, which was the command center for the Mujahedeen groups fighting the Soviet troops and a major destination for the Afghan refugees (Matinuddin 16).