KABUL, Afghanistan (EPN) -- Public executions, amputations, stonings and whippings are only part of the Taliban's legacy after five years of often vicious rule.

"For five years we lived in a jail, the whole country was a big jail," said an Afghan businessman after Taliban fighters surrendered in their Kandahar city headquarters.

"Actually it was more like living in a zoo," he added glumly.

"Women, you should not step outside your residence," the Taliban's dreaded Religious Police declared when their reclusive "Commander of the Faithful," Mullah Mohammad Omar, seized Kabul in 1996.

"If women are going outside with fashionable, ornamental, tight and charming clothes to show themselves, they will be cursed by the Islamic Sharia and should never expect to go to heaven."

The Taliban, or Islamic students, mixed 1,400-year-old quotes from the Muslim holy book, the Koran, plus hundreds of years of convoluted Islamic Sharia laws -- but twisted them to suit Mullah Omar's one-eyed vision of an ideal society.

Playing music, dancing, shaving, keeping pet birds, flying kites, possessing pictures of people or animals, or failing to pray five times a day in a mosque were punishable by "imprisonment" in dungeons.

Sex crimes, theft, murder or no longer believing in the Muslim religion resulted in beatings, amputations or various forms of ancient execution in a Kabul sports stadium while men and boys were forced to watch. That legacy may continue, albeit mutated.

Asked if Afghanistan's new, post-Taliban "interim" government would enforce Sharia law or change to civil law, acting foreign minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah replied: "If we refer to civil law or Sharia law, there are lots of things in common which could be used.

"Details will be decided later on."

But by insisting on law and order, the Taliban whipped or killed so many Afghans for all sorts of infringements that people no longer admired their lofty religious rhetoric.

Today, many Afghans blame Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for arming, financing, training, manipulating and advising the Taliban whenever the Muslim scholars and students were weak and isolated.

But all sides in Afghanistan committed atrocities during greed-fueled years leading to the Taliban's 1996 victory and aftermath.

Various warlords tried to obliterate cities and villages to ethnically cleanse opposition territory.

The Taliban and their opponents in the Northern Alliance allegedly skinned people alive and buried others alive in the desert while raping, robbing and terrorizing Afghans in dizzying rounds of bloody betrayals.

The U.S., Russia, India, Iran, and the Central Asian Republics alternately opposed and wooed the Taliban -- hopeful of laying gas and oil pipelines across Afghanistan.

But those foreign powers ended up backing anti-Taliban Northern Alliance fighters despite their gruesome record while in power during 1992-96 and on the battlefield.

The Taliban were spawned in all-male religious schools and in greasy truck stops along Afghanistan's few main highways.

The "truck mafia" wanted to smuggle their goods across the country from Pakistan to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and other Central Asian Republics, but were harassed by tribal bandits along the way.

A new, tiny force calling itself the Taliban were able to liberate the southern highway from Pakistan to Kandahar thanks to bribes and bombs.

Soon, the Taliban were using the highway and tolls they collected to insert themselves into Kandahar -- a main pit stop and trading center -- and eventually sweep along highways into other cities including Herat, Jalalabad, Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul.

After slaughtering their way to power, the previously obscure Taliban became an international target mostly because of its restrictions on women and destruction of two huge, ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan.

"A hundred cows are to be slaughtered at the completion of idol-breaking," announced the black-turbaned Taliban's shy yet megalomaniac leader Mullah Omar in March, 2001 while ordering the statues bombed with multi-barreled rocket launchers.

"It will be an act of thanksgiving as well as atonement for the delay in destroying the idols."

But Mullah Omar, born poor in 1959, failed to heed Afghanistan's earlier Buddhist religion which cautioned against desire.

The Taliban's desire for total control over all individuals' behavior and spiritual consciousness ultimately resulted in everyone either suffering punishments or living in fear if they indulged in unregimented, normal lifestyles.

If the Taliban did not beat Afghans with a thick, paddle-shaped leather belt for not growing their beards or other seemingly minor acts, then the population might not have detested them.

And if the Taliban did not allow suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his foreign al Qaeda network to live and plot on Afghan territory, the U.S. would never have retaliated with extensive bombardments.

The Taliban's loss of power, however, could unleash more warfare.

Tribal, guerrilla or religious leaders may be hoping a devastated Afghanistan allows fresh opportunities to carve out lucrative fiefdoms.

The vacuum created by the Taliban is littered with weapons, militias, graves and an entrenched belief in "Pashtunwali" -- a widely revered tribal code which even the Taliban spliced into Sharia laws.

Pashtunwali, favored by many of Afghanistan's 40 percent Pashtun population, includes extracting murderous revenge on all your enemies no matter how many generations it takes.

The Taliban leader predicted his holy war against America would continue whether he was dead or alive.

"America shouldn't be mistaken. My death or the death of Osama [bin Laden] will not bring America out of this crisis," black-bearded Mullah Omar warned in a speech 13 days after Sept. 11.

Mr. bin Laden first met Mullah Omar in 1996 and seduced him with wealth, weapons, fighters and flattery, pumping the stay-at-home cleric into believing Mr. bin Laden's worldwide Islamic war could be won.

"If America wants to root out terrorism and intimidation, then it should withdraw its forces from the Gulf and demonstrate neutrality over the issue of Palestine," Mullah Omar said, parroting Mr. bin Laden's slogans.

Washington wants "a pro-American government" in Kabul, he predicted.

Mullah Omar was blinded in his right eye while fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He was initially convinced to lead the Taliban to purge the country of corruption, nepotism and immorality.

Rarely seen while in power, Mullah Omar slinked away while Kandahar was surrendering.

Some of his relatives -- who include three wives and five children -- reportedly crossed into Pakistan.