By the mid-1990s, a fundamentalist group called the Taliban took control of the country. The Taliban ruled according to Islamic Sharia law and instituted extremely harsh restrictions on the country. Osama Bin Laden, a veteran of the fight against the Soviets, became a leading figure in the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, one of the largest and most sophisticated Islamic terror groups in the world. It was from within Afghanistan that Bin Laden and his followers plotted to strike against the United States. On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists launched attacks against the United States. Terrorists flew two planes full of innocents into buildings in New York City and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A fourth plane was brought down
