US report alerts: Taliban's return to power may undo women's advancement in Afghanistan

According to the two-page National Intelligence Council document, the insurgents' views have not changed since their time in power between 1996 and the US military's 2001 intervention, Business Recorder reported.

In their past stint in power, the Taliban had  imposed their fundamentalist view of religion by prohibiting women from studying or working.

In recent times, the fear that the dreaded force might return to power has once again emerged as the process of withdrawal of  US and international forces is expected to be completed by September.

"The Taliban remains broadly consistent in its restrictive approach to women's rights and would roll back much of the past two decades' progress if the group regained national power," the report said as quoted by Business Recorder.

It notes the group has seen little change in its leadership, remains "inflexible" in negotiations and "enforces strict social constraints in areas that it already controls."

Some group leaders have made public commitments to respecting women's rights, but only as a condition of the Taliban's fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law, or Islamic law, according to the report as quoted by Business Recorder.

"If the Taliban were again Afghanistan's dominant power, we assess that any prospect for moderating the group's policies toward women would lie with ethnic minorities' ability to maintain local variation and technological development," the report said, referring to the greater exposure to the world Afghans have gotten due to cell phones.